Tatsuya Nakadai stars as Genta, a former samurai who became disillusioned with the samurai lifestyle and left it behind to become a wandering yakuza gang member. He meets Hanjirō Tabata (Etsushi Takahashi) a farmer who wants to become a samurai to escape his powerless existence. Genta and Tabata wind up on opposite sides of clan intrigue when seven members of a local clan assassinate their chancellor. Although the seven, led by Tetsutarō Oikawa (Naoko Kubo) rebelled with the support of their superior, Ayuzawa (Shigeru Kōyama), he turns on them and sends members of the clan to kill them as outlaws.

In November 1918, a few days before the Armistice, Edouard Péricourt saves Albert Maillard's life. The two men have nothing in common but the war. Lieutenant Pradelle, by ordering a senseless assault, destroys their lives while binding them as companions in misfortune. On the ruins of the carnage of WWI, condemned to live, the two attempt to survive. Thus, as Pradelle is about to make a fortune with the war victims' corpses, Albert and Edouard mount a monumental scam with the bereaved families' commemoration and with a nation's hero worship.

In post-Soviet Russia, civil war erupts as a result of the ongoing conflict in Chechnya. Military units loyal to Vladimir Radchenko, a Russian ultra-nationalist rebel, take control of a nuclear missile installation in the Russian Far East near the Chinese and North Korean borders and threaten nuclear war if confronted. USS Alabama, a U.S. Navy submarine, is dispatched on patrol with orders to launch a pre-emptive nuclear strike if Radchenko fuels his missiles. Combat-hardened veteran Captain Frank Ramsey chooses Lieutenant Commander Ron Hunter, who has an extensive education in military history and tactics but no combat experience, as his new XO. Tensions arise between the headstrong Ramsey and the more analytical and cautious Hunter, exacerbated by Ramsey's decision to order a missile drill amidst the chaos caused by a galley fire that results in the death of the chief mess officer. Hunter helps fight the fire and discreetly questions the decision but is chastised by Ramsey for the appearance of discord. Alabama receives an Emergency Action Message ordering a missile launch against the Russian base. As Alabama prepares to fire, a second radio message is detected before a rebel Russian Akula -class submarine attacks, damaging the boat’s radio and leaving the message incomplete. With the last confirmed order being to launch, Ramsey decides to proceed. Hunter disagrees, believing the partial second message may be a retraction. When Hunter refuses to consent as is required for a launch to be authorized, Ramsey tries to relieve him of duty. Hunter orders Ramsey arrested for attempting to circumvent two-man protocol. The Chief of the Boat sides with Hunter and has Ramsey relieved of command and confined to his stateroom, putting Hunter in charge. The Russian submarine attacks Alabama again. Alabama emerges victorious but is damaged when a torpedo detonates next to her hull. The main propulsion system is disabled, and the bilge bay begins flooding. As the crew tries to restore propulsion, Hunter orders the sealing of the bilge with sailors trapped inside, saving Alabama at the expense of the men. Propulsion is restored before Alabama reaches hull-crush depth. Officers and crew loyal to Ramsey unite and stage a mutiny. They retake the control room, confining Hunter, the Chief of the Boat, and some others to the officers' mess. Repairs to the radio continue, but Ramsey is determined to proceed without waiting for verification. Hunter escapes his arrest and prepares to retake the ship. He gains the support of weapons officer Peter Ince in the missile control room, further delaying the launch and leading Ramsey to go there. Hunter's party storms Alabama' s command center, removing the captain's missile key. Ramsey and his men return, resulting in an armed Mexican standoff. With news that the radio will soon be repaired, Ramsey and Hunter agree to wait until the deadline for a preemptive missile launch to be effective. Communications are eventually restored, revealing the full message from the second transmission – a retraction ordering that the missile launch be aborted because Radchenko's rebellion has been quelled. Ramsey turns the conn over to Hunter and returns to his cabin. The two men are put before a tribunal at Naval Station Pearl Harbor to answer for their actions. The tribunal concludes that both men were right and both men were wrong, and Hunter's actions were deemed lawfully justified and in the best interests of the United States. Unofficially, the tribunal reprimands both men for failing to resolve their differences. Thanks to Ramsey's personal recommendation, the tribunal agrees to grant Hunter command of his own sub while allowing Ramsey to save face via an early retirement with full honors. Outside, Hunter meets with Ramsey to express his gratitude, and the two men part ways amicably. A textual epilogue states that as of January 1996, only the President has the authority to launch nuclear missiles.

Clyde Shelton lives with his wife and daughter in Philadelphia when two burglars break into their home one night. Rupert Ames, who only intended to steal, ties up and gags Clyde, and pleads with Clarence Darby to leave, but Darby silences Ames and stabs Clyde in the stomach before gagging his wife, raping and killing her and their daughter in front of him. Prosecutor Nick Rice is assigned to the case along with District Attorney Jonas Cantrell. Upon learning that the DNA evidence is inconclusive in linking Darby to the crime, Nick is unwilling to risk lowering his high conviction rate and agrees to a plea bargain. Clyde begs Nick not to make a deal with Darby, but he does so anyway, boldly claiming that it is a victory. Darby testifies against Ames, who is convicted of felony murder and is sentenced to death, while Darby pleads guilty to third-degree murder and serves only three years in prison before being released on parole. During a press conference, Darby thanks Nick for helping him and shakes his hand as Clyde watches from afar. Ten years later, Ames expresses remorse for his role in the burglary, but maintains his innocence in the murders. Ames is executed via lethal injection, but the procedure goes awry and he unexpectedly dies screaming and writhing in pain. Nick and Cantrell, who witnessed the botched execution, learn that the drugs were replaced with an anticonvulsant. Meanwhile, Darby is warned by an anonymous caller that the police are coming and instructs him to flee his apartment and take an officer hostage. The officer is revealed to be Clyde in disguise, who intentionally lured Darby into a trap and had the real officer locked inside the trunk of the car. Darby attempts to shoot Clyde, but as he pulls the trigger, he is paralyzed with tetrodotoxin coated spikes hidden inside the handle. Clyde records himself torturing and killing Darby as he is strapped to a table. After Darby's dismembered remains are found inside an abandoned warehouse owned by Clyde, he is arrested as he locks eyes with Nick. During his interrogation, Nick confronts Clyde for mailing a DVD copy of Darby's murder to Nick's daughter Denise. Clyde represents himself at his bail hearing, where Judge Laura Burch, who previously presided over Darby's plea deal, initially grants Clyde bail. When Clyde accuses Judge Burch of being too easily swayed by legal doctrine and willing to release a potential criminal, she holds him in contempt of court and has his bail denied. After Clyde gives his confession, he demands a steak lunch from Del Frisco's and his iPod be delivered to his prison cell at 1:00 p.m. in exchange for the location of Darby's lawyer, Bill Reynolds, who was reported missing by his wife three days earlier. Nick agrees to the deal, but after missing Clyde's deadline, Reynolds is found buried alive with a precisely-timed oxygen device strapped to him. Simultaneously, Clyde stabs his cellmate to death while eating his lunch, forcing him to be moved to solitary confinement. Suspicious of Clyde's skills, Nick and Cantrell meet with Bray, a CIA contact who reveals that Clyde previously worked for the agency and specialized in unorthodox assassinations. Bray warns Nick and Cantrell that the only way to stop Clyde is to kill him. During a meeting, Nick and Cantrell persuade Judge Burch to temporarily suspend Clyde's civil rights. Judge Burch answers her cellphone, but she is killed by an explosive device hidden inside. When Nick confronts Clyde, he explains that the murders are not about revenge, but the failures of the criminal justice system. Clyde tells Nick that he will end the killings by 6:00 a.m. if he is released from prison and all charges against him are dropped. Nick takes precautionary measures instead, moving his entire legal team to an office at the prison to work throughout the night. After Clyde's deadline passes without incident, Nick allows his team to go home. While walking to his car, six attorneys from Cantrell's office, including Nick's assistant, Sarah Lowell, are killed in car bombings. Consequently, Mayor April Henry assigns two security guards to protect both Nick and Cantrell. While leaving Sarah's funeral, Cantrell and the security guards are killed by a weaponized bomb disposal robot armed with automatic target recognition and a missile. Nick prepares to resign when Mayor Henry considers firing him, but she instead promotes him to acting District Attorney and puts the city in lockdown. After Nick learns that Clyde owns a building near the prison, he and Detective Dunnigan discover a tunnel inside that leads to a cache of guns, disguises, and other equipment below the solitary confinement cells, with secret entrances to each cell. Nick realizes that Clyde intentionally sought solitary confinement, allowing him to leave the prison undetected. Clyde arrives disguised as a janitor at City Hall, where Mayor Henry is holding an emergency meeting, and passes through security. Nick and Dunnigan fail to find Clyde, but they discover a suitcase bomb loaded with napalm planted in the room below the meeting. When Clyde returns to his cell and finds Nick waiting for him, Clyde tries to make another deal, but Nick refuses, having finally learned his lesson. Nick unsuccessfully urges Clyde not to activate the bomb before leaving, but he hears the detonator beeping and discovers the bomb hidden underneath his bed. Clyde briefly smiles and sits down, holding and looking at his daughter's handmade bracelet as the bomb explodes. Nick, officially the District Attorney, joins his wife Kelly at Denise's cello recital, having previously failed to do so.

Krank (Daniel Emilfork), a highly intelligent but malicious being created by a vanished scientist, is unable to dream, which causes him to age prematurely. At his lair on an abandoned oil rig (which he shares with the scientist's other creations: six childish clones, a dwarf named Martha, and a brain in a vat named Irvin) he uses a dream-extracting machine to steal dreams from children. The children are kidnapped for him from a nearby port city by a cyborg cult called the Cyclops, whom in exchange he supplies with mechanical eyes and ears. Among the kidnapped is Denrée (Joseph Lucien), the adopted little brother of carnival strongman One (Ron Perlman). After the carnival manager is stabbed by a mugger, One is hired by a criminal gang of orphans (run by a pair of conjoined twins called "the Octopus") to help them steal a safe. The theft is successful, but the safe is lost in the harbor when One is distracted by seeing Denrée's kidnappers. He, together with one of the orphans, a little girl called Miette (Judith Vittet), follows the Cyclops and infiltrates their headquarters, but they are captured and sentenced to execution. Meanwhile, the Octopus orders circus performer Marcello (Jean-Claude Dreyfus) to return One to them. He uses his trained fleas, which inject a poison capsule that causes mindless aggression, to turn the Cyclops guards against each other. While Marcello is rescuing One, Miette falls into the harbor and sinks, seemingly drowned, but an amnesiac diver living beneath the harbor rescues her. Miette leaves the diver's lair to find One and Marcello both drowning their sorrows in a bar. Upon seeing Miette alive, the remorseful Marcello lets One leave with her. However, the Octopus confronts them on the pier, and uses Marcello's stolen fleas to turn One against Miette. A spectacular chain of events triggered by one of Miette's tears leads to a ship crashing into the pier before One can throttle her. Marcello arrives and sets the fleas on the Octopus, allowing One and Miette to escape to continue searching for Denrée. Back at Krank's oil rig, Irvin tricks one of the clones into releasing a plea for help in the form of a bottled dream telling the story of what is going on on the oil rig. It reaches One, Miette, and the diver, and the latter remembers that he was the scientist who made them, and that the oil rig was his laboratory before Krank and Martha attacked him and pushed him off it to take it for themselves, leaving him for dead in the water. They all converge on the rig; the diver to destroy it, and One and Miette to rescue Denrée. Miette is almost killed by Martha, who is harpooned to death by the diver, pretending her "allergy to iron". Miette then finds Denrée asleep in Krank's dream-extracting machine, and Irvin tells her that to release him she must use the machine to enter the dream herself. In the dream world, she meets Krank and makes a deal with him to replace the boy as the source of the dream; Krank fears a trap but plays along, believing himself to be in control. Miette then uses her imagination to control the dream and turn it into an infinite loop, destroying Krank's mind. One and Miette rescue all the children, while the now-deranged diver loads the rig with dynamite and straps himself to one of its legs. The diver regains his senses as everyone is rowing away and pleads with his remaining creations to come back to rescue him, but a seabird lands on the handle of the blasting machine, blowing up him and the rig.

Having just served five years in the Gowanda Correctional Facility, Billy Brown returns home to Buffalo, New York, and is preparing to meet with his parents, who do not know he has been in prison. He kidnaps Layla, a tap dancer, and forces her to pretend to be his wife to his parents. He gives her the name "Wendy Balsam". When they meet with Billy's parents, Layla notices that the relationship between them is very dysfunctional, seeing Billy's mother forgetting he has a chocolate allergy (following a brief flashback when Billy was hospitalized after a severe allergic reaction due to his mother giving him chocolate) and his father behaving inappropriately toward her. She learns that Billy's mother has never missed a Buffalo Bills game, except in 1966, on the day Billy was born. In a flashback, it is revealed that Billy once placed a reckless $10,000 bet on the Bills to win Super Bowl XXV; when they lost, the bookie forced Billy to clear his debt by confessing to a crime he did not commit, resulting in his time served in prison. Now, Billy seeks revenge on Scott Wood, the kicker who lost the game. As they leave his parents' house, Billy scolds Layla for telling an obvious lie to his father, and then decides to go bowling. There, Billy shows off his expertise at the sport, and Layla performs a tap dance routine to King Crimson 's " Moonchild ". The two use a photo booth to take photos "spanning time" which Billy intends to send to his parents once a year, but Billy becomes annoyed when Layla makes silly faces during the photos, in contrast to Billy's straight face. After bowling, Billy and Layla visit a Denny's restaurant, where Billy encounters the real Wendy Balsam, a woman he used to have a crush on in middle school, who is now happily in a relationship with another man. Billy leaves Layla alone in the diner after a brief argument, but regretting his outburst, returns and apologizes to her. Billy and Layla check into a motel, where Billy and Layla have a deep conversation, and eventually admit that they have fallen in love with each other, and they both go to sleep. A few hours after midnight, Billy is about to leave to exact his revenge on Wood, when Layla awakens. Despite Layla's doubts that he will return and proclamation of her love for him, he leaves, lying to her that he will return in a few minutes with hot chocolate for her. Shortly after leaving Layla at the motel, Billy calls his best friend Goon (who prefers to be called Rocky) and gives him the combination to his locker. Billy then hangs up and finds Scott Wood, now the owner of a topless bar. At the bar, he walks over to Wood's table and shoots him before shooting himself. His parents are then shown sitting by his grave with his mother more interested in a Buffalo game on the radio than in her own son's death. However, this is all shown to be in Billy's head, and he leaves the bar without shooting Wood. Billy realizes that in Layla he has found someone who truly loves him. After making amends with Goon on a payphone, Billy elatedly buys Layla her hot chocolate and a heart-shaped cookie, and buys another for a man sitting nearby who tells him he has a girlfriend, before returning to Layla at the motel.

Viktor Navorski, a traveler from Krakozhia, arrives at New York City's John F. Kennedy International Airport and learns that a coup d'état has occurred in his country while he was in the air. The United States does not recognize Krakozhia's new government, rendering Viktor's passport invalid and leaving him unable to either enter the United States or return to Krakozhia. U.S. Customs and Border Protection seizes his passport and return ticket, pending resolution of the issue, leaving him stranded at the airport with only his luggage and a Planters peanut can in his possession. Frank Dixon, the Acting Field Commissioner of the airport, instructs Viktor to stay in the transit lounge until the issue is resolved, but he becomes determined to make Viktor someone else's problem. He tries to tempt Viktor to leave illegally by ordering guards away from the exit for five minutes, but it fails. Dixon then tries to persuade Viktor to claim asylum, but Viktor refuses, as he is not afraid of returning to his own country. Viktor finds a gate under renovation and makes it his home. Being considered for a promotion, Dixon becomes increasingly obsessed with getting rid of Viktor. Meanwhile, Viktor begins reading guidebooks in order to learn English. Viktor has repeated encounters with Gupta Rajan, a grumpy elderly janitor, with whom he slowly forms a bond. He also befriends Joe Mulroy, a baggage handler who plays poker, betting lost luggage items. Enrique Cruz, a food service truck driver, provides Viktor with free meals in exchange for helping him woo Dolores Torres, an immigration officer whom Viktor has befriended. Viktor shows skill at construction work when he remodels a wall in a terminal undergoing renovation. The airport contractors assume he is an employee and pay him under the table. He also begins a relationship with Amelia, a flight attendant who is also entangled with a married government official. During a visit from his superiors, Dixon enlists Viktor's help in communicating with a Russian man who is desperately attempting to bring medicine home to his dying father. Dixon is determined to refuse the man because of a paperwork issue, which Viktor helps the young man circumvent. This humiliates Dixon, who threatens Viktor by telling him that he will never let him enter the United States. This incident is witnessed by Dixon's superiors, who give him a look of disappointment before leaving. (Viktor becomes a legend amongst the terminal employees for helping the man and standing up to Dixon.) Dixon detains Amelia and interrogates her about Viktor. Amelia, who realizes Viktor has not been entirely truthful, angrily confronts him at his makeshift home, where he shows her that the Planters peanut can contains a copy of the " A Great Day in Harlem " photograph. His late father was a jazz enthusiast who had discovered the picture in a Hungarian newspaper in 1958 and vowed to collect the autographs of all 57 musicians depicted in it, all of which are in the can with the photograph. He died needing only the autograph of tenor saxophonist Benny Golson, and Viktor has come to New York to obtain it. After hearing the story, Amelia kisses Viktor. Nine months after having arrived, Viktor learns that the war in Krakozhia has ended. Amelia reveals that her married boyfriend has secured Viktor a one-day emergency visa so he can fulfill his dream, but that she has also rekindled the relationship. When he presents the emergency visa at customs, Viktor is informed that Dixon must sign it. However, as Viktor's passport is now valid again, Dixon is determined to deport him back to Krakozhia. He warns Viktor that if he does not go home at once, he will prosecute his friends at the airport for their illegal activities, most seriously by deporting Gupta back to India to face a charge of assaulting a corrupt police officer. Viktor finally agrees to return home, but Gupta delays the plane by running in front of it, thus being taken into custody, after initially shouting at Viktor for being a 'coward' because of Viktor's departure from the airport to Krakozhia. Emboldened by his friend's actions, Viktor decides to leave the airport. Several airport employees rush to say goodbye, but Dixon orders his officers to intercept Viktor at the exit. In defiance of Dixon, however, they let Viktor leave. Dixon reaches the taxi stand only moments after Viktor has left, but he decides to forget it and returns to handle the incoming travelers rather than engage in pursuit. Viktor arrives at the hotel where Golson is performing and finally collects the last autograph, then takes a taxi back to the airport to go home.

In the 1890s, Ephraim Winslow begins a four-week stint as a "wickie" (lighthouse keeper) on an isolated island off the coast of New England, under the supervision of former sailor Thomas Wake. In his quarters, Winslow discovers a small scrimshaw of a mermaid and keeps it in his jacket. Wake immediately proves to be very demanding, subjecting Winslow to taxing jobs such as emptying chamber pots, maintaining the machinery, carrying heavy kerosene tanks up the stairs, and painting the lighthouse, while barring Winslow from the lantern room. Winslow observes that, every night after ascending the lighthouse, Wake disrobes before the light. During his stay on the island, Winslow begins to hallucinate sea monsters and logs floating in the sea, and masturbates to the mermaid on the scrimshaw. Winslow is bothered by a one-eyed gull, but Wake warns him against killing it under the superstitious belief that gulls are reincarnated sailors. One evening while dining, Wake reveals to Winslow that his previous wickie died after losing his sanity, while Winslow reveals that he is a former timberman from Maine who was stationed in Canada and is now seeking a new trade. The day before the scheduled departure, Winslow discovers a dead gull inside the cistern, bloodying the drinking water. He is attacked by the one-eyed gull and brutally bludgeons it to death. The wind drastically changes direction and a fierce storm hits the island. Winslow and Wake spend the night getting drunk, and the storm prevents the lighthouse tender from collecting them the next day. As Winslow empties the chamber pots, he discovers the beached body of a mermaid, which waves and howls at him. He flees back to the cottage, where Wake informs him the storm has spoiled their rations. Winslow is not worried because he thinks the tender is only a day late, but Wake says that they have already been stranded for weeks. The pair unearths a crate at the lighthouse's base that Winslow assumes contains reserve rations, but it is full of bottles of alcohol. As the storm continues to rage, Winslow and Wake get drunk every night and alternate between moments of intimacy and hostility. One night, Winslow tries unsuccessfully to steal the lantern room keys from Wake and contemplates murdering him. Winslow later sees the one-eyed head of Wake's previous wickie in a lobster trap. While drunk, Winslow confesses to Wake that his real name is Thomas Howard, and he assumed the identity of Ephraim Winslow, his cruel foreman in Canada whom he deliberately allowed to drown during a log drive. Howard has a menacing vision of Wake accusing Howard of "spilling beans" and runs to the dory to try to leave the island, but Wake appears and destroys the boat with an axe. After chasing Howard back to their lodgings, Wake claims it was Howard who chased him and hacked up the dory, as Howard was driven mad by his confession. With no alcohol left, Howard and Wake begin drinking a concoction of turpentine and honey, and that night a giant wave crashes through the wall of their cottage. In the morning, Howard finds Wake's logbook, in which Wake has criticized him as a drunken and incompetent employee and recommended he be fired without pay. The two men argue, and Howard attacks Wake while hallucinating the mermaid, the real Winslow, and Wake as a Proteus -like figure. Howard beats Wake into submission and takes him to the hole at the base of the lighthouse to bury him alive. Before losing consciousness, Wake describes a " Promethean " punishment that awaits those who look in the lantern, and Howard takes the keys to the lantern room. Howard goes to get a cigarette, and Wake returns and strikes him with the axe. Howard disarms and kills Wake before ascending the lighthouse. In the lantern room, the Fresnel lens opens to Howard, who reaches in and violently screams in distortion before falling down the lighthouse steps. Some time later, a barely-alive Howard lies nude on the rocks with a damaged eye as a flock of gulls peck at his exposed organs; the lighthouse is nowhere in sight.

Ryan Bingham works for a human resources consultancy firm specializing in employment-termination assistance. His work constantly takes him around the country, conducting company layoffs on behalf of employers. Ryan also gives motivational speeches, using the analogy "What's in Your Backpack?" to extol living free of burdensome relationships and material possessions. A frequent flyer, Ryan aspires to earn ten million frequent flyer miles with American Airlines. While traveling, he meets a woman named Alex Goran, a businesswoman who also flies frequently. They begin a casual relationship, meeting up in various cities as their respective schedules allow. Ryan is recalled to his company's offices in Omaha. Natalie Keener, a young and ambitious new hire, promotes cutting costs by conducting layoffs via video-conferencing. Ryan raises concerns that the new system is impersonal and undignified, arguing that Natalie lacks understanding about the firing process and how to handle emotionally vulnerable people. His boss, Craig Gregory, has Natalie accompany a reluctant Ryan on his next round of terminations to observe the process. Ryan tutors Natalie on traveling more efficiently by using smaller luggage and moving quickly through airport security. As they travel together, Natalie challenges Ryan's philosophies on life, particularly regarding relationships and love. During the trip, Natalie's boyfriend unceremoniously dumps her by text message, but Ryan and Alex comfort her. On a video termination test run, Ryan's earlier concerns prove valid when Natalie is unable to properly console a laid-off person who breaks down on camera. Natalie castigates Ryan for his inability to commit to Alex despite their obvious compatibility, but he dismisses her criticisms and chastises her for lacking empathy and never appreciating her surroundings. Before returning home, Ryan heads to Wisconsin for his sister Julie's wedding, taking Alex as a plus one. He has a strained reunion with his semi-estranged family, who resent his constant absence. When the groom Jim gets cold feet prior to the ceremony, Ryan's older sister Kara asks him to intervene. Although counter to his personal philosophy, Ryan uses his motivational skills to persuade Jim to proceed with the wedding. Ryan begins questioning his lifestyle and philosophies after the wedding. In Las Vegas for a prestigious speaking engagement, he abruptly walks offstage mid-presentation and impulsively flies to Chicago to see Alex. Arriving at her front door, he is stunned to discover that she is married with children. She later calls him in a fury, bluntly telling him he was just an escape from her real life. On Ryan's flight home, the crew announces that he has just crossed the ten-million-mile mark. The airline's chief pilot is aboard to personally congratulate Ryan and notes he is the youngest person to achieve the milestone. Back in Omaha, Ryan transfers the frequent flyer miles to Julie and Jim so they can have a honeymoon. Craig informs Ryan that an employee he and Natalie had laid-off has committed suicide; upset over the news, Natalie quits via text message upon learning this. The remote-layoff program is stopped and Ryan is sent back on the road. Natalie applies to the same San Francisco company where she had previously declined a position, due to having followed her now ex-boyfriend to Omaha. Impressed by her qualifications and Ryan's glowing written recommendation, the interviewer hires her. The film concludes with Ryan at the airport, standing in front of a vast destination board, contemplating where he should travel next (something Natalie encouraged him to do earlier). Looking up, he lets go of his luggage.

In 1931, two sisters – 14-year-old Molly and 8-year-old Daisy – and their 10-year-old cousin Gracie are living in the Western Australian town of Jigalong. The town lies along the northern part of one of the fences making up Australia 's rabbit-proof fence (called Number one Fence), which runs for over one thousand miles. More than a thousand miles away in Perth, the official Protector of Western Australian Aborigines, A. O. Neville (called Mr. Devil by them), signs an order to relocate the three girls to the Moore River Native Settlement. The children are referred to by Neville as " half-castes ", because they each have Aboriginal mothers and white fathers. Neville had concluded that the Aboriginal people of Australia were a danger to themselves, and the "half-castes" must be bred out of existence. He plans to place the girls in a camp where they, along with all half-castes of that age range, both boys and girls, will grow up. They would be trained to work as labourers and servants to white families, which were regarded as "good" situations for them in life. It was assumed that they would marry whites, and so on through the generations, so that eventually the Aboriginal "blood" would diminish in society. The three girls are forcibly taken from their families at Jigalong by a local constable, Riggs. They were sent to the camp at the Moore River Native Settlement, in the south west, about 90 km (55 miles) north of Perth. While at the camp, the girls are housed in a large dormitory with dozens of other children, where they are strictly regimented by nuns. They are prohibited from speaking their native language, forced to pray as Christians, and subject to corporal punishment for any infractions of the camp's rules. Attempts at escape are also harshly punished, as seen in the film, where an escapee is beaten and has their hair cut off. During an impending thunderstorm that will help cover their tracks, Molly convinces the girls to escape and return to their home. During their flight, the girls are relentlessly pursued by Moodoo, an Aboriginal tracker from the camp. They eventually find their way back to the rabbit-proof fence, which they believe will lead them back to their home. They follow the fence for months, encountering a family who gives them clothes and food, as well as a camper who shows them a shortcut, which allows them to narrowly avoid Moodoo and Neville's agents. They also encounter a maid, who lets them stay at her room for a night, but they are discovered by her master, who is implied to be abusing her. After another narrow escape, Neville spreads word that Gracie's mother is waiting for her in the town of Wiluna. The information finds its way to an Aboriginal traveller who "helps" the girls. He tells Gracie about her mother and says they can get to Wiluna by train, causing her to leave the other two girls in an attempt to catch a train to Wiluna. Molly and Daisy soon walk after her and find her at a train station. They are not reunited, however, as Riggs appears and Gracie is recaptured. The betrayal is revealed by Riggs, who tells the man he will receive a shilling for his help. Knowing they are powerless to aid her, Molly and Daisy continue their journey. They lose the fence for a while travelling through a harsh desert, but Molly is eventually guided back by an eagle. In the end, after a nine-week journey through the harsh Australian outback, having walked the 1,670 km (1,040 mi) route along the fence, the two sisters return home and go into hiding in the desert with their mother and grandmother. Meanwhile, Neville realizes he can no longer afford the search for Molly and Daisy, and decides to end it.