Rhoda Williams, a brilliant 17-year-old girl who has spent her young life fascinated by astronomy, is delighted to learn that she has been accepted into MIT. She celebrates, drinking with friends, and in a reckless moment, drives home intoxicated. Listening to a story on the radio about a recently discovered Earth -like planet, she gazes out her car window at the stars and inadvertently hits a stopped car at an intersection, putting John Burroughs in a coma and killing his pregnant wife and young son. After serving her four-year prison sentence, Rhoda becomes a janitor at her former high school and struggles with guilt and regret. Hearing more news stories about Earth 2, Rhoda enters an essay contest sponsored by a millionaire entrepreneur who is offering a civilian space flight to Earth 2. One day Rhoda sees John laying a toy at the accident site. She visits his house, intending to apologize. He answers the door and she loses her nerve. Instead, she pretends to be a maid offering a free day of cleaning as a marketing tool for a cleaning service. John, who has dropped out of his Yale music faculty position, has been letting his home and himself go, and accepts Rhoda's offer. He has no idea who she is, and when she finishes asks her to come back the next week. In time, a caring relationship develops and they have sex. Rhoda wins the essay contest and is chosen to be one of the first to travel to Earth 2. John asks her not to go, believing they might have a future together. She finally decides to tell him the truth about who she is. He is upset and throws her out of the house. Rhoda hears an astrophysicist talking on television, describing a "broken mirror" hypothesis which states that upon the sighting of Earth 2 the synchronicity of events happening in both the Earths was broken. Rhoda rushes back to John's house, but he refuses to let her in. She breaks into his house, and he begins to strangle her. He stops, and when she recovers she tells him about the theory and that there might be a possibility for his family to still be alive on Earth 2 and leaves him the ticket. In time, she learns that John accepted the gift and becomes one of the first civilian space travelers to Earth 2. Four months later, on a foggy day, Rhoda approaches her house, discovering her other self from Earth 2 standing in front of her.

After separating from his wife, unemployed Danny Meyerowitz moves in with his father, Harold, a retired Bard College art professor and sculptor, and his fourth wife, Maureen, a pleasant but foggy hippie. Jean is his sister, and they have a younger half-brother, Matthew. Danny is close to his daughter, Eliza, a freshman film student at Bard. Eliza sends one of her sexually provocative films to the family, discomforting them. Some of Harold's work has been selected as part of a faculty group show at Bard, but he refuses to be part of a group show. Danny and Harold attend the MoMA retrospective of a friend and contemporary of Harold's, the successful L.J. Shapiro. There, neither father nor son feels comfortable; Harold feels that the art world has forgotten him, and chooses to literally run away down the street. Danny meets Shapiro's daughter, single mother Loretta, but is forced to leave to chase after Harold. Harold's younger son, Matthew, a successful financial advisor to rock stars on the West Coast in Los Angeles, is in New York on business, and meets Harold for lunch with an accountant friend. Matthew discusses raising his young son after separating from his wife, neither of whom Harold knows. They try to convince Harold to sell his Manhattan home and its sculpture. Harold tells them that the decision to sell the house is a private family decision, and walks out. At a third restaurant, he criticizes the prices, but orders lavishly when Matthew says he will pay. During lunch at the restaurant, Harold feels offended by the arrogant manner of another patron, and gets Matthew to chase him when he alleges that the patron swapped jackets with him. Although mistaken, father and son bond slightly in self-righteous indignation. That evening, they pay a visit to Matthew's mother and Harold's second wife, Julia, who has since married a man named Cody, a wealthy philistine. She tells them that she is sorry that she was not a better mother to Danny and Jean; her directness makes them uncomfortable, and they are eager to leave. Matthew resents Harold for preferring a life of art over money. "I beat you!", he screams at his father's departing Volvo. Harold is diagnosed with a chronic subdural hematoma. He enters the hospital, where, as the days pass, his children learn to manage his care, after first leaning on Harold's doctor and nurse to do it. Matthew and Maureen agree to sell the house that the latter grew up in without consulting anyone else in the family. Outside the hospital, Jean tells her brothers that Harold's friend Paul, who happens to be visiting at the moment, exposed himself and masturbated in front of her when she was a teenager. Upset with the revelation, Matthew and Danny damage Paul's car with mounting exhilaration. Jean expresses her disappointment in her brothers, having wanted someone to just listen to her instead of doing such damage without her consent. At Bard, representing their father at the faculty group show, Matthew and Danny argue over Eliza drinking alcohol, which turns into a fight about Harold's favoritism of Matthew and Matthew's estrangement from the rest of the family. Later, bloody and crying, Matthew ends up breaking down emotionally during his speech as he realizes he'll never achieve closure with Harold if he dies now. Danny undergoes surgery for his persistent limp, something his daughter and siblings had urged him to seek treatment for. As Harold convalesces at Maureen's place in the country (the townhouse was sold, despite Matthew's change of heart), it dawns on Matthew and Harold that Harold's favorite sculpture, titled "Matthew", a lifelong object of resentment for Danny and Jean, was likely based on his feelings for young Danny. Danny, who until now has been solicitous toward his father, refuses to care for him while Maureen is away, and accepts his brother's offer of a trip to California, but he forgives him for his failures as a dad. On the way to the flight, he meets Loretta, now single, and she suggests that they go together to the screening of a film that Eliza has made. In the basement of The Whitney, Eliza uncovers her grandfather's sculpture, long believed to have been lost.

Second-term Democratic U.S. President Jackson Evans must select a new Vice President following the sudden death of his vice president, Troy Ellard. The obvious choice seems to be Virginia Governor Jack Hathaway, who is hailed as a hero after he recently dove into a lake in a failed attempt to save a drowning woman. The President instead decides that his " swan song " will be helping to break the glass ceiling by nominating Ohio Senator Laine Hanson. In accordance with the 25th Amendment to the Constitution, approval from both houses of Congress is required. Standing in her way is Republican Congressman Sheldon Runyon of Illinois, who believes she is unqualified for the position, and backs Hathaway for the nod. His investigation into her background turns up an incident where she was apparently photographed participating in a drunken orgy as part of a sorority initiation. He is joined in his opposition by Democratic Representative Reginald Webster. The confirmation hearings begin in Washington, D.C., and Runyon, who chairs the committee, quickly addresses Hanson's alleged sexual imbroglio. Hanson refuses to address the incident, neither confirming nor denying anything, and tries to turn the discussion towards political issues. Anticipating that Hanson would deem her personal past "none of anyone's business", Runyon starts rumors in the media saying that the sexual escapade in college was done in exchange for money and favors, making it prostitution. Hanson meets with Evans and offers to withdraw her name, to save his administration more embarrassment. Despite the wishes of the administration, she refuses to fight back or even address Runyon's charges, arguing that to answer the questions dignifies them being asked in the first place—something she does not believe. Evans meets with Runyon, informing him he will not choose Hanson as vice president. Runyon casually brings forward Hathaway as a replacement. They make an agreement that Runyon will back down on his attacks if Evans chooses Hathaway as vice president. However, Evans requests Runyon to make a public statement defending Hathaway, which Runyon agrees to do. Hanson, Hathaway, and Runyon are all invited to the White House where Evans shocks them with an FBI report revealing that Hathaway paid the woman to drive off the bridge. Hathaway is arrested and Runyon is disgraced because he vouched for Hathaway's integrity just hours earlier. Evans meets with Hanson, and she finally tells what actually happened that night in college. She said that she did indeed arrive at a fraternity house to have sex with two men as part of an initiation, but changed her mind before any sex occurred. However, she did not prove her innocence, citing that by doing so will further the idea that it was acceptable to ask the questions in the first place. Evans addresses Congress, where he chastises all Democrats and Republicans who blocked Hanson's confirmation. He explicitly lambasts Runyon, who leaves in humiliation. Although he declares that Hanson had asked for her nomination to be withdrawn so he could finish his presidency with triumph over controversy, he remains adamant by rejecting her resignation and calls for an immediate confirmation vote.

A man narrates a letter addressing people he will miss. In the Indian Ocean eight days earlier, the man wakes to find water flooding his boat. It has collided with a wayward shipping container, ripping a hole in the hull. The man uses a sea anchor to dislodge the container, then changes course to tilt the boat away from the hole. He patches the hole and uses a manual bilge pump to remove the water from the cabin. The boat's navigational and communications systems have been damaged by saltwater intrusion. The man tries to repair the marine radio and connects it to one of the boat's batteries. When he climbs the mast to repair an antenna lead, he sees an oncoming tropical storm. When the storm arrives, the man runs before the wind. He intends to heave to, but as he crawls to the bow to hoist the storm jib, he is thrown overboard and regains the deck only after a desperate struggle. The boat capsizes and rights itself; during a second roll, which throws the man overboard again, the boat is dis-masted and most of the equipment is destroyed. After going below deck and being knocked out by colliding with a post, he regains consciousness to find the boat sinking, so he abandons ship in an inflatable life raft. When the storm has passed, he salvages whatever he can from his sinking boat and transfers it to the raft. Before the boat sinks, he tends to the gash on his forehead. As the man learns to operate a sextant, he discovers he is being pulled towards a major shipping lane by ocean currents. He survives another storm, but his supplies dwindle and he learns too late that his drinking water has been contaminated with sea water. He improvises a solar still from his water container, a plastic bag, and an aluminum can, producing fresh water, and he snags a fish, but it is snapped up by a shark before he can reel it in. The man's raft is passed by two container ships, but it is unseen despite his using signal flares. He drifts out of the shipping lane with no food or water. On the eighth day, he writes a letter, puts it in a jar, and throws it into the ocean as a message in a bottle. Later that night, he sees a light in the distance. He uses pages from his journal along with charts to create a signal fire. The fire grows out of control and consumes his raft. Falling into the water, he loses hope and attempts to drown himself. Underwater, he sees the hull of a boat with a search light approaching his burning raft. He swims towards the surface to grasp an outstretched hand.

Darius Britt is an intelligent but disillusioned graduate of the University of Washington who lives at home in Seattle with her widower father and works as an intern at Seattle Magazine. One of the magazine's writers, Jeff Schwensen, proposes to investigate a newspaper classified ad that reads: WANTED: Someone to go back in time with me. This is not a joke...You'll get paid after we get back. Must bring your own weapons. Safety not guaranteed. I have only done this once before. Jeff's boss Bridget approves of his story idea and Jeff selects his team: Darius and Arnau, a studious UW student interning at the magazine to diversify his résumé for medical school applications. They travel to the seaside community of Ocean View to find and profile the person who wrote the ad. Jeff's ulterior motive for this out-of-town assignment is to track down his long-lost love interest who lives in town. Darius discovers the ad was placed by Kenneth Calloway, a stock clerk at a local grocery store. Jeff's attempt to approach Kenneth alienates him, so Jeff orders Darius to make contact. Darius's disaffected attitude serves her well, and she quickly endears herself to Kenneth as she poses as a candidate to accompany him on his mission. While Kenneth is paranoid and believes secret agents are tracking his every move, Darius gains his trust as she participates in a series of training exercises in the woods around his house and she begins to develop feelings for him. She tells Kenneth about losing her mother when she was young and says that her mission is to prevent her mother's death. Kenneth says that his mission is to go back to 2001 and prevent the death of his former girlfriend, Belinda, who was killed when someone drove a car into her house. Meanwhile, Jeff tracks down Liz, a fling from his teenage years. Although she is not as attractive as he had recalled, they reconnect and sleep together. He asks her to come back with him to Seattle, but she believes this is just another fling for him, so she refuses. Upset by her rejection, Jeff takes Arnau out on the town and they pick up some young women. Jeff tells Arnau to not waste his youth and convinces him to spend the night with one of the women. The next morning, Jeff receives a phone call from Bridget, who has been following up the team's notes on the story. She informs Jeff that Belinda is still alive and lives an hour away from where they are. During an interview, Darius learns that Belinda was only friends with Kenneth, and that Kenneth was actually the one who had driven into her then-boyfriend's house, and that nevertheless no one had been injured. After the interview, Darius is questioned by two government agents who have been following Kenneth and believe that he may be a spy because of his communication with government scientists. They know Kenneth has been breaking into labs and stealing equipment. Darius returns to Kenneth's house to confront him, but Kenneth rationalizes that the reason Belinda is now alive is that his time travel mission succeeded. Jeff runs in to warn them that the government agents are also on the property. Kenneth panics and runs into the woods. Darius follows Kenneth, who has boarded his time machine, which has been integrated into a small boat on the lake. Darius apologizes for lying to Kenneth, tells him that everything else they shared was real, and joins him on the boat. Kenneth tells Darius that his mission is now only to go back for her. Jeff, Arnau, and the agents watch as Kenneth and Darius activate the time machine and vanish. A filmed interview, presumably from earlier, shows Kenneth explaining why he chose to enlist a partner for his time travels.

Robin "Rob" Feld is a reclusive truffle -forager who was once a renowned chef in Portland. Living in a cabin deep in the Oregon forests, he hunts for truffles with the help of his prized foraging pig. Rob sells the truffles exclusively to Amir, a young and inexperienced supplier of luxury ingredients to high-end restaurants. One night, Rob is attacked by unidentified assailants who beat him down before stealing his pig. He contacts Amir, who helps him locate a pair of bedraggled drug addicts suspected by another truffle hunter. The pair admit to the theft but say they did it only for the money and that the pig was taken to Portland. After his old friend Edgar refuses to help, Rob leads Amir to an underground fighting ring for restaurant people below the defunct Portland Hotel, saying certain names carry cachet. Rob identifies himself to the crowd before purposelessly throwing a fight (sustaining heavy injuries in the process) so Edgar can collect on a large bet in exchange for information. Shocked to learn his identity, the following morning Amir reveals that his parents had such a miserable marriage that the only happy time he remembers is a night when they had dinner at Rob's restaurant, before his mother died by suicide. Rob asks Amir to secure reservations at Eurydice, a trendy haute cuisine restaurant Amir's father does business with. Rob visits the house he used to live in with his wife Lori, whose death compelled Rob to withdraw to the woods. At Eurydice, Rob asks to meet with its head chef, Derek, a former prep cook at Rob's restaurant. Rob pointedly yet empathetically criticizes Derek for opening a contemporary restaurant rather than the pub he always wanted to run. Overwhelmed by the memory of his dream and the reality of his current circumstances, Derek confesses that Amir's wealthy father, Darius, was behind the theft of Rob's pig, having learned of its existence from Amir. Rob angrily ends his partnership with Amir before going to confront Darius at his home. Darius offers Rob $25,000 in exchange for the pig and threatens to kill it if Rob continues his pursuit. Rob leaves, finding Amir waiting outside, having just left his comatose mother in a care facility, revealing she is still alive. Rob admits he does not need his pig to hunt truffles, because the trees tell him where they are; he wants to find her simply because he loves her. He gives Amir a list of items and tells him to use Rob's name to obtain them. Rob visits his former baker for a salted baguette and a few pastries he shares with Amir before they go back to Darius's house. Rob guides Amir as they prepare the same meal for Darius that Rob served to him and his wife, including a rare wine from Rob's personal collection, which Amir obtained from the woman caring for the mausoleum containing Lori's ashes. All three men sit down to eat together, despite Darius's resistance. An emotional Darius leaves the table after just a few tastes. When Rob follows and confronts him, Darius asks why he is doing this, and Rob says he remembers every meal he ever cooked and every person he ever served. Darius tearfully confesses that the junkies he hired for the theft mishandled the pig, resulting in her death. Rob collapses in tears, and a remorseful Amir drives him back to a diner near Rob's home in the forest. Despite Amir's foolishness, Rob says he will see him next Thursday. Returning to his forest, Rob washes his bloody face in the lake, before returning to his cabin to play a tape Lori recorded of herself singing Bruce Springsteen 's " I'm on Fire " to him for his birthday.

In 1983, a highly realistic adult amusement park called Delos features three themed "worlds" — Western World (the American Old West), Medieval World (medieval Europe) and Roman World (the ancient city of Pompeii). The resort's worlds are populated with lifelike androids that are practically indistinguishable from human beings, each programmed in character for their historical environment. For $1,000 per day, guests may indulge in any adventure with the android population of the park, including sexual encounters and simulated fights to the death. Peter Martin, a first-time Delos visitor and his friend John Blane, on a repeat visit, go to Westworld. One of the attractions is the Gunslinger, an android whose programming allows guests to participate in gunfights using firearms that prevent them from shooting organic beings. After a night spent with two android prostitutes, John is accosted by the gunslinger Peter killed in the saloon the previous day and Peter once again shoots the android gunslinger dead. Peter is jailed for killing the gunslinger until John breaks him out. During their escape from town, a robotic rattlesnake bites John. The technicians running Delos notice the androids in Roman World and Medieval World experiencing various breakdowns and systemic failures, which may have also spread to Westworld. A serving wench android refuses a guest's advances in Medieval World and the failures escalate until Medieval World's Black Knight android kills a guest in a sword fight. The resort's supervisors try to regain control, but shutting down power to the park traps them in central control. The androids in all three worlds run amok, killing guests while operating on reserve power. Peter and John, recovering from a drunken bar-room brawl, wake up in Westworld's brothel, unaware of the park's breakdown. When the Gunslinger challenges them to a showdown in the street, John treats the confrontation as an amusement, but the android shoots him dead. Peter runs for his life through other areas of the park, pursued by the android. He encounters dead guests, damaged androids and a panicked technician attempting to escape Delos, who is killed by the Gunslinger. Peter descends into the underground control complex, finding the computer technicians asphyxiated. The Gunslinger stalks him into an underground android-repair laboratory. Peter pretends to be an android awaiting repairs, throws acid into the Gunslinger's face, and escapes to the surface inside the Medieval World castle. With damaged optical inputs, the Gunslinger tracks Peter using infrared scanners. Peter discovers burning torches mask his presence, and he sets the Gunslinger on fire and leaves it to burn. Peter encounters a chained woman in a dungeon, but giving her water causes her to short-circuit, revealing her to be an android. The burned shell of the Gunslinger attacks him once again before succumbing to its damage. Peter collapses on the dungeon steps, exhausted and shocked, as the memory of Delos' marketing slogan resonates: "Boy, have we got a vacation for you!"

Ko Yun-ju, an unemployed academic, lives in an apartment complex with his pregnant wife Eun-sil. He is struggling to become a professor and grappling with his strained relationship with Eun-sil. Searching for the barking dog of one of his neighbors, which is driving him crazy, he finds an unattended Shih Tzu. He tries to drop the dog from the roof, but hesitates and is stopped when an old woman comes to dry radishes there. He takes the dog into the basement and, being unable to hang it, locks it inside a cabinet. Park Hyun-nam, the lazy bookkeeper and custodian of the apartment complex, longs to be famous like a bank teller she and her friend Yoon Jang-mi saw on TV, who was rewarded for stopping a robbery. A little girl comes to Hyun-nam with flyers she wants to hang up in order to find her missing dog, the Shih Tzu. Yun-ju continues to hear barking, and sees the old woman from the roof with her Min Pin, the actual source of the noise. He reads on the flyer for the missing dog that it was unable to bark because of a throat operation. Realizing his mistake, he goes to the basement at night to free the dog from the cabinet, but hides when a janitor arrives. Yun-ju watches in horror as the janitor pulls out the dead Shih Tzu and prepares to cook and eat it. The next day, Yun-ju disguises himself and sneaks up on the old woman and steals her dog. Hyun-nam witnesses him throw the dog off the roof. Seeing an opportunity to achieve her dream of gaining fame, she chases Yun-ju, never seeing his face, but is knocked unconscious when she is hit by an opening door, and Yun-ju escapes. The old woman comes to Hyun-nam with "lost dog" flyers, and when Hyun-nam shows her the Min Pin's body, she faints from shock and is hospitalized. Hyun-nam gets the janitor to bury the Min Pin, but he digs up the body and takes it to the basement to make a stew. When he goes to get some seasoning, a homeless man living in the basement comes out and tastes the janitor's food. The janitor comes back to discover his stew is gone. As Yun-ju struggles to come up with the money needed to bribe his way into a professorial position, Eun-sil, who has lost her job, comes home with a Toy Poodle. She shows more affection for the dog, which she names Soon-Ja (Baby), than her husband, and treats Yun-ju like a servant. While in the park, Yun-ju becomes distracted and loses Soon-Ja. When Eun-sil scolds him for losing the dog, he snaps and accuses her of wasting money. Eun-sil tearfully tells him she bought the dog with a small portion of her severance pay and planned to give the rest to Yun-ju so he could become a professor. Shocked, Yun-ju makes up missing dog flyers and takes them to Hyun-nam, who offers to help him, but he gives up his search after nobody, not even the dog-eating janitor, seems to have Soon-Ja. While being berated for her sloppiness at work, Hyun-nam learns the old woman died from the shock of losing her dog, her only family, and left a letter bequeathing to Hyun-nam the dried radishes that are still on the roof. When Hyun-nam goes to get them, she discovers Soon-Ja with the homeless man, who kidnapped her, having developed a taste for dog meat. Hyun-nam rescues the dog and the man chases her through the apartment building. Jang-mi arrives and knocks out the homeless man, who is arrested by police, and Hyun-nam returns Soon-Ja to Yun-ju. Hyun-nam watches a news broadcast about the missing dogs, but sees no mention of herself, leaving her annoyed. Later that night, she finds a drunk Yun-ju on the sidewalk. Overcome with guilt after hearing she got fired for spending time looking for dogs, he confesses he was the man she saw throw the Min Pin off the roof. Some time later, Yun-ju has succeeded in becoming a professor, though he appears unsatisfied, and Hyun-nam goes on a long-awaited hike in the woods with Jang-mi.

In 1855, Edward Pierce, a member of London 's high society, is secretly a master thief. He plans to steal a monthly shipment of gold from the London-to- Folkestone train that is meant as payment for British troops fighting in the Crimean War. Two heavy safes in the baggage car guard the gold, each of which has two locks, requiring a total of four keys. Pierce recruits pickpocket and screwsman Robert Agar. Pierce's mistress Miriam and his chauffeur Barlow join the plot, and train guard Burgess is bribed into participation. To hide the robbers' intentions, wax impressions are to be made of each of the keys. Pierce ingratiates himself with Edgar Trent, the bank's president, by feigning a shared interest in ratting. He also begins courting Trent's daughter, Elizabeth, and learns from her the location of her father's key. Pierce and Agar break into Trent's home at night, locate the key and make a wax impression before making a getaway. Pierce targets Henry Fowler, the bank's manager, through his weakness for prostitutes. Miriam poses as "Madame Lucienne", a courtesan in an exclusive bordello, meets with Fowler and asks him to undress, forcing him to remove the key worn round his neck. While Miriam distracts Fowler, Agar makes an impression of his key. Pierce then stages a phony police raid to rescue Miriam, forcing Fowler to flee to avoid a scandal. The two remaining keys are locked in a cabinet at the offices of the South Eastern Railway at the London Bridge railway station. After a daytime diversionary tactic with a child pickpocket fails, Pierce decides to try again at night. The officer guarding the railway office at night leaves his post only once, for seventy-five seconds, to go to the toilet. Pierce plans to use cat burglar Clean Willy to climb the station's wall, climb down into the station, enter the office via a skylight in the ceiling, and open the key cabinet from within. Because Clean Willy is incarcerated at Newgate Prison, Pierce and Agar first have to arrange for him to break out, using a public execution as a distraction. With Willy's help, the criminals make impressions of the keys without detection. Clean Willy is subsequently arrested after being caught pick-pocketing and informs on Pierce. The police use Willy to lure Pierce into a trap, but the latter eludes capture. Clean Willy escapes from his captors, but Pierce finds him in a bar and murders him. The authorities, now aware of the upcoming robbery, increase security by having the baggage car padlocked from the outside until the train arrives at its destination and forbidding anyone but the guard to travel in the baggage van. Any container large enough to hold a man must be opened and inspected before it is loaded on the train. Pierce smuggles Agar into the baggage car disguised as a corpse in a coffin. Pierce plans to reach the car across the coach roofs while the train is under way, but he and Miriam encounter Fowler, who is riding the train to Folkestone to accompany the shipment. After arranging for Miriam to travel in the same compartment as Fowler to distract him, Pierce travels down the roof of the train and unlocks the baggage van's door from the outside. He and Agar replace the gold with lead bars and toss the bags of gold off the train at a prearranged point. However, soot from the engine's smoke has stained Pierce's skin and clothes, and he is forced to borrow Agar's suit, which is much too small for him. The jacket splits across the back when he disembarks at Folkestone. The police become suspicious and arrest him before he can rejoin his accomplices. Pierce is put on trial for the robbery. While exiting the courthouse, he receives the adulation of the crowds, who consider him a folk hero for his daring act. In the commotion, a disguised Miriam kisses him, slipping a key to his handcuffs from her mouth to his. Agar is also present, disguised as a police van driver. Before he can be put into the wagon, Pierce frees himself and escapes with Agar, to the jubilation of the crowd and the chagrin of the police.

Capricorn One—the first crewed mission to Mars—is on the launch pad. Just before liftoff, astronauts Charles Brubaker, Peter Willis, and John Walker are suddenly ordered out of the spacecraft by a NASA official. Bewildered, they are flown in secret to an abandoned military base in the desert. The launch proceeds on schedule, with the public unaware the spacecraft is empty. At the base, NASA head Dr. James Kelloway informs the astronauts that a faulty life-support system would have killed them in-flight. He says they must help counterfeit the televised footage during the flight to and from Mars. Another failed space mission would result in NASA's funding being cut and private contractors losing billions in profits. Kelloway threatens their families to force their cooperation. The astronauts are held captive during the spaceflight and appear to be filmed after landing on Mars, although they are actually inside an elaborate set at the base made to look like the surface of Mars. At the command center, only a few officials know about the conspiracy until an alert technician, Elliot Whitter, notices that ground control receives the crew's televised transmissions before the spacecraft telemetry arrives. Whitter reports this to his supervisors, including Kelloway, but is told it is due to a faulty workstation. Whitter partially shares his concerns with a TV journalist friend, Robert Caulfield. Whitter suddenly vanishes, and when Caulfield goes to Whitter's apartment the next day, he discovers someone else living there and that all evidence of Whitter's recent life has been erased. As Caulfield leaves, he survives a car crash into a river after his car had been tampered with. Upon returning to Earth, the empty spacecraft burns up during atmospheric reentry due to a faulty heat shield, which would have killed the astronauts had they been on board. The astronauts realize officials will need to kill them to keep the hoax a secret. They escape in a small jet which quickly runs out of fuel, forcing a crash-landing in the desert. They split up on foot to increase their chances of finding help and exposing the plot. Kelloway sends helicopters after them. Willis and Walker are found and killed, while Brubaker evades capture. Caulfield interviews Brubaker's "widow", Kay, after reviewing a televised conversation between the astronauts and their wives. Kay Brubaker had seemed confused when her husband mentioned their last family vacation. She explains that the family had actually gone to a different location, where a western movie was being filmed. Brubaker was intrigued by how special effects and technology made it seem real. Caulfield believes Brubaker would never make such a mistake and may have been sending his wife a message. Caulfield goes to the deserted western movie set and is shot at. As he investigates further, federal agents break into his home, arresting him for possessing cocaine that they planted there. His exasperated boss bails Caulfield out, then fires him. A reporter friend tells Caulfield about an abandoned military base located 300 miles (about 480 km) from Houston. The base is now deserted, but Caulfield finds a medallion belonging to Brubaker, confirming the astronauts were there. Caulfield hires a crop-dusting pilot named Albain to search the desert. They spot and follow two helicopters to a closed isolated gas station where Brubaker is hiding. They rescue him as he attempts to escape his pursuers. The helicopters chase their plane through a canyon but crash when Albain blinds them with crop spray, allowing the plane to get away. Caulfield and Brubaker arrive halfway through a memorial service being held for the three astronauts, where they are seen by Kelloway, Kay Brubaker, all assembled service attendees, and the television cameras that were present and covering the service for live broadcast.

Jay Bulworth, a Democratic U.S. Senator from California, faces a primary challenge from a fiery young populist. Once politically liberal, Bulworth has over time conceded to more conservative politics and to accepting donations from large corporations. While he and his wife have been having affairs with each other's knowledge for years, they maintain a happy facade for the sake of their public image. Tired of politics and unhappy with life, Bulworth makes plans to kill himself, and negotiates a $10 million life insurance policy with his daughter as the beneficiary. Knowing that a suicide would void the policy, he contracts to have himself assassinated within two days. He arrives extremely drunk at a Los Angeles campaign event, where he freely speaks his mind in the presence of the C-SPAN film crew following his campaign. After dancing all night in an underground club and smoking marijuana, he begins rapping in public. His frank, offensive remarks make him an instant media darling and re-energize his campaign. He becomes romantically involved with Nina, a young black activist, who begins to join him on campaign stops. He is pursued by the paparazzi, his insurance company, his campaign managers, and an increasingly adoring public, all the while awaiting his impending assassination. After a televised debate during which Bulworth derides insurance companies and the American healthcare system while drinking from a flask, he retreats to the home of Nina's family in impoverished South Central Los Angeles. He witnesses a group of children selling crack and intervenes to rescue them from an encounter with a racist police officer, and later discovers they work for L.D., a local drug kingpin to whom Nina's brother owes money. Bulworth eventually makes it to a television appearance arranged earlier by his campaign manager, during which he raps and repeats verbatim statements that Nina and L.D. have told him about the lives of poor black people and their opinions of various American institutions, such as education and employment. Eventually he offers the solution that "everybody should fuck everybody" until everyone is "all the same color," stunning the audience and his interviewer. Bulworth spends the film fearful of a man who had been following him under the assumption that he was the assassin trying to murder him. After the man finally pushes Bulworth to complete terror, he corners Bulworth on a set at the television studio and begins photographing Bulworth with Nina, revealing himself to be simply paparazzi. Bulworth, frustrated, flees with Nina, who reveals that she is the assassin he indirectly hired (ostensibly to make the money needed to pay off her brother's debt) and will now not carry out the job. Relieved, Bulworth falls asleep for the first time in days in Nina's arms. He sleeps for 36 hours, during which the media speculates over his sudden absence leading up to election day. Bulworth wins the primary in a landslide, and L.D. allows Nina's brother to work off the debt. Bulworth accepts a new campaign for the presidency during his victory speech, but is suddenly shot by Graham Crockett, an agent of the insurance company that was fearful of Bulworth's recent push for single-payer health care, who makes a quick escape. Bulworth's fate is left ambiguous. The final scene shows an elderly vagrant, whom Bulworth met previously, standing alone outside a hospital. He exhorts Bulworth, who is presumably inside, to not be "a ghost" but "a spirit" which, as he had mentioned earlier, can only happen if you have "a song". In the final shot of the film, he asks the same of the audience.

Returning from a Hong Kong business trip, Beth Emhoff meets up with a former lover during a Chicago layover. She feels slightly ill; two days later, back home in Minneapolis, she suffers a seizure and dies from an unknown illness. Her 6-year-old son, Clark, also dies. Beth's husband, Mitch, is isolated but found to be naturally immune. After being released, he quarantines with his teenage daughter, Jory, at home. In Atlanta, Department of Homeland Security representatives meet with Dr. Ellis Cheever of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) over concerns that the disease may be a bioweapon. He dispatches Dr. Erin Mears, an Epidemic Intelligence Service officer, to Minneapolis, where she traces everyone having had contact with Beth. She negotiates with reluctant local bureaucrats to commit resources for a public health response. Later, Mears becomes infected and dies, and is buried in a mass grave. As the novel virus spreads, citywide quarantine orders cause panic buying, widespread looting, and violence. At the CDC, Dr. Ally Hextall determines the virus is a combination of genetic material from pig and bat-borne viruses. Scientists are unable to discover a cell culture to grow the newly identified MEV-1 (Meningoencephalitis Virus 1). Cheever determines the virus too virulent to be researched at Biosafety level (BSL) 3 laboratories and restricts all work to BSL 4 labs only. Hextall orders University of California, San Francisco researcher Dr. Ian Sussman to destroy his samples. Believing he is close to finding a viable cell culture, Sussman secretly continues his research and identifies a usable cell culture from which Hextall develops a vaccine. Scientists determine MEV-1 is spread by respiratory droplets and fomites, with a basic reproduction number of four when the virus mutates; they project that 1 in 12 people on Earth will be infected, with a 25–30% mortality rate. Conspiracy theorist Alan Krumwiede claims he cured himself of the virus using a homeopathic cure derived from forsythia. People seeking forsythia violently overwhelm pharmacies. Krumwiede, having faked being infected to boost forsythia sales, is arrested for conspiracy and securities fraud, though his fanbase immediately bails him out. Meanwhile, Hextall inoculates herself with the experimental vaccine and then visits her infected father. She does not contract MEV-1, and the vaccine is declared successful. The CDC awards vaccinations by lottery based on birthdates. By this time, the death toll has reached 2.5 million in the U.S. and 26 million worldwide. Earlier in Hong Kong, World Health Organization (WHO) epidemiologist Dr. Leonora Orantes and public health officials comb through CCTV footage of Beth's contacts in a Macau casino and identify her as the index case. Government official Sun Feng, believing the US has secretly developed a vaccine, kidnaps and holds Orantes for months as leverage to obtain the first vaccines for his village. WHO officials provide the village with fake vaccines, and Orantes is released. Learning the vaccines were placebos, Orantes goes to warn the village. Meanwhile, life begins to return to normal, with public venues accessible for those with a vaccine bracelet. In a flashback to the spillover event, a bulldozer from Beth's company clears a tree in China, disturbing a bat colony. One bat takes shelter in a pig farm and drops a piece of infected banana, which is consumed by one of the pigs. The pig is slaughtered and prepared by a chef in a Macau casino, who, without washing his hands, transmits the virus to Beth via a handshake.