Todd Anderson (Josh Hamilton), a salesman for a Seattle novelty products company, learns he has to travel to India when his department is outsourced. Todd is not happy but when his boss Dave informs him that quitting would mean losing his stock options, he goes to train his Indian replacement Puro (Asif Basra). When he arrives, Todd is frustrated with everything in the country where people call him "Mr. Toad". He has difficulty making the call center employees of Gharapuri understand what their American customers expect. He feels that he is never going to get the Minutes-per-Incident (MPI) under six minutes and so will never get to return to the United States. Todd experiences the festival of Holi and with it, a sense of calm. At the call center the MPI slowly improves. He recognizes a leader in an employee Asha (Ayesha Dharker) and offers her the job of assisting Puro when Todd leaves. Todd tries to improve the workplace experience for the employees; when they tell him they would like some of the products they are selling, he decides to implement a rewards program and asks Dave for a shipment. Dave initially refuses, but when Todd manages to convince him that he is opening the products to a market of a billion people, Dave agrees to ship them overnight. Asha realizes that the shipment has gone to another Gharapuri, an island. They both reach the island and get the shipment, but the boat that was supposed to ferry them back catches fire. With no resort, they check into a hotel, where Asha accuses Todd of being frivolous with Kali. They argue but end up having sex. Upon their return Asha informs Todd that she has been engaged to a family friend named Ashok since she was four years old. She says their affair could be only a "Holiday in Goa ", a term for a short time spent with a lover before marrying another. Todd is confused but accepts the situation. The call center MPI is nearing six when Dave calls to let Todd know that he needs to be picked up from the railway station. When Dave arrives, the power shuts down due to flooding, but the employees manage to set up their workstations on the roof and resume business. Dave is impressed, but when the employees go to the local bar to celebrate, Dave informs Todd the business is being shifted to China. Todd informs the employees they have been fired, and Dave is erasing all data off their hard disks. Asha tells Todd that she has been writing a novel on her work computer called Holiday in Goa that needs to be saved. Todd gets the hint and they leave for Gaurav's (another employee's) house, where they spend time together. Todd refuses to go to China but suggests Puro as a replacement. Puro is seen leaving for China with his new wife. Upon his return to the United States, Todd calls his mother to see about spending more time with her, a lesson he learned from Puro's aunt. Right afterwards, he gets a phone call from Asha just as the screen turns black and the end credits roll.

Shy 17-year-old Noriko Shimabara lives with her younger sister Yuka, her mother Taeko, and her father Tetsuzo in Toyokawa, Japan. Unsatisfied with her small-town life, she hopes to move to Tokyo, especially when she learns that her childhood friend Mikan is now working independently as an idol. Tetsuzo disapproves of her ambitions and instead hopes she will attend a local university after high school. Noriko discovers Haikyo ("Ruins"), a website where other teenagers from Japan communicate. Feeling alienated and misunderstood by her parents, and encouraged by her new friends from the site, she runs away from home and travels to Tokyo. She meets Haikyo's leader, a 25-year-old woman named Kumiko who uses the screen name "Ueno Station 54," at locker 54 in Ueno Station. Kumiko introduces Noriko to her family and takes her to visit her grandparents, whom Noriko later learns are actually paid actors working for Kumiko's organization, I.C. Corp, which offers paid rental family services to clients. Abandoned as an infant, Kumiko has developed a nihilistic view of society, even coldly rejecting her birth mother's attempts to reconcile in Kumiko's adulthood, and founded I.C. Corp to allow lonely people to fulfill their fantasies of a happy family life. One of the I.C. Corp actors, Broken Dam, is hired by a man who wants her to act as his unfaithful wife so he can murder her. Broken Dam happily agrees, seemingly completely unfearful of death. Kumiko attends the session, and, impressed by Broken Dam's willingness to die for her role, orders 54 I.C. Corp actors to commit suicide by jumping in front of a train at Shinjuku Station. She makes Noriko witness the event, hoping Noriko will undertake an equally consequential task one day. Back in Toyokawa, Yuka, who is also a Haikyo user, speculates on whether her sister was involved in the mass suicide and how Tetsuzo would react if she were to disappear as well. Yuka runs away to Tokyo to join I.C. Corp, but deliberately leaves behind hints for Tetsuzo to find so he can ascertain what has happened to her. Taeko's mental state rapidly deteriorates in the wake of her daughters' absences, and she eventually commits suicide. Tetsuzo quits his job as a reporter to investigate his daughters' disappearances and sadly realizes that he was never supportive or aware of his daughters' feelings. Taking cues from sensationalist media tabloids, he comes across Haikyo and concludes that his daughters are part of a cult called the "Suicide Club". Tetsuzo contacts a member of I.C. Corp, who refutes the existence of a "Suicide Club" and instead expounds on a concept of social roles that forms the basis of the organization. Two years after Noriko and Yuka's departure, Tetsuzo convinces his friend Ikeda to pose as a client for I.C. Corp, renting Kumiko as his wife and Noriko and Yuka (who now go by the aliases Mitsuko and Yoko, respectively) as his daughters. Tetsuzo finds a house in Tokyo resembling the Shimabara family's and chooses it as the meeting site, moving all of their furniture into it. He hides in a wardrobe to observe as the session commences. Noriko and Yuka are unsettled upon arriving at the house, but fall back into their roles when prompted by Kumiko. After Ikeda sends Kumiko on an errand, Tetsuzo reveals himself, though the girls insist he is a stranger. Kumiko's bodyguards arrive and attack Tetsuzo, but he retaliates and fatally stabs them all. Kumiko returns shortly thereafter, initially continuing to act out her role as normal before imploring Tetsuzo to kill her and run away with Noriko and Yuka, whom she addresses by their real names for the first time despite Noriko's protests. A distraught Yuka asks to extend the session. Tetsuzo, Kumiko, Mitsuko and Yuka eat dinner together. Tetsuzo treats Kumiko as his wife, referring to her as Taeko. That night, Yuka leaves at the crack of dawn and walks toward the city center, deciding that she is done being Yoko, but is no longer Yuka either. Mitsuko awakens shortly thereafter and, speaking to herself, bids goodbye to Yuka, her youth, Haikyo, and Mitsuko, before finally declaring that she is Noriko.

A Jewish man in a 19th-century Eastern European shtetl tells his wife that he was helped on his way home by Reb Groshkover, whom he has invited in for soup. She says Groshkover is dead and the man he invited must be a dybbuk. Groshkover arrives and laughs off the accusation, but she plunges an ice pick into his chest. Bleeding, he exits their home into the snowy night. In 1967, Larry Gopnik is a professor of physics living in St. Louis Park, Minnesota. His wife, Judith, tells him that she needs a get so she can marry widower Sy Ableman, with whom she has fallen in love. Meanwhile, their son Danny owes twenty dollars to an intimidating Hebrew school classmate for marijuana. He has the money, but it is hidden in a transistor radio that his teacher confiscated. Their daughter, Sarah, is constantly washing her hair, going out, and avoiding school. Larry's brother, Arthur, is homeless and sleeps on the couch, spending his free time filling a notebook with what he calls the "Mentaculus", a "probability map of the universe". Clive Park, a South Korean student worried about losing his scholarship, meets with Larry in his office to argue that he should not fail the class. After he leaves, Larry finds an envelope stuffed with cash. When Larry attempts to return it, Clive's father threatens to sue Larry either for defamation if Larry accuses Clive of bribery, or for keeping the money if he does not give him a passing grade. Larry faces an impending vote on his application for tenure, and his department head informs him that anonymous letters have urged the committee to deny him. At the insistence of Judith and Sy, Larry and Arthur move into a nearby motel. Judith empties the couple's bank accounts, leaving Larry penniless; his attorney advises him to open a private account. Larry turns to his Jewish faith for consolation. He consults a junior rabbi, Scott, who advises Larry to change his "perspective". Larry and Sy are involved in separate, simultaneous car crashes. Larry is unharmed, but Sy dies. Larry consults a second rabbi, Nachtner, for solace, who recounts an anecdote about an orthodontist who finds Hebrew inscriptions on a non-Jewish patient's teeth. Larry also tries to contact Marshak, the synagogue's senior rabbi, who is not available. At Judith's insistence, Larry pays for Sy's funeral. At the funeral, Sy is eulogized as "a serious man". Larry calls on his neighbor, Vivienne Samsky, whom he has seen sunbathing naked. She introduces him to marijuana. He later dreams that he is having sex with her, but this turns into a nightmare. Larry learns that Arthur faces charges of illegal gambling, solicitation, and sodomy. Arthur is despondent about the charges against him, and Larry consoles him. Larry then has another nightmare in which he gives Arthur the money Clive left him and drives him to cross into Canada by boat, only for his neighbors to shoot Arthur in the neck. Larry is proud and moved by Danny's bar mitzvah, unaware that his son is under the influence of marijuana. During the service, Judith apologizes to Larry for all the recent trouble and tells him that Sy respected him so much that he even wrote letters to the tenure committee. Danny meets with Marshak, a brief encounter in which Marshak only quotes Jefferson Airplane 's " Somebody to Love ", names some members of the band, returns the radio, and tells Danny to "be a good boy". Larry's department head compliments him on Danny's bar mitzvah and hints that he will receive tenure. The mail brings a $3,000 bill from Arthur's lawyer. Larry decides to change Clive's grade from F to C−; immediately after he does so, his doctor calls, asking to see him immediately about the results of a chest X-ray. Meanwhile, Danny's teacher struggles to open the emergency shelter as a massive tornado closes in on the school.

While vacationing in Switzerland, pediatrician Chris Nielsen meets artist Annie Collins. They marry and have two children, Ian and Marie. Their idyllic life ends when the children die in a car crash. Four years later, Chris is also killed in a car crash. Unaware that he is dead, and confused that no one will interact with him, Chris lingers on Earth as a ghost. Chris sees Annie's attempts to cope with his loss and attempts to communicate with her, despite advice from a presence that this will cause her only more pain. When his attempts indeed cause more sorrow, he decides to move on. Chris awakens in a Heaven that he has created with his imagination; his surroundings are mountainous landscapes that resemble a painting created by his wife and are similar to a place where the two desired to spend their old age. Chris is accompanied in Heaven by Albert Lewis, his friend and mentor from his medical residency, and Leona, a stewardess whom Chris had once admired in the presence of his daughter; he later comes to recognize Leona as his daughter Marie. Meanwhile, Annie is wracked with guilt for the deaths of Chris and their children and dies by suicide. Chris, who is initially relieved that her suffering is over, grows angry when he learns that those who die by suicide go to Hell. It is not the result of a judgment made against them, but rather their own tendency to create nightmare afterlife worlds based on their pain. Chris is adamant that he will rescue Annie from Hell, despite Albert's insistence that no one has ever succeeded in doing so with someone who died by suicide. Aided by a "tracker", Chris and Albert descend into Hell. On the journey there, Chris realizes that Albert is actually Ian and parts ways with him before his search for Annie. Chris and the tracker arrive at a dark and twisted version of Chris and Annie's house. The tracker reveals himself as the real Albert and warns Chris that if he stays with Annie for more than a few minutes, he may be permanently trapped in Hell, advising that all Chris can reasonably expect is an opportunity for a final farewell to Annie. Chris enters their horrific-looking home to find Annie suffering from amnesia, unable to remember her suicide and visibly tortured by her decrepit surroundings. Unable to stir her memories, the tracker sees Chris give up his quest to save Annie from Hell. Instead of returning to Heaven, Chris chooses to join Annie forever in Hell. As he declares to Annie his intent to stay, his words parallel something that he had said to her as he left her in an institution following the children's deaths, and she regains her memories while Chris is making her nightmare his. Annie ascends to Heaven, taking Chris with her. Chris and Annie are reunited with their children in Heaven, and all appearances are restored. Chris proposes reincarnation so that he and Annie can experience life together again. Chris and Annie meet again as young children in a situation that parallels their first meeting. In an alternate ending found on the DVD, their children explain that because Annie died by suicide, she must return to Earth and complete her next life naturally. Chris offers to go with her, and the two meet again as children.

The small town of Garrison, New Jersey, is home to a cadre of corrupt police officers from the NYPD 's 37th Precinct, including Lieutenant Ray Donlan, Detective Leo Crasky, and officers Gary Figgis, Jack Rucker, Frank Lagonda and Joey Randone. Exploiting a loophole to live outside of the city as "auxiliary transit cops", Donlan and his men are effectively untouchable by internal affairs, and are further protected by the local sheriff, Freddy Heflin. Having lost his hearing in one ear while rescuing a woman from the Hudson River as a young man, Heflin is unable to fulfill his lifelong dream of joining the NYPD. Donlan's nephew, Officer Murray ”Superboy” Babitch, is sideswiped by two youths while driving across the George Washington Bridge; believing one of them has a weapon, a frightened Babitch fatally shoots them both. Donlan, Rucker and Crasky try to plant a gun in the teens' car but are caught by a paramedic, leading Donlan to fake Babitch's suicide before hiding him in Garrison. Heflin discovers that Randone is having an affair with Donlan's wife Rose, but he and his deputies Cindy and Bill turn a blind eye to Donlan and his men. Heflin reconnects with Randone's wife Liz—the woman whom he saved from drowning—and they confess their feelings for each other. The cocaine -addicted Figgis is kicked out of Donlan's circle, and his house soon burns down with his girlfriend inside. Letting Figgis stay at his home, Heflin refuses to help internal affairs investigator Moe Tilden build his case against Donlan. Fearing that Babitch will expose them, Donlan and his men try to drown his nephew, who escapes and goes to Heflin for help, but flees when he sees Figgis. Unwilling to hunt down Babitch, Randone is thrown off a roof during a struggle with a violent suspect, and Donlan chooses not to save him. Tired of being pushed around by Donlan and his men, Heflin goes to Tilden but learns that the mayor, under pressure from Donlan's allies in the police union, has shut down the investigation. Stealing Tilden's discarded files, Heflin realizes that Donlan's ties to organized crime allowed him to create a safe haven in Garrison while trafficking drugs through the 37th Precinct, and he had Figgis's partner killed before he could testify against him. Bill is reluctant to become involved, and Cindy leaves for her old department, having lost faith in Heflin's leadership. Rucker tries to intimidate Heflin at a carnival's pistol game, but he is surprised to find Heflin is a crack shot, as is Lagonda after Heflin is chided by Liz for digging into Donlan. Heflin realizes that Figgis set fire to his own house, and Figgis admits that he committed insurance fraud to use the payout to leave Garrison for a new life. Convincing Rose to reveal where her nephew is hiding, Heflin takes Babitch into custody and sends Bill away for his own protection, but they are ambushed by Lagonda and Rucker, who capture Babitch and fire a gun next to Heflin's good ear. Completely deafened, Heflin follows them to Donlan's residence. In the ensuing shootout, he kills Lagonda and Rucker, but is wounded by Crasky. Figgis arrives, killing Crasky and distracting Donlan before he can shoot Heflin in the back, and Heflin fatally shoots Donlan. Driving to NYPD headquarters, Heflin and Figgis deliver Babitch to Tilden. Figgis turns state's evidence, resulting in sweeping arrests and indictments across the police union, the mob and the 37th Precinct. Recovering the hearing in his good ear, Heflin continues to serve as sheriff in Garrison.

Harry Washello and Julie Peters meet at the La Brea Tar Pits and immediately fall in love. They spend the afternoon together and arrange to meet again at midnight. However, due to a freak accident, a power failure results in Harry's alarm not going off until much later. Julie cannot reach Harry, so she leaves for home. When Harry awakes that night, he realizes what has happened and rushes to Julie's workplace, arriving at 4 a.m. Harry tries calling Julie on a payphone but only reaches her answering machine, where he leaves an apology. The phone rings again and Harry answers, hearing a frantic man named Chip urgently warning that nuclear war will break out in less than 70 minutes. When Harry asks who is calling, Chip realizes he has dialed the wrong area code. He pleads with Harry to call his father and apologize for some past wrong before he is interrupted and presumably shot dead. An unfamiliar voice picks up the phone and tells Harry to forget everything he heard before disconnecting. Harry, confused and not entirely convinced of the authenticity of the information, wanders back into the diner and tells the other customers what he has heard. As the patrons scoff at his story, one of them, a businesswoman named Landa places calls to politicians in Washington and finds that they are all suddenly heading for "the extreme Southern Hemisphere ". She verifies that the launch codes Chip mentioned are real and, convinced of the danger, immediately charters private jets out of Los Angeles International Airport to a compound in a region in Antarctica with no rainfall. Most customers and staff leave with her in the owner's delivery van. When the owner refuses to make any stops, Harry, unwilling to leave without Julie, arranges to meet the group at the airport and jumps from the truck. Harry is helped and hindered by various strangers, who are initially unaware of the impending apocalypse. In the process, he inadvertently causes several deaths, which leaves him deeply shaken. When he finds Julie and tells her what is happening, she notes that there has been no confirmation of the attack. Desperate to reach the airport and not having a car, Harry finds a helicopter pilot and tells him to meet them on the roof of the Mutual Benefit Life Building, where Landa orders a helicopter and a large amount of supplies to be delivered. Julie has also tried to find a pilot on her own, and in the moments it takes to find her, Los Angeles descends into violent chaos. There is still no confirmation any of this is real, and Harry wonders if he has sparked a massive false panic in the example of Chicken Little. However, when he uses a phone booth to contact Chip's father, he reaches a man who says his son is a soldier. Harry tries to pass on the message he was given, but the man hangs up before Harry finishes. When they reach the top of the Mutual Benefit building they find the pad empty, with only Landa's drunk co-worker on the roof. Any doubts about a false alarm are eliminated when a missile can be seen streaking across the sky. As they fear the end, the helicopter suddenly returns with the pilot badly wounded but fulfilling his promise to come back for them. After they lift off from the roof, several warheads hit and the nuclear E.M.P. from the detonations causes the helicopter to crash into the La Brea Tar Pits. As the helicopter sinks and the cabin fills with natural asphalt tar, Harry tries to comfort a hysterical Julie by saying someday their fossils will be found and they will probably be put in a museum, or that they might take a direct hit and be turned into diamonds. Julie, accepting her fate, calms down and takes comfort in Harry's words, and the movie fades out as the tar fills the compartment. A final explosion seems to imply a direct hit has taken place.

On 12 October 1978, police are summoned to the Hotel Chelsea in New York City, where they find Nancy Spungen dead. Her boyfriend, former Sex Pistols bassist Sid Vicious, is taken into custody. Sid is driven to a police station and told to describe what happened. A little more than a year earlier, in 1977, close friends and band members Sid and Johnny Rotten meet Nancy, a heroin -addicted American groupie who had come to London to bed the Sex Pistols. Sid dismisses her at first, as her intentions are obvious, but begins dating her after feeling sympathy for the rejection she faces from fellow punk performers. The two swiftly bond over heroin use, and it is implied that Nancy introduces Sid to the drug. Sid and Nancy fall deeply in love, but their self-destructive, drug-fueled relationship frays Sid's relationship with the rest of the band. Nancy is distraught when Sid departs on a month-long American tour without her. The tour is notably disastrous, with Sid strung out of his mind, often drunk or on methamphetamine, and physically violent. Phoebe, Sid's friend and road manager, unsuccessfully attempts to help him stop drinking. Meanwhile, Nancy remains in London, staying with her friend Linda, a dominatrix. Although several of Sid's friends and acquaintances warn him of Nancy's devastating effect on his life, Sid stubbornly ignores these warnings. On 17 January 1978, in the midst of the group's American tour, the band breaks up. Sid reunites with Nancy in New York City, and he attempts to start a solo career with Nancy as his manager. The two visit Paris to begin recording sessions, but the trip is unfruitful. Sid is quickly dismissed in the music industry as a has-been, and he and Nancy descend deeper into heroin addiction; Nancy also begins suffering from severe depression, and the couple eventually make a suicide pact. Nancy brings Sid to Philadelphia to meet her family, who are horrified by the couple's reckless behavior and physical state. Sid and Nancy return to New York and settle in the Hotel Chelsea, where they live in squalor and depend on opiates supplied by their drug dealer, Bowery Snax. Their love affair ends tragically one night when, during an argument in which Sid announces his plans to stop using heroin and return to England to restart his life, a suicidal Nancy begs him to kill her. She attacks him and they fight in a drug-induced haze, leading to him stabbing her, although whether it was intentional is left to interpretation. They fall asleep and later Nancy awakes and stumbles into the bathroom, where she collapses and dies, calling Sid for help. Sid is bailed out temporarily by his mother, who is also a heroin addict. After Sid wanders to a restaurant, some street kids convince him to dance with them. A taxi appears and picks Sid up, and he believes he finds Nancy alive in the back seat. The two embrace as the cab drives off. A postscript says that Vicious died of a heroin overdose, and lastly reads: "R.I.P. Nancy and Sid."

An epidemic begins to spread throughout the globe, causing humankind to lose their sensory perceptions one by one. The story focuses on two people: Susan, one of a team of epidemiologists who are trying to find the causes of the disease, and Michael, a chef who works at a busy restaurant located next to Susan's flat. The two meet and get to know each other as the epidemic progresses, a relationship which soon turns to love. Humans begin to lose their senses one at a time. Each loss is preceded by an outburst of an intense feeling or urge. First, people begin suffering uncontrollable bouts of crying and this is soon followed by the loss of their sense of smell. An outbreak of irrational panic and anxiety, closely followed by a bout of frenzied gluttony, precedes the loss of the sense of taste. The film depicts people trying to adapt to each loss and trying to carry on living as best they can, rediscovering their remaining senses as they do so. Michael and his co-workers do their best to cook food for people who cannot smell nor taste. The loss of hearing comes next and is accompanied by an outbreak of extreme anger and rage. Michael experiences it first and is verbally abusive at Susan who flees in fear, losing her own hearing shortly afterwards. Despite her knowledge that it was the disease that caused the outburst, Susan cannot face Michael again. People struggle to adjust and to go on living. One day, every person on Earth suddenly experiences a feeling of joyful euphoria. Susan realizes she both forgives and still loves Michael and rushes to his job. The two find each other and embrace just as they, and the rest of the world, become blind.

In 35,000 B.C. during the Ice Age, in what will become North Texas, two cavemen hunters encounter an extraterrestrial life form in a cave, which kills one and infects the other with a black oil -like substance. In 1998, a boy falls into a hole and is infected by the black oil that seeps from the ground. Firefighters who enter the hole to rescue him do not come out. A team of men wearing hazmat suits later extracts the bodies of the boy and the firefighters. Meanwhile, FBI Special Agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully, investigating a bomb threat against a federal building in Dallas, discover the bomb in a building across the street. As the building is evacuated, Special Agent in Charge Darius Michaud remains, ostensibly to disarm the bomb. Instead, he simply waits for the bomb to detonate. At the Office of Professional Review hearing supervised by FBI Assistant Director Jana Cassidy, Mulder and Scully are chastised because the firefighters and the boy were also in the building during the bombing. That evening, Mulder is accosted by paranoid doctor Alvin Kurtzweil, who explains that the "victims" were already dead and that the bombing was staged to cover up how they died. At the hospital morgue, Scully examines one of the victims, finding evidence of an alien virus. Meanwhile, The Smoking Man goes to Texas, where Dr. Ben Bronschweig shows him one of the lost firefighters, who now has an alien organism residing inside his body. The Smoking Man orders Bronschweig to administer a vaccine to it, but to burn the body if it fails. Later, the alien organism gestates and kills Bronschweig. Mulder and Scully travel to the site of the hole in Texas, where they find it has been hastily turned into a new playground, and encounter the boys whose friend fell in. Driving in the direction the boys indicated, the pair encounters a train of white gasoline tankers and follows it to a cornfield surrounding two glowing domes. Inside the domes, grates in the floor open and swarms of bees fly out, overwhelming the agents. They flee through an adjacent cornfield, chased by black helicopters, and escape when the helicopters disappear. In D.C., Scully attends another OPR hearing; meanwhile, Mulder meets with Kurtzweil to obtain more information. Scully arrives at Mulder's apartment to tell him she has been transferred to SLC but plans to resign from the FBI. The two are about to kiss when Scully is stung by a bee that had lodged itself under her shirt collar. She falls unconscious while Mulder calls paramedics, but the ambulance driver shoots Mulder and takes Scully away. She is seen later in an isolation unit being loaded onto a plane. An unconscious Mulder is picked up by another ambulance. Not severely injured, he slips out of the hospital with the help of The Lone Gunmen and FBI Assistant Director Walter Skinner. He then meets a former adversary, the Well-Manicured Man, who gives him Scully's location and a vaccine against the virus that has infected her. As Mulder leaves, the Well-Manicured Man shoots his driver and then kills himself in a car bomb before his betrayal of The Syndicate is discovered. 48 hours later, Mulder finds Scully in an underground facility in Antarctica, which also contains many humans suspended in ice-like enclosures. He breaks Scully's confinement and uses the vaccine to revive her, but this disrupts the facility, and the cocooned aliens begin trying to escape. After Mulder and Scully escape to the surface, an alien vessel emerges from beneath the ice and travels into the sky. Mulder watches it disappear into the distance as Scully regains full consciousness. At another hearing, Scully's testimony is disregarded, and evidence in Texas is destroyed. To the hearing moderator, she hands over the only remaining proof of their ordeal—the bee that stung her—while noting that the FBI is currently unable to investigate this evidence. Outside, Mulder reads an article about the domes and crop fields in Texas that have been covered up. Scully reveals that she is willing to continue working with him: "If I quit now, they win." At another crop outpost in Tunisia, the Smoking Man warns Conrad Strughold that Mulder remains a threat, explaining what Mulder has found out about the virus. He then hands him a telegram revealing that the X-files unit has been reopened.

Set in an unspecified country, a woman is taken from her home in the middle of the night, accused of embedding dissident messages into her book Closet Land. The book is a story about a child who, as a result of bad behavior, has been locked in a closet as punishment. While in there, the child is greeted by a group of childhood ally archetypes who innocently attempt to comfort the scared little girl. The seemingly simple content is questioned by the government, which accuses the author of encouraging and introducing disloyalty among its audience of naïve children. The interrogator is obstinate in his belief that the author is guilty of hidden propaganda. It is revealed that the novel was actually created as a form of escapism, providing a coping mechanism for the author, who endured sexual abuse as a child. Near the end of the film, the interrogator claims that he was the man who had sexually abused the author in her childhood. But one cannot be entirely sure he is telling the truth, as the film suggests he was just using the abuse against her as a way of breaking her down. After subjecting her to lengthy physical and mental torture, and pretending to be several other people (another prisoner, a more brutal interrogator) while the victim is blindfolded and handcuffed, the interrogator tries to get her to sign a confession—to save her life. While he knows now that she is innocent, he implores her to confess to avoid execution. She refuses, and goes to her death.

Spencer Reinhard, an art student seeking excitement or tragedy for inspiration, is given a tour of Transylvania University library's rare-book collection; his eye is drawn to a rare first edition of John James Audubon 's Birds of America. He and his friend Warren Lipka, a rebellious student on an athletic scholarship at the University of Kentucky, discuss the possibility of stealing it and other rare books. They note that the collection is guarded by only one librarian, whom they believe they could easily overpower before stealing the books and escaping via the staff elevator. Warren travels to Amsterdam to meet black-market buyers who express interest, informing Spencer they could make millions. They later enlist the help of two friends: Eric Borsuk to provide logistics and Chas Allen as the getaway driver. They make an appointment for a private viewing of the collection in order to gain access to the room, and arrive disguised as elderly businessmen; but they abort the heist when Warren sees multiple librarians in the room. Spencer wants to abandon the plan, but Warren persuades him and the others to try again the next day. Spencer acts as a lookout as Warren and Eric, without disguises, enter the library. Warren clumsily uses a stun gun on the librarian, making Eric help restrain her. They blunder to the exit, dropping The Birds of America, but escape with two books. The group travels to Christie's auction house in New York to get the authentication of value Warren said the Dutch buyers required. Spencer is told he has to return the next day and leaves his cell phone number with an assistant. Chas berates Spencer for using a phone number that can be identified as his, and they return to Lexington with the books. Shortly after, Spencer realizes the police will also be able to trace the email address they used to make the appointments with Christie's and the library; the FBI eventually does, and they are arrested. In documentary interviews with the real-life thieves filmed years after they are released from prison, they express regret. Spencer suspects Warren lied about going to Amsterdam in order to convince the others to partake in the heist. Eric and Chas now live in California as a writer and a fitness coach, respectively; Warren studies filmmaking in Philadelphia; and Spencer lives in Lexington as an artist.

The ship's medical officer, Dr. Schumann, takes a special interest in La Condesa, a Spanish countess with an opiate addiction, being deported from Cuba to a Spanish prison in Tenerife for illegally aiding the rebel cause in the Cuban Revolution of 1933. The 600 field workers in steerage, being deported to Spain due to the low market price of Cuban sugar, cheer the Condesa as she boards the ship under police escort. She tells the doctor she was motivated by seeing the impoverished conditions in which 5,000 laborers lived, under patronage of the man with whom she lived in luxury. She manipulates the doctor for drugs, but her activism aligns with the doctor's humanitarian ideals that the laborers in steerage be treated like human beings rather than cargo. Their shared sympathies soon evolve into love, though both realize it is a hopeless situation. The doctor conceals his heart condition from her. Selected passengers, mostly Aryan Germans, are invited to dine each night at the captain's table. Some are amused and others offended by the anti-Jewish rants of a German businessman, Rieber, who begins an affair with Lizzi, a blonde woman who admires him for his vitality and mind, until she learns he is married. Austrian-born Rieber extols the virtues of German nationalism and eugenics. The captain is reassured by Rieber's rants, believing that nobody can ever take the Nazi Party seriously. Though Jews and a dwarf are excluded from the table, the Hutten's dog, Baby, is allowed. When Baby is thrown overboard by children from steerage, the dog is saved, but an animal-loving laborer drowns in the rescue, despite the doctor's ministrations. The Huttens fuss over the dog, oblivious that its rescuer has died, even when informed by the doctor. The Jewish Lowenthal is seated at a side table with a dwarf named Glocken, and the two bond over their social exclusion. Later Freytag, a German passenger, is moved to this table when Rieber learns Freytag's wife is Jewish. Eventually Freytag discloses that he is separated from his Jewish wife due to pressure from his family and his employer as result of Nazi Rassenschande rhetoric. Revealing his Iron Cross 2nd class he earned in World War I, Lowenthal discusses with Glocken what it means to be German, including the Nazi Party and its anti-Jewish sentiment, which Lowenthal hopes to be temporary saying Jews have been good for Germany. Lowenthal is ultimately positive about the future of Jews in Germany, while Glocken is diametrically opposed in his pessimism. Glocken tells Lowenthal that he may be the biggest fool on the ship. An American artist couple, David and Jenny, have a passionate but tumultuous relationship. David is disconsolate at his lack of success as a socially committed artist; the independent Jenny dislikes his "unsellable" art and does not wish to compete with it in the relationship. He is dismissive of her artistic talent, which she herself undervalues. David expresses that whoever shares his life will need to accept that his art will always supersede her. Jenny fears that their life together will be endlessly fighting, with neither willing to put the other's needs before their own. Passengers are entertained nightly by a troupe of flamenco musicians and dancers, whose leader pimps the women in the troupe. Johann, an unpaid caregiver to Herr Graf, his invalid uncle, ignores the wholesome and insecure Elsa, who is traveling with her parents. Instead, Johann is attracted to one of the dancers, who rejects him for inability to pay. Johann threatens his stingy uncle if he does not give him money which has been promised to him in his uncle's will. He loses his virginity to one of the dancers, who treats him with gentleness when he pays. Mary Treadwell, a divorced fading beauty hoping to recapture her youth in Paris, is too mature to interest the captain. She disdains the lieutenant who shows interest, dismissing him first as doing his duty to unattended women and later as insignificant. When former baseball player and fellow American Bill Tenny is seated at her table, she finds him crass and ignorant. Tenny expresses surprise at the open hostility toward the Jews on board; she sarcastically replies that maybe he was too busy "lynching Negroes" to focus on Jews. Tenny pesters one of the flamenco dancers, believing that buying a magnum of champagne entitles him to have sex with her. She gives him the cabin number of Mrs. Treadwell. In a drunken stupor, Tenny barges into the cabin and accosts Mrs. Treadwell, who momentarily responds passionately until she realizes that he has mistaken her for a prostitute; she then hits him repeatedly and expels him from the cabin. The ship arrives in Tenerife, where the deported workers from steerage disembark. The doctor briefly considers staying with the Condesa, but the captain calls him foolish, contending that she manipulated him for drugs. After an emotionally painful farewell with the doctor, the Condesa is forced to exit the ship under Civil Guard escort. When the captain tells the distraught doctor she is not worth his anguish, the doctor explodes in a fit of pique, throwing cognac in his face and rebuking him, expressing that the Condesa took action against injustice, while they just carry out the orders they are given. Apologetic, the captain advises the doctor that he looks ill and should not respond to a call from a passenger for medical attention. The doctor ignores this and dies of a heart attack. Upon arrival in Bremerhaven his body is unloaded in a coffin with his estranged wife and sons in attendance. At disembarkation the passengers are shown descending in turn, going back to their ordinary lives. The last passenger to leave the ship is Glocken, who breaks the fourth wall and says he can hear the audience saying, " What has all this to do with us?...Nothing ", he chuckles and walks off.