Star is living in Muskogee, Oklahoma. She lives a painful life, caring for two children that are not hers and living with their sexually abusive father, Nathan. While trying to hitchhike home one day, she spies a van full of young people and makes eye contact with Jake, one of the boys in the group. Star follows them to a local Kmart and sees Jake dancing to " We Found Love " on top of the registers before being escorted out by security. Star returns Jake's phone, as it had fallen out of his pocket, and he offers her a job as part of their magazine sales crew, telling her to come with him to Kansas City. Star declines but Jake nevertheless tells her to meet them in the parking lot of the local Motel 6 the next morning. Packing her belongings while Nathan is in another room, Star secretly escapes and takes the children to the club where their mother Misty dances. Star confronts Misty and tells her it's her turn to care for the kids, and though Misty refuses, Star runs away from the club to the motel and sleeps outside the crew's van until morning. Star is interviewed by the crew's leader, Krystal, who hires her after she establishes that Star is a legal adult, that no one will miss her, and that she promises to work hard. In the car on the way to Kansas, Star meets the other members of the crew. When they get there, they are to work in pairs. Star is paired with Jake, the veteran of the group, to be trained. Star upsets potential customers because she disapproves of Jake's behaviour. Jake lies, shows he has a gun, although he doesn't really know how to use it, and he steals a ring from one of the houses. But Star is attracted to Jake, flirting with and eventually kissing him. That night, Krystal calls Star in and tells her that Jake has posted his lowest sales ever. Krystal then has Jake put tanning lotion on her body as Star watches, and Star promises to improve. The following day, annoyed by Jake, Star vows to outsell him. Star is picked up by three strangers in cowboy hats, who offer to help her, thinking she is being harassed by Jake. The trio bring her to their home and offer to buy several subscriptions if she eats the worm at the bottom of a bottle of mezcal. Star does, and makes the sale. Jake, however, fearing the worst, arrives and threatens the men with a gun before stealing their car. Initially angry at Jake, Star is later touched that he came to find her, and the two have sex in the car. When they return to the hotel for the evening, Jake tells her not to mention their relationship, and he gives the money Star earned to Krystal. For a while, things between Jake and Star are tense, and Krystal threatens to drop her on the side of the road if she keeps causing trouble. The crew ends up living temporarily in a rundown house, and Jake and Star renew their relationship. Star asks him what his dreams are, and he shows her his private stash of cash and items he's stolen from the houses he visits, which he intends to use to buy a home. Krystal dumps the girls off where oil workers are about to go to work in the morning. Star climbs in the back of their truck and tries to sell to them, but one of the oil workers tells her he'll pay her five hundred dollars to go on a 'date' with him. Star asks for a thousand dollars and meets him when he gets off work, but although the encounter is sexual he barely touches her. After the guy drops her off, she hears Jake fighting. Shortly after, a bloodied Jake asks if she slept with the man. Star just asks, "what do you care?". Jake gets angry, smashing things before taking off on a stolen motorbike. The following morning, the crew get in the car and there is a new girl there, while Jake is missing. Krystal calls Star to her room and informs her she has let Jake go, that she paid him money for each girl he recruited, and that he slept with all of them. Krystal later takes them to a poor area in Rapid City, South Dakota to sell subscriptions. Star enters a house and meets several affable children whose mother is on drugs. As Star's own mother died of a meth overdose, she feels sympathetic toward them and goes out to buy them groceries. At the pickup that day, Jake is in the van, and Star is confused as to whether to be happy to see him or not. That evening, the crew light a bonfire. Dancing around the fire, Star is pulled aside by Jake, who hands her a turtle. Star takes it to the edge of the water and releases it before following the turtle into the water. She immerses herself fully, long enough for the viewer to think she may not come up, before dramatically rising up out of the water. There is no conclusion.

In the 1890s, a group of "Harvey Girls"—new waitresses for Fred Harvey 's pioneering chain of Harvey House restaurants—travels on the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway to the town of Sandrock, New Mexico. On the trip, they meet Susan Bradley, who is traveling from Ohio to Sandrock to marry a man named H. H. Hartsey, whose beautiful love letters she received when she answered a "lonely-hearts" ad. Upon arrival, Susan is dismayed to find that Hartsey is a "mangy old buzzard" who does not at all meet her expectations. As Hartsey senses Susan's disappointment, the two eventually agree that they are mismatched and call off the wedding. Hartsey then reveals to Susan that his letters were actually written as a joke by Ned Trent, co-owner of the Alhambra Saloon, prompting Susan to confront Ned. Smitten with Susan, Ned offers to pay for her trip back to Ohio, but she instead vows to run him and his saloon out of town. Susan joins the Harvey Girls, and on the Harvey House's opening night, Ned visits the restaurant and orders a rare steak. Realizing that the meat has disappeared, Susan marches over to the Alhambra with two six-shooters, recovers the stolen meat and serves Ned a raw steak. Later that night, after someone shoots at a lamp in the Harvey Girls' dormitory, most of the women want to flee, but Susan and other waitresses decide to stay, unaware that Ned's business associate, Judge Sam Purvis, is determined to close the Harvey House in order to maintain his own thriving business running the Alhambra in town. The next day, Ned confronts Purvis about the shooting and demands that he apologize to the Harvey Girls. Instead, Purvis lies to Susan and another waitress, Deborah Andrews, claiming that Ned is not pleased to have the Harvey House in town. Determined to find the culprit behind the shooting, Susan seeks out Ned at the Alhambra and is confronted by Em, Ned's lead saloon singer who is in love with him; she reveals to Susan that it is actually Purvis, not Ned, who wants to run the Harvey House out of town. Susan later finds Ned alone in a remote valley, and as they discuss love letters and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 's poem The Courtship of Miles Standish, they kiss. Returning to town, they find Deborah trapped in the Harvey Girls' closet with a rattlesnake, which Ned shoots dead. Susan accuses Ned of placing the snake in their closet, prompting him to leave. Ned then tells Purvis to stop harassing the Harvey Girls. Some time later, Ned informs Susan that the Alhambra will be relocated to Flagstaff, Arizona, the next morning, and she cries as they say goodbye. Later that night, when Purvis and his henchmen set fire to the Harvey House, Ned fights them off, but the restaurant burns down. The next morning, Ned offers the Alhambra as a replacement for the Harvey House. Just before Em boards the train to Flagstaff, Ned tells her he is staying in Sandrock. Susan, thinking that Ned too is leaving, boards the same train and is spotted by Em. Realizing that Susan loves Ned so much that she is willing to become a saloon girl to be with him, Em pulls the emergency brake and points out Ned, riding toward the train on his horse. Ultimately, they wed in the desert, surrounded by the Harvey Girls.

Howard Roark is an individualistic architect who follows his own artistic path in the face of public conformity. Ellsworth Toohey, the architecture critic for The Banner newspaper, opposes Roark's individualism and volunteers to lead a print crusade against him. Wealthy and influential publishing magnate Gail Wynand pays little attention, approving the idea and giving Toohey a free hand. Dominique Francon, a glamorous socialite who writes a Banner column, admires Roark's designs, and opposes the paper's campaign against him. She is engaged to an architect, the unimaginative Peter Keating (Kent Smith). She never has met or seen Roark, but she believes that he is doomed in a world that abhors individualism. Wynand falls in love with Francon and exposes Keating as an opportunist. Roark is unable to find a client willing to build according to his vision. He walks away from opportunities that involve any compromise of his standards. Broke, he takes a job as a day laborer in a quarry that belongs to Francon's father and is near the Francon summer home. The vacationing Francon visits the quarry on a whim and spots Roark, and they share a mutual attraction. Francon contrives to have Roark repair some white marble in her bedroom. Roark mocks her pretense, and after the first visit, he sends another worker to complete the repair. Francon is enraged and returns to the quarry on horseback. She finds Roark walking from the site. He again mocks her, and she strikes him across the face with her horsewhip. He later appears in her open bedroom, forcefully embracing and kissing her passionately. In his room, Roark finds a letter offering him a new building project. He immediately packs up and leaves. Francon later goes to the quarry and learns that Roark has quit. She does not know that he is Howard Roark, the brilliant architect whom she had once championed in print. Wynand offers to marry Francon, though she is not in love with him. Francon demurs and soon learns Roark's true identity when she is introduced to him at a party opening the Enright House, a new building that Roark has designed. Francon goes to Roark's apartment and offers to marry him if he gives up architecture, saving himself from public rejection. Roark rejects her fears and says that they will face many years apart until she alters her thinking. Francon finds Wynand and accepts his marriage proposal. Wynand agrees and commissions Roark to build him a lavish but secluded country home. Wynand and Roark become friends, which drives Francon to jealousy. Keating, employed to create an enormous housing project, requests Roark's help. Roark agrees, demanding that Keating must build it exactly as designed in exchange for permitting Keating to take all of the credit. With prodding from the envious Toohey, the firm backing the project alters the Roark design presented by Keating into a gingerbread monstrosity. Roark, with Francon's help, rigs explosives to destroy the buildings and is arrested at the site. Toohey pressures Keating into privately confessing that Roark had designed the project. Roark goes on trial and is painted as a public enemy by every newspaper apart from The Banner, in which Wynand now publicly campaigns on Roark's behalf. However, Toohey has permeated The Banner with men loyal to him. He has them quit and uses his clout to keep others out. He leads a campaign against The Banner ' s new policy that all but kills the newspaper. Faced with losing, Wynand saves The Banner by bringing back Toohey's gang, joining the rest in publicly condemning Roark. Calling no witnesses, Roark addresses the court on his own behalf. He makes a long speech defending his right to offer his own work on his own terms. He is found innocent of the charges against him. A guilt-stricken Wynand summons the architect and coldly presents him with a contract to design the Wynand Building, destined to become the greatest structure of all time, with complete freedom to build it however Roark sees fit. As soon as Roark leaves, Wynand pulls out a pistol and kills himself. Months later, Francon enters the construction site of the Wynand Building and identifies herself as Mrs. Roark. She rises in the open construction elevator, looking upward toward the figure of her husband. Roark stands triumphant, his arms akimbo, near the edge of the tall skyscraper as the crosswinds buffet him atop his magnificent, one-of-a-kind creation.

The film begins with an interview of the older Roger Sharpe, with flashbacks to 1971.

Faced with a demotion due to a drinking problem, Osborne Cox angrily quits his job as a CIA analyst and decides to write a memoir. When he tells his wife Katie, she secretly files for divorce and continues an on-going affair with Harry Pfarrer, a married U.S. Marshal with paranoid tendencies. At the instruction of her lawyer, Katie delivers a digital copy of her husband's financial records and other personal files, unwittingly including a rough draft of Osborne's memoir. The lawyer's assistant copies the files onto a CD-R, which she accidentally leaves on the floor of the locker room at Hardbodies, a local gym. The disc falls into the hands of personal trainer Chad Feldheimer and his co-worker Linda Litzke, who mistakenly believe it contains sensitive government information. Chad and Linda devise a plan to return the disc to Osborne for a reward, as Linda is eager to raise money for her cosmetic surgeries. However, their inept efforts to blackmail Osborne only enrage him. Upon their failure to secure money from Osborne, Chad and Linda try to sell the disc to the Russian embassy, meeting with a Russian government official. Information about the meeting later makes it back to the CIA via a mole inside the Russian embassy. Osborne's increasingly erratic behavior prompts Katie to change the locks on their house and to invite Harry to move in. Meanwhile, Harry is a serial philanderer who incidentally becomes romantically involved with Linda after meeting her on a dating site. Having falsely promised the Russians more files, Linda persuades Chad to sneak into the Cox house to steal files from Osborne's computer. Chad is discovered by Harry, who reflexively kills Chad with his firearm. Harry searches the body for clues, but finds an empty wallet and missing suit tags, a precaution Chad took on Linda's advice. Harry surmises from his lack of identifying features that Chad is a government agent. At CIA headquarters, Osborne's former supervisor Palmer DeBakey Smith and his superior learn that information from Osborne has been given to the Russian embassy. They are perplexed because the information is of no particular importance and the perpetrators' motive is unknown. To avoid involvement from the FBI because of interservice rivalry, the superior orders that Chad's death be covered up. Harry realizes that he is being tailed, and catches and confronts the tail, who admits to being an employee of a divorce lawyer hired by his wife. Depressed, Harry meets with Linda, who is distressed over Chad's disappearance. Harry agrees to help find him, unaware that Chad is the man he killed. Linda returns to the embassy, believing that the Russians have abducted Chad, but they deny this. After they inform her the contents of the CD she has given them are worthless, she convinces the manager of Hardbodies, Ted (who has unrequited feelings for Linda), to help her by sneaking into the Cox household to gather more files. Harry and Linda meet in a park, where Linda reveals the address where Chad went before he disappeared. Harry realizes that Chad is the man he shot and flees, convinced Linda is a spy. When Osborne breaks into Katie's house with a hatchet to retrieve his personal belongings and her valuables, he finds Ted in the basement; Osborne shoots him, chases him into the street, and kills him with the hatchet. At CIA headquarters, Smith relates the events to his superior. A surveilling CIA officer who saw Osborne's highly conspicuous attack intervened and shot him, leaving him comatose with a low chance of survival. Harry has been detained while boarding a flight to Venezuela, a country with no extradition treaty with the U.S.; the superior orders that Harry be released and allowed to continue to Venezuela, rather than deal with the consequences of bringing him into custody. Linda has been captured, but agrees to keep quiet if they will pay for her surgeries. The superior, bewildered by the litany of events, approves the payment and closes the file.

Time-and-motion study and efficiency expert Frank Bunker Gilbreth Sr. and his wife, psychologist Lillian Moller Gilbreth, raise 12 children in 1920s Providence, Rhode Island and Montclair, New Jersey. Frank employs unorthodox teaching methods with his children, who clash with their parents. Frank takes every opportunity to study motion and increase efficiency, including filming his children's tonsillectomies to investigate opportunities to streamline the operation. He escorts his daughter to her prom as a chaperone but chats and dances with her female friends. Frank is sent on a lecture tour to Europe, expecting to visit Prague and London. While phoning Lillian from the station, he suffers a heart attack. After Frank's sudden death, the family members agree that Lillian will continue her husband's work, beginning with delivering his lectures in Europe. This enables the family to remain in their house rather than move to their grandmother's house in California. With a widowed working mother and one income, the children will have to assume much greater responsibilities.

Shortly after his marriage to Anastasia, Ivan Sanchin, who works as a projectionist at the headquarters of the state security service (called, anachronistically, KGB in the film), is summoned urgently to the Kremlin. Having proved his skill, he is appointed private projectionist to Stalin and his inner circle, including the head of state security Beria. This makes him proud and happy, for he venerates the dictator as if he were a god. When a Russian Jewish couple in his cramped apartment house are arrested, their little daughter Katya is left behind. Though Anastasia wants to adopt the child, Ivan forbids it because her parents are " enemies of the people ”. However she secretly visits Katya at a state orphanage. As German troops approach Moscow in 1941, Ivan and Anastasia are put on a train to a safe town. Also on the train is Beria, who gets Anastasia drunk and rapes her, sending Ivan back to Moscow. For a long time he hears nothing of her until she turns up one day, pregnant and abandoned. Her experiences have unhinged her and she commits suicide. In 1953 the lonely Ivan is visited by Katya, now a 17-year-old, who treasures the memory of Anastasia's affection. Ivan offers help, but she says she wants to go her own way. Following Stalin's death, Ivan, while on crowd control duty to masses waiting to view the corpse, sees Katya being jostled in the crush. He rushes in to rescue her and, this time, she is ready to accept his protection.

In 2014, Adolf Hitler wakes up in the Berlin park where his Führerbunker once stood. Disoriented, he wanders through the city, interpreting modern situations from a wartime perspective. Mistaken for an impersonator, Hitler encounters a mime and an anxious young mother, the latter of which pepper-sprays him. He faints after reading a newspaper stating the year is 2014. Meanwhile, at the MyTV television station offices, leading executive Christoph Sensenbrink is denied a promotion. Unleashing his rage, he fires Fabian Sawatzki, a freelance filmmaker. Sitting at home, Sawatzki spots Hitler in the background of his documentary footage and his mother suggests that a film about him would be successful. As Hitler wakes up at a newspaper kiosk, he reads about a changed Germany and laments the loss of his vision. Believing destiny has a purpose for him, Hitler decides to continue his work, and eventually he is found by Sawatzki. Sawatzki proposes filming Hitler for YouTube and they embark on a journey across Germany. Hitler interacts with ordinary Germans and speaks to them about contemporary social and political issues. Sawatzki's idea for an animal-centric film clip ends abruptly when the normally animal-loving Hitler shoots a dog after it bites him. Sawatzki introduces Hitler and his program idea to MyTV executives, including the new managing director, Katja Bellini (who got the promotion Sensenbrink desired). Bellini supports Hitler and his ideas while Sensenbrink is opposed. Hitler learns about the Internet and obsessively reads Wikipedia. On air, he speaks about the problems in modern German society which he noticed during his journey. The speech is remixed and talked about by various famous YouTubers, unintentionally becoming a comedy hit. Hitler meets with various right wing fringe parties and laments that none of them have the rhetoric or leadership skills that he has. Meanwhile, Sensenbrink sends an anonymous complaint of incitement of racial violence to the public prosecutor, summoning police at the MyTV offices, only for the prosecutor to personally praise the show and dismiss the complaint as leftist drivel. However, Sensenbrink finds the unedited footage of Hitler shooting the dog, and in an act of revenge broadcasts it during Hitler's next interview. This causes Hitler, Sawatzki and Bellini to all be fired from the station. Hitler publishes a book titled " Er Ist Wieder Da " (" He is Back ") about his new life, which becomes a popular bestseller, despite the controversy he has garnered for shooting the dog. Sawatzki turns Hitler's book into a film. 3 months later, without Hitler, MyTV's ratings plummet. In a fit of rage, which parodies a scene from Downfall, Sensenbrink ultimately decides to finance the film. During filming, Hitler is attacked by Neo-Nazis who mistake him for a mocking impersonator. Hitler is hospitalized, and when news of this generates sympathy for him, his popularity soars. Sawatzki reviews his footage and travels to the spot where Hitler rose from the ground. He discovers burnt leaves and a sign that the Führerbunker once stood at that location. Sawatzki realizes Hitler is not an impersonator and goes to confront him at the hospital, but Hitler has already been discharged, and only Bellini is in the room. Sawatzki tries to explain the truth to her, but she does not believe the story and hospital staff begins to chase him. At the MyTV set, Hitler is filming when he is interrupted by Sawatzki holding him at gunpoint. Hitler allows Sawatzki to direct them to the rooftop, where Sawatzki shoots him off the side of the building. Hitler reappears behind him, unharmed, and the confrontation is revealed to be a film scene with an actor playing Sawatzki; the real Sawatzki had been committed to a mental hospital. As Hitler's film finishes, he senses a political comeback. In the final scene, he and Bellini ride in a car through Berlin. The music tone changes sharply when bystanders begin performing the Nazi salute at him, and the film intersperses his monologue with clips of real-life contemporary far-right protests and interviews with politicians such as Marine Le Pen. Hitler says to himself: "I can work with this."

During the French Revolution, Marquis d'Apcher writes his memoirs in his castle. He recounts his experiences in 1764, when a mysterious beast terrorized the county, or historical area, of Gévaudan. Grégoire de Fronsac, a knight and the royal naturalist of King Louis XV, and his Iroquois companion Mani, arrive to capture the beast. Fronsac becomes interested in Marianne de Morangias, the daughter of a local count, whose brother, Jean-François, was also an avid hunter and a world traveller, whose arm was mangled and rendered useless while overseas. Fronsac is also intrigued by Sylvia, an Italian courtesan at the local brothel. While investigating another victim, Fronsac finds a fang made of steel. A traumatized child witness swears that the beast is controlled by what seems to be a human master. As the investigation proves unfruitful, the king's weapons master, Lord de Beauterne, arrives to put an end to the beast, and Fronsac is sent back to Paris. He realizes that the beast is actually an instrument of a secret society: The Brotherhood of the Wolf, which is working to undermine public confidence in the king and ultimately take over the country. Back in Gévaudan, the attacks by the real beast continue, and Fronsac returns to put an end to the beast's killings. At a secret rendezvous with Marianne, they are attacked by the beast, where it mysteriously refrains from attacking her. Fronsac, Mani, and a young Marquis set out into the forest and set up an array of traps to capture the beast; it is severely injured but escapes. Mani sets off alone in pursuit, where he finds a catacomb used as the beast's holding pen, inhabited by the Brotherhood. Outnumbered, Mani is shot and killed. Fronsac discovers Mani's body and performs an autopsy, finding a silver bullet —Jean-François' signature choice of ammunition. In a fit of rage, a vengeful Fronsac goes to the catacombs and slaughters many members, but is overpowered by the local authorities and imprisoned. Sylvia visits him in jail and reveals that she is a spy for the Holy See. She explains that Henri Sardis, the local priest and leader of the Brotherhood, believes that he is restoring worship of God to France. Pope Clement XIII has decided that Sardis is insane, and has sent her to eliminate him. She then poisons Fronsac, saying that he knows too much. Meanwhile, Jean-François comes to Marianne's room and reveals to her that he is the beast's master; it recognized his scent on her when it came near her, which is why it did not attack. He then rapes her when she rejects his advances. Sylvia's agents exhume Fronsac and he appears at one of the Brotherhood's sermons. He kills several members, including Jean-François, who reveals that he had regained use of his supposedly mangled arm. Sardis escapes into the mountains, but is mauled to death by a pack of wolves. Fronsac and the Marquis go to the beast's lair, where it lies severely wounded. It turns out that the beast was a lion that Jean-François brought back from Africa as a cub that was tortured into becoming vicious and trained to wear spiked metal armor. Fronsac takes pity and kills the beast in an act of mercy. Marquis d'Apcher finishes writing his account just before he is led to his execution by a revolutionary mob. He states that he doesn't know what happened to Fronsac and Marianne after the death of the beast; but he hopes that somewhere, they are happy together. A final scene shows Fronsac and Marianne sailing on a ship named Frère Loup—Brother Wolf.