After his wife leaves him, taxidermist Esteban Espinosa accepts an invitation to go hunting with his friend Sontag in a remote Patagonian forest. They stay at a cabin owned by Dietrich and run by his much younger wife Diana and her brother Julio. She lends Espinosa a rifle. While hunting, Sontag attempts to shoot a deer, but it is startled and escapes when Espinosa steps on a branch. Sontag realises Espinosa did it on purpose and returns to the cabin. Alone in the woods, Espinosa has an epileptic seizure. He awakens and attempts to shoot the deer himself, but accidentally kills Dietrich instead. Espinosa takes Dietrich's cellphone and returns to the cabin. Dietrich's dog smells him and recognises its owner's scent. At night, two men—Sosa and Montero—appear looking for Dietrich but leave after not finding him. Through Dietrich's cellphone, Espinosa learns from a man named Vega of a heist to a factory. He heads to the factory and witnesses the failed heist. He follows Vega, who has been mortally wounded, and takes the key hanging around his neck after he dies. Espinosa opens Dietrich's hideout in the woods, where he finds plans of a heist that consists of stealing an armoured truck carrying the earnings of a nearby casino. Sosa and Montero return and discover Espinosa has Dietrich's cellphone, so he pretends to be an accomplice of Dietrich's who learned about the heist plans before Dietrich escaped. At Dietrich's hideout, Espinosa finds documents that detail the truck's route and the larger sum of money that it will carry after a long weekend. Espinosa employs his eidetic memory to invent a plan for the heist. They decide to strike at the Eden, a bar–brothel where the guards always make a stop. Espinosa drives Diana to town and asks her about her relationship with Dietrich. She tells him Dietrich she tried leaving him before but he found her. Espinosa meets the criminals finish planning the heist. Before leaving for the robbery, Espinosa assures Diana that Dietrich will never return. Urien, an accomplice inside the casino, tells Espinosa that Vega was supposed to take the place of an extra guard inside the back of the truck—which can only be opened from the inside—due to the larger sum of money. Espinosa tries to warn Sosa, Montero, and Julio—who are robbing the truck—but has a seizure. He awakens and gets to the Eden but fails to warn the team in time. A shooting takes place and Montero is wounded. Sosa kills two guards, while the third guard is locked inside the truck. Espinosa and the criminals drive with the truck to Dietrich's hideout, where there are tools to open the truck's lock. At Montero's command, Sosa kills Julio and tries to kill Espinosa, but runs out of bullets and takes him to the workshop to get more. Espinosa grabs a hidden gun and wounds Sosa, who runs away. Espinosa runs after Sosa through the forest and manages to kill him. Espinosa sees both Montero and the remaining guard locked in the truck have bled to death. He returns for Diana but finds she has left. Espinosa takes the dog with him and returns to his life as a taxidermist.

Margaret "Marnie" Edgar, posing under the identity Marion Holland, flees with nearly $10,000 that she stole from the company safe of her employer, Sidney Strutt. Strutt is the head of a tax consulting company, where Marnie had worked after charming him into hiring her without references. Mark Rutland, a wealthy widower who owns a publishing company in Philadelphia, meets with Strutt on business; he learns about the theft and recalls Marnie from a previous visit. Marnie travels to Virginia, where she stables a horse named Forio. She then visits her invalid mother, Bernice, whom she supports financially, in Baltimore. Marnie suffers from recurring nightmares and has an intense aversion to the color red, which triggers her hysteria. Some months later, Marnie, posing as Mary Taylor, applies for a job at Mark's company. Although recognizing her, Mark hires her, cryptically telling his co-worker who questions hiring an applicant without references that he is an "interested spectator." While working weekend overtime with Mark, Marnie has a panic attack during a thunderstorm. Mark comforts, then kisses her. As they begin dating Mark discusses his background in zoology, particularly showing a fascination with predatory behavior. During a date at a racetrack, Mark fends off a persistent man who approaches Marnie, addressing her by another name, who Marnie insists she does not know. Soon afterwards, Marnie steals money from Mark's company and flees again. Based on Marnie's comments on horses, Mark tracks her to the stable where she keeps Forio. Under threat of disclosure, Mark blackmails Marnie into marrying him, much to the chagrin of Lil, Mark's late wife's sister, who is in love with him. On their honeymoon cruise, Marnie resists Mark's desire for physical intimacy, revealing that she finds sex repellent. Initially respecting her wishes, Mark tries to woo her, but after a few nights, they quarrel over Marnie's aloofness; Mark persists in physical advances while she freezes without consent. The next morning, Marnie attempts to drown herself in the ship's swimming pool, but Mark saves her. After overhearing Marnie on a phone call, Lil tips off Mark that Marnie's mother is not dead, as Marnie claimed. Mark hires a private detective to investigate. Meanwhile, Lil overhears Mark telling Marnie he has "paid off Strutt" on her behalf. Lil mischievously invites Strutt and his wife to a party at the Rutland mansion. Strutt recognizes Marnie, but Mark pressures him into doing nothing. When Marnie later admits to additional robberies, Mark works to reimburse her victims to drop charges. Mark brings Forio to their estate, pleasing Marnie. During a fox hunt, the red riding coat worn by one of the hunters triggers another of Marnie's fits and Forio bolts, misses a jump, injures its legs, and is left lying on the ground screaming in pain. Marnie frantically runs to a nearby house, obtains a gun, and euthanizes her horse. Overcome with grief, Marnie goes home, where she takes the key to Mark's office. She goes to the office and opens the safe, but finds herself unable to take the money. Mark arrives and "urges" her to take the money, testing her new reluctance to theft, but Marnie resists. Mark takes Marnie to Baltimore to confront her mother and uncover the truth about Marnie's past. They arrive in a thunderstorm. As it is revealed that Bernice was a prostitute, Marnie's long-suppressed memories resurface. When Marnie was a small child, Bernice's sailor client tried to calm a frightened Marnie during a thunderstorm. Seeing him touch Marnie and believing he was trying to molest her, Bernice attacked him. As the sailor fended her off, Bernice fell and injured her leg, leaving her disabled. Frightened and attempting to protect her mother, Marnie fatally struck the man in the head with a fireplace poker. The sight of streaming blood caused her aversion to the color red, the thunderstorm that night caused her fear of them, and the connection of the deadly event to sex caused her revulsion at physical intimacy. To protect Marnie, Bernice told police that Bernice killed the man and prayed Marnie would forget the event. Understanding the reason behind her behavior, Marnie asks for Mark's help. They leave holding each other closely.

Clifford Peache lives in an upscale Chicago luxury hotel with his father, the hotel manager, and his grandmother. He is a new student at Fleer H.S., where he arrives each day in a hotel limousine. Clifford quickly becomes a target of abuse from a gang of bullies, led by Melvin Moody. They regularly extort money from students, allegedly to protect them from another student, Ricky Linderman. According to school legend, Linderman has killed several people, including his own little brother. Not believing the stories, Clifford consults a teacher who claims that the only violence she's aware of from Ricky's past occurred when his nine-year-old brother died accidentally while playing alone with a gun. Ricky was the first to find the body. Despite the rumors, Clifford approaches Ricky and asks him to be his bodyguard. He refuses, but the boys become friends after Ricky saves him from a beating by Moody and his gang. He has emotional issues over the death of his brother, and although he's slow to trust Clifford, Ricky shows him a cherished motorcycle that he has been rebuilding. Their friendship is strengthened when Clifford successfully helps Ricky search junkyards for a hard-to-find cylinder for the motorcycle's engine. Through Clifford's friendship, Ricky comes out of his shell, proving to a few classmates that he's not the killer the school rumors allege. As Clifford, Ricky, and a few other friends from school eat lunch in Lincoln Park, Moody and his gang approach. Moody has enlisted older bodybuilder Mike to be his bodyguard. He intimidates and physically abuses Ricky, who refuses to fight. Mike vandalizes his motorcycle before Moody pushes it into the lagoon. Ricky runs away, ashamed and angry. Ricky later appears at Clifford's hotel, asking for money before leaving again. Clifford follows him and they argue before Ricky finally reveals that it was he who accidentally shot his brother while playing with their father's gun, and lied about finding his brother after the fact. As a result, he is overwhelmed with guilt and remorse, leaving Clifford behind as he takes a subway train into the night. Later, Moody is back at the park to continue bullying Clifford and his friends. Ricky is also there retrieving his motorcycle from the lagoon. Moody notices, demanding the motorcycle, which Ricky silently refuses. Moody summons Mike, who starts to push and intimidate Ricky again. The two then engage in a long fistfight, which Ricky ultimately wins, knocking Mike out. Moody and Clifford then split off into their own fistfight, after Moody tried to unfairly intervene in the fight between Ricky and Mike. Ricky urges Clifford to fight him while coaching him. Clifford initially fights incompetently, taunted by the overconfident Moody, but finally lands several solid punches, the last of which knocks Moody down, breaking his nose. Moody sits on the ground, humiliated, shocked, bleeding and complaining, revealing himself to be a coward. Ricky retrieves his motorcycle, and jokingly asks Clifford to be his bodyguard as they leave with their friends.

As Claude Ridder is leaving a Belgian hospital after attempting suicide by shooting himself in the heart, he is approached by two men, who ask him to participate in a mysterious experiment in time travel being conducted by a private research body. They take him to Crespel Research Center, a secret location in the countryside, where the researchers explain to Claude that they are confident they have succeeded in sending mice back in time, and are now ready to send a human back, since a human can confirm they really did revisit the past. Claude, who does not seem particularly concerned about whether or not he will survive the experiment, agrees, but instead of reliving one minute from one year earlier and returning to the present, as the mice had supposedly done, he re-experiences many episodes from his past in a highly disjointed and fragmented manner, each scene lasting just seconds or minutes. While some of the moments Claude revisits are mundane, many others catalog the highs and lows of his seven-year relationship with the beautiful, morbid, melancholic Catrine, which ended recently. Gradually, it is revealed that Claude seems to have been responsible for Catrine's death on a trip to Glasgow when the flame of a gas heater in their room went out while she was asleep, as he noticed this on his way to a meeting, but chose not to wake her, as she was smiling in her sleep, and, for once, looked happy and peaceful. However, after admitting this to his friend Wiana, Claude immediately says he was lying, and the flame went out after he left. Regardless, after Catrine's death, Claude comes to the painful realization that, not only could he not live with her, he cannot live without her, and attempts suicide. After an hour, the researchers conclude they have lost Claude for good. When they leave the lab, however, they find his body on the grass at Crespel—shot through the heart. Seemingly, reliving his suicide attempt broke the chaotic loop in which he was stuck and freed him from the time machine. The researchers carry his mortally wounded body inside, and Claude struggles to speak, a single teardrop falling down his cheek. (Whether or not Claude's "second" suicide attempt resulted in his death is left ambiguous.)

The film opens with a little girl jumping rope and counting stars to "a hundred".The film's plot centres on three married women — a grandmother, her daughter, and her niece — each named Cissie Colpitts. As the story progresses, each woman successively drowns her husband. The three Cissie Colpittses are played by Joan Plowright, Juliet Stevenson and Joely Richardson, while Bernard Hill plays the coroner, Madgett, who is cajoled into covering up the three crimes. The structure, with similar stories repeated three times, is reminiscent of a fairy tale, most specifically 'The Billy Goats Gruff ', because Madgett is constantly promised greater rewards as he tries his luck with each of the Cissies in turn. The link to folklore is further established by Madgett's son Smut, who recites the rules of various unusual games played by the characters as if they were ancient traditions. Many of these games are invented for the film, including: In Drowning by Numbers, number-counting, the rules of games and the repetitions of the plot are all devices which emphasise structure. Through the course of the film each number from 1 to 100 appears, the large majority in sequence, often seen in the background, sometimes printed on cattle, sometimes spoken by the characters. The repetitive, obsessive motif of the film echoes that of the soundtrack by Michael Nyman. The film is set and was shot in and around Southwold, Suffolk, England, with key landmarks such as the Victorian water tower, Southwold Lighthouse, and the estuary of the River Blyth clearly identifiable.

On December 23, 1991, Cameron Todd Willingham awakes to find his house ablaze. Despite his best efforts, Willingham is unable to save the lives of his three daughters. At his trial, the prosecutor, John Jackson, reveals the fire had been caused deliberately, with gasoline spread in the shape of a pentagram and the refrigerator moved to block the kitchen door. Several witnesses portray Willingham as a violent individual. His former cellmate from when he was detained in jail, Johnny Webb, testifies that Willingham had told him the fire had been set deliberately. Despite Willingham and his wife Stacy protesting his innocence, he is sentenced to death. During his time on death row, Willingham is violently beaten and threatened by both inmates and guards before being placed in solitary confinement for his safety. There he breaks down, still protesting his innocence and having flashbacks to his life with Stacy. Willingham and Stacy are shown to have had a complicated relationship: she cheated on him, and he reacted violently toward her. But the two care for each other. Stacy stops replying to his letters at the insistence of her grandmother, who believes he is guilty. Willingham reaches out to a new lawyer, Reaves, in the hope of proving his innocence. He adapts to his life in prison by submitting to the violent guard Daniels and befriending fellow death row inmate, Ponchai James. During this time, Willingham improves his vocabulary and writing with James' help. The latter man is eventually executed. Willingham’s letter to Reaves ultimately reaches playwright Elizabeth Gilbert, who is sympathetic to his case. Her ailing ex-husband and their two children insist he is guilty. When Gilbert visits the prison, she is taken aback by his calm demeanor. The pair connect over their mutual struggles as parents and their love for their respective children. Willingham continues to immerse himself in art and poetry and befriends the guard Daniels. The guard starts to question Willingham's guilt after seeing him hallucinate about his daughters and reading his letters to Gilbert. Gilbert questions the witness statements and Reaves, who made no progress on the case in six years. She visits Webb, the former cellmate. When she questions him about prosecutor John Jackson paying him to lie about Willingham’s confession, he becomes agitated and threatens her. Willingham’s execution date is set, but she learns that more of the witnesses lied at the trial. Gilbert and Reaves meet with Dr. Hurst, who reveals the refrigerator had not been moved and that the fire could not have been arson, as the jury had been told and concluded. Despite this, Reaves is unable to argue an appeal, and Hurst’s report is disregarded. Webb recants his testimony, but Jackson covers this up. Stacy is pressured into lying that Willingham had confessed to her. Gilbert suffers a car crash as Willingham is taken to be executed. She is absent when he gives a poignant speech that shows the improvements he has made while on death row. He asks for his ashes to be spread over his daughters' graves. Daniels is selected to administer the lethal injection. Along with Stacy and Reaves, he tearfully watches Willingham die. Later, Gilbert, who was paralyzed from the crash, spreads Willingham’s ashes, attended by her own children present. In an epilogue and news footage, Texas Governor Rick Perry denies any guilt over ordering execution of inmates sentenced to death.

Catholic priest Sang-hyun volunteers at a hospital, providing ministry to the patients. He eventually volunteers to participate in an experiment to find a vaccine for the deadly Emmanuel Virus (EV). The experiment fails, and Sang-hyun is infected with EV, but makes a complete and rapid recovery after receiving a blood transfusion. News of his recovery spreads among the parishioners of Sang-hyun's congregation, and they begin to believe that he has a gift for healing. Soon, thousands flock to Sang-hyun's services. Among the new churchgoers are Kang-woo, Sang-hyun's childhood friend, and his family. Kang-woo eventually invites Sang-hyun to join the weekly mahjong night at his house. There, Sang-hyun finds himself attracted to Kang-woo's wife, Tae-ju. Sang-hyun later relapses into his illness and wakes in need of shelter from the sunlight, having become a vampire. Sang-hyun soon finds himself drinking blood from a comatose patient. Aghast, Sang-hyun attempts to commit suicide, but finds himself irresistibly drawn to human blood. EV's symptoms return and only seem to go away when he drinks blood. Trying to avoid committing a murder, Sang-hyun resorts to stealing blood transfusion packs from the hospital. Tae-ju, who lives with her ill husband and overprotective mother-in-law Mrs. Ra, eventually begins an affair with Sang-hyun. However, when she discovers the truth about Sang-hyun, she retreats in fear. When Sang-hyun pleads with her to run away with him, she turns him down, suggesting that they kill Kang-woo instead. When Sang-hyun's superior at the monastery requests vampire blood so that his eyes may heal and he may see the world before dying, a disgusted Sang-hyun flees from the monastery. He moves into Mrs. Ra's house so that he may secretly have sex with Tae-ju. Sang-hyun notices bruises on Tae-ju and assumes that Kang-woo is the cause, a suspicion that she confirms. Sang-hyun decides to kill Kang-woo during a fishing trip with the couple. He pulls Kang-woo into the water and claims to his superior that he placed the body inside a cabinet in a house at the bottom of the lake, putting a rock on the body to keep it from floating to the surface. When Sang-hyun's symptoms return, he kills his superior and drinks his blood. A police investigation ensues. Mrs. Ra drinks often after Kang-woo's death, sinking into a completely paralyzed state. Sang-hyun and Tae-ju are haunted by visions of Kang-woo's corpse. When Tae-ju lets slip that Kang-woo never abused her, Sang-hyun is enraged because he only killed Kang-woo to protect her. Distraught, she asks Sang-hyun to kill her and let her return to Kang-woo. Sang-hyun kills her, but after feeding on her blood, decides that he does not want to be alone forever and feeds her corpse his own blood. She awakens as a vampire. Mrs. Ra, knocked to the floor by a seizure, witnesses everything. Tae-ju soon starts killing indiscriminately to feed, while Sang-hyun acts more conservatively, only killing when necessary. Their conflicting ethics result in a chase across the rooftops and a battle. Mrs. Ra eventually manages to communicate to Kang-woo's friends that Sang-hyun and Tae-ju killed her son. Tae-ju kills two of the friends, and Sang-hyun appears to eliminate a third one. Realizing the gravity of the situation, Sang-hyun tells Tae-ju that they must flee or be caught. Sang-hyun then places Mrs. Ra in his car and drives into the night with Tae-ju. Before leaving town, he makes a visit to the camp of people who worship him. He makes it seem like he tried to rape a girl, leading the campers to chase him away, no longer idolizing him. At the house, the third friend escapes; whom Sang-hyun only pretended to kill to protect her from Tae-ju. Meanwhile, Sang-hyun drives to a desolate field with no cover from the imminent dawn. Realizing his plan to have them both burn when dawn breaks, Tae-ju tries to hide but Sang-hyun foils her every attempt. Resigning herself to her fate, she joins him on the car hood, and both are burnt to ash by the sun, as Mrs. Ra watches from the backseat of the car.

Christian is the curator of the X-Royal art museum in Stockholm, formerly the Royal Palace. He is interviewed by journalist Anne, struggling to explain museum parlance. Later, Christian is pulled into a confrontation at a pedestrian zone, after which he notices that his smartphone and wallet are missing, along with his cufflinks, presumably stolen in a confidence trick. Christian is able to track the position of his phone on his computer, which he and his assistant Michael trace to a large apartment block. They write a threatening anonymous letter demanding the return of the phone and wallet by depositing them at a nearby 7-Eleven. Christian puts a copy of the letter through each apartment mailbox that night. Several days later, a package for him is deposited at the store, containing the phone and the completely untouched wallet. Euphoric after the success of his plan, Christian goes to a party where he meets Anne again, before ending up in her apartment. After the two have sex, Anne offers to throw away a used condom but he steadfastly refuses to hand it over to her. They argue over the situation, as she believes he does not trust her to dispose of the semen rather than take it. Several days later, Anne meets Christian in the museum and states she is looking for more than casual sex. She asks him if he feels the same, but Christian is evasive. When Anne later tries to call him, he does not pick up the phone. The day after picking up the package, Christian is informed that a second one has arrived for him at the 7-Eleven. Suspicious, he sends Michael to pick it up. In the store, Michael is confronted by a young Arab boy who states that his parents believe that he is a thief because of the letter and demands that Christian apologizes to him and his family. Otherwise, the boy threatens to create "chaos" for him. Later, the boy visits Christian's home and confronts him, along with his two young daughters, on the staircase. Christian tries to send him away but the boy begins to knock on doors and screaming for help. In a fit of frustration, Christian pushes the boy down the stairs, though no one comes to his aid. Disturbed, Christian desperately searches the trash outside the house for a note which contains the boy's phone number. After finding it and unsuccessfully trying to call him, Christian records an apologetic video message. In the midst of these troubles, Christian has to manage the promotion of a new exhibition centered on an art piece called The Square by Lola Arias, which is described in the artist's statement: "The Square is a sanctuary of trust and caring. Within it we all share equal rights and obligations." The advertising agency commissioned by the museum to promote The Square states that they need to harness social media attention with something other than the uncontroversial and bland artist's statement. Advertising agency representatives consider a depiction of violence contradicting The Square ' s message, developing a promotional clip showing an impoverished girl entering The Square and being killed in an explosion. The video is published on the museum's website and YouTube channel after a distracted Christian gives his approval without viewing it. The clip goes viral, quickly reaching 300,000 YouTube views, but receives an extremely hostile response from the media, religious leaders and the general public. The museum arranges a press conference, where Christian states he violated protocol and is stepping down as curator in mutual agreement with the board. Several journalists then attack him for stirring up cheap controversy with a tasteless clip, while others attack him for self-censorship because of his resignation. Feeling guilty about wronging the boy, Christian drives to the apartment block several days later and tries to find him and his family. Christian talks to a neighbour who states that he knew the boy but that his family has moved away.

Corporate engineer Joe Ross has invented a potentially lucrative "process", the precise nature of which is never revealed. While on a retreat on the island of St. Estèphe, he meets wealthy stranger Julian "Jimmy" Dell and attracts the interest of one of the company's new secretaries, Susan Ricci. Jimmy wants to introduce Joe to his sister, an Olympic-class tennis player, in New York and asks him to deliver a package to her. Susan sits near Joe on the airplane back to New York, converses with him about how "you never know who anybody is," and talks about unwitting drug mules. Suddenly afraid the package might contain something illegal, he opens it on the plane but finds only a 1939 edition of the book Budge on Tennis, which he damages while opening. Once home, he buys an intact copy of the book and drops it at Jimmy's sister’s building, keeping the original at his office. Jimmy suggests that Joe's boss, Mr. Klein, might not give him fair retribution for his work. Jimmy invites Joe to dinner, and seemingly on a lark opens a Swiss bank account for him with a token balance of 15 Swiss francs. Taking him to dinner at a club requiring membership, Jimmy has Joe sign a certificate to join. Over dinner, he advises Joe to consult legal counsel about his position in the company regarding the Process. He invites Joe to meet with his own lawyer and tells him to bring along the only copy of the Process. Joe soon learns that Jimmy's sister does not exist, and realizes Jimmy is a con artist attempting to steal the Process. Joe contacts Pat McCune, a woman he met on the island who Susan told him was an FBI agent, and whose business card Susan had kept. McCune’s FBI squad enlists him in a sting operation to catch Jimmy. While fitting Joe with a wire for his planned meeting with Jimmy, an FBI agent explains the Spanish Prisoner con, a version of which Jimmy has been running on Joe. When Jimmy never shows up for the meeting, Joe realizes McCune is actually part of Jimmy's con game, and that the Process has just been stolen. Joe attempts to explain what happened to his employer and the police but finds that Jimmy has made it appear that he has sold his Process to the Japanese. The Swiss bank account that Jimmy opened for him makes it look as though he is hiding assets, and the certificate he signed to join the club turns out to be a request for political asylum in Venezuela, which has no extradition treaty with the United States. The police show Joe that Jimmy's apartment is a façade and that the club's members-only room is a normal restaurant. Joe is also framed for the murder of the company lawyer, George Lang. On the run, Joe reconnects with Susan, who says she believes his story. Joe remembers that the hotel on the island maintains video surveillance, which could prove that Jimmy was there. Susan takes him to the airport so he can fly back to the island. Seeing a police roadblock on the way to the airport, she convinces him to drive to Boston. At the airport in Boston, Susan gives Joe a plane ticket, and a camera bag, which unbeknownst to him contains a gun. Before passing through security, he realizes that Jimmy left his fingerprints on the book Joe was to deliver. He leaves the airport with Susan, still not realizing she is working against him. They purchase ferry tickets to return home. While Susan leaves to call Klein to inform him about the book, Joe attempts to board the ferry with the plane ticket, only to realize the ticket is for Venezuela, and that he was being set up. On the ferry, Jimmy suddenly appears and Susan turns on Joe; the final step of the con will be Joe's death, made to appear as a suicide. Jimmy reveals what he has done with the Process, and turns his gun on Joe, but is tranquilized by US Marshals pretending to be Japanese tourists. They reveal that they have been following Jimmy for months and that Mr. Klein plotted the con to keep all the profits for himself. Susan asks Joe for mercy, but he nonchalantly tells her she must "spend some time in room", meaning prison.

In the 2020s, boxing between human fighters has been replaced with robots. In Texas, former boxer Charlie Kenton owns the robot Ambush until it is destroyed in a fight against a bull belonging to promoter and carnival owner Ricky. Having bet money he did not have with Ricky that Ambush would win, Charlie absconds before Ricky can collect. After the fight, Charlie learns his ex-girlfriend died, and he must attend a hearing about their 11-year-old son Max, whom he hasn't seen since birth. Max's maternal aunt Debra and her husband Marvin seek full custody. Charlie agrees to give up custody of Max for money, while Marvin negotiates that Charlie keeps custody for three months during their vacation. Settling into a gym owned by Bailey Tallet, the daughter of Charlie's former boxing coach, Charlie uses half the money to acquire the once-famous World Robot Boxing (WRB) robot Noisy Boy. He and Max take Noisy Boy to Crash Palace, an underworld boxing arena run by his friend Finn, where Noisy Boy is destroyed against robot boxer Midas. While searching for replacements in a junkyard and then sliding down a cliff, Max discovers Atom, an obsolete, dilapidated, but mostly intact sparring robot that breaks Max's fall and saves his life. Atom is designed to endure damage with a rare "shadow function" program, which mirrors and memorizes the handler's or opponent's movements. Charlie pits Atom against the robot Metro at Max's request, and the junkyard bot surprisingly comes out on top. Max integrates Noisy Boy's voice command hardware with Atom and convinces Charlie to optimize Atom's movements. Altogether, Charlie's boxing experience and Atom's shadow function build a winning streak that leads to Charlie being offered a WRB fight between Atom and the national champion, Twin Cities. The fight starts with Atom on the attack, but Twin Cities quickly takes the offensive. Charlie notices a hitch (a brief delay) whenever Twin Cities throws a right punch, and he exploits this to win by knockout. Elated by their success, Max challenges the undefeated fighting robot and Real Steel Champion of the World, Zeus. After the fight, Ricky and two henchmen attack Charlie for bailing earlier and rob him and Max of their winnings, prompting a defeated and dejected Charlie to return Max to Debra. When Charlie tries to convince an upset Max that he is better off without him, the boy reveals that all he ever wanted was for him to fight for him and be there as a father. After Max leaves, Charlie returns to Tallet's Gym and talks with Bailey. She persuades him to reconcile with Max, and Charlie convinces Debra to allow Max to come to the fight he set up with Zeus. As the fight begins, Zeus dominates the first round, but Atom manages to survive, stunning the audience. Ricky, who bet with Finn on Atom losing within the first round, tries to leave but is cornered by Finn and his bookmakers. As the fight continues, Atom lands multiple punches and withstands further attacks but makes no definitive progress. Late in the fourth round, Atom's voice-response controls are damaged, forcing Charlie to fight Zeus with Atom's shadow function for the fifth and final round, in which Charlie wards off Zeus with a rope-a-dope tactic long enough to deplete its power core, allowing Atom to begin a counterattack against an exhausted Zeus. With Zeus' programmers unable to compensate, the designer, Tak Mashido, intervenes and controls Zeus manually. Zeus is soundly beaten but narrowly avoids losing by knockout and wins by a judge's decision. Despite the match result and remaining undefeated, Zeus is left critically damaged, and Mashido's group is humiliated by the near-loss. The cheering crowd triumphantly labels Atom the "People's Champion," and Max and Charlie celebrate.