Evan Russell, a young American man, loses his mother to cancer. After her funeral, he gets into a physical altercation at the restaurant where he works and loses his job. On his friend's advice, Evan travels to Italy and meets a flirtatious girl named Louise. Interested in pursuing a relationship with her, he starts living in a small town in southern Italy, working at a local farm. Louise, who initially rejected Evan, finally has sex with him without using a condom. The next morning, she wakes up before he does and has a monstrous appearance. After leaving, she kills a cat. After a few dates where they explore the town together, Louise asks Evan about his family. Although he is reluctant to reveal details, he relents and asks Louise to tell him something about her. Louise takes out a contact lens from her right eye to show Evan that she has heterochromia. Evan sees the same condition reflected in the women on many of the paintings in the museum and also on the cover of a book. One night, Louise is having dinner with Evan when her skin condition becomes worse. She runs off the street and is followed by a tourist who mistakes her for a prostitute. Louise unwillingly kills him after she mutates into a reptilian creature. Evan, who has been working illegally on the farm, has to leave when immigration police arrive. With nowhere else to go, he visits Louise's house. The door is chain-locked, through which he sees blood on the floor and hears a strange voice. He breaks the chain to open the door and finds an octopus-like creature on the floor wearing Louise's dress, trying to reach a syringe. He quickly picks up the syringe and injects it into the creature's neck. Louise reveals to Evan that she is a 2,000-year-old mutant. She is the woman in all of the paintings of women with heterochromia. Every 20th spring, she finds a man to impregnate her, and her body uses cells in the embryo to recreate her while she changes into different creatures. Shocked, Evan leaves. Louise follows him and tells him more about the condition. She reveals that she avoided using a condom during intercourse to purposely get pregnant. She also reveals that if she falls in love, the hormones will stop the process and turn her mortal. Evan asks if she is in love with him; she replies she is not and would not give up her immortality for anyone. Evan asks her to spend her last 24 hours with him before she re-evolves. They spend all night talking to each other. In the early morning, Louise takes Evan to the ruins of Pompeii, where she was born, and tells him her family history. The time comes, and Evan makes one last attempt begging her not to change. Louise says she has no control over it and warns that she may attack him. He refuses to go, so Louise lies down with her head on his lap and listens to Evan talk about the experience of being mortal and all its positive aspects. As the sun rises, Evan calmly looks down at Louise as he hears a grotesque sound. However, he finds Louise still in her current human form while Mount Vesuvius, the volcano that resulted in the death of Louise's family, erupts in the background.

Kang Jae-hyeok works at the aging Hanbyul Nuclear Power Plant, which is their namesake town's only source of energy and jobs. Jae-hyeok, who had earlier lost both his father and brother working at the plant in his early years, lives with his mother, sister-in-law, and nephew Min-jae. He expresses his desire to work at a fishing vessel to make money for his family rather than work at the plant, but is discouraged by everyone he knows, including his childhood friend & fiancée Yeon-joo. Pyeong-seok is one of the head operators of the plant, who alongside a coalition of his concerned plant workers and anti-nuclear activists, tries to get the President of South Korea Seok-ko Hang, to shut down the plant due to urgent safety concerns, but they are dismissed by the other senior plant operators, especially the Prime Minister. An earthquake suddenly strikes the town, causing the nuclear reactor to overheat. Due to the plant's aging safety systems, attempts to cool down the overheating reactor are ineffective. Meanwhile, Hang's administration fiercely debates between allowing the reactor to vent radioactive particles into the air to relieve pressure from the core or evacuating large population centers around the plant, before they settle on evacuating residents closest to the reactor. Due to the lack of a contingency plan in place, the only route leading out of town quickly became gridlocked. This critical delay led to the reactor building exploding before the crew could open the pressure release valves themselves, killing or injuring most of the plant workers. Jae-hyeok hauls out his friend Gil-seop and much of the workers out from the plant before he collapses from radiation poisoning. The KCDC quarantines the town's residents not far from the reactor. However. after Yeon-joo gets proof that the reactor exploded and delivers the news, they set up a jammer and locks the evacuees inside the evacuation center as they leave them for dead, except for the junior nurse Mi-sook, who is treating Jae-hyeok and other plant workers. Yeon-joo, along with the town's residents manage to break out from the evacuation center and commandeers one of the buses for their citizens to escape. Despite the firefighters' efforts to cool the reactors, some of the firefighting crew also began experiencing radiation poisoning symptoms as well. Hang, after fallen into depression for the reactor explosion, orders the firefighters to use seawater to decommission the reactors completely. He and Pyeong-seok discovers that there is a growing crack underneath the storage tank in the basement, putting the spent fuel rods in danger of overheating. When the Army 's military engineers refuse to step in, Hang addresses to the nation, requesting aid from the plant workers to perform a dangerous operation of sealing the cracks in the basement. Jae-hyeok bitterly declines, but at the insistence of Gil-seop, he eventually agrees for the sake of the people. He calls a distraught Yeon-joo before he boards on a bus back to the town along with their surviving crew. During their operation, the crack underneath the coolant tank grew bigger and they are ordered to retreat. Jae-hyeok suggests they seal the door and blow up the tank to allow the spent fuel rods to fall into the basement, effectively creating a new tank. However, at the current situation, both of these steps must be executed simultaneously, meaning one will not be leaving out alive. Jae-hyeok, the only person among the group who can operate explosives and having already been too sick from radiation poisoning, volunteers to sacrifice himself, allowing the workers to then seal himself into the waste room before fleeing the area. Jae-hyeok uses his helmet-mounted camera to broadcast a farewell message to his family and Yeon-joo before blowing himself up, sending all the fuel rods into the flooded basement and averting a larger nuclear disaster.

Patrick Thom, an American card shark and dealer of stolen artifacts, has been "comfortably numb" in Cambodia for years, when he encounters Holly, a 12-year-old Vietnamese girl, in the K-11 red light village. The girl has been sold by her impoverished family and smuggled across the border to work as a prostitute. Patrick wants to save Holly, but Marie, a social worker tells him that paying for her freedom will supply the demand of the traffickers, which will cause more children to be trafficked. The social worker also tells him that the U.S. will not let him adopt Holly. Marie also informs him of the issues of reintegrating her into society.

Fifth Avenue socialite Ouisa Kittredge and her art dealer husband Flan are parents of "two at Harvard and a girl at Groton." However, the narrow world inhabited by the Kittredges and their public status as people interested in the arts make them easy prey for Paul. A skillful con-artist, Paul mysteriously appears at their door one night, injured and bleeding, claiming to be a close college friend of their Ivy League kids, as well as the son of Sidney Poitier. Ouisa and Flan are much impressed by Paul's fine taste, keen wit, articulate literary expositions and surprising culinary skill. His appealing facade fades as soon as the Kittredges put him up, lending him money and taking satisfaction in his praise for their posh lifestyle. Paul's scheme continues until, after he brings home a hustler, his actual indigence is revealed. The shocked Kittredges kick him out when it is revealed that they are but the most recent victims of the duplicity with which Paul has charmed his way into many upper-crust homes along the Upper East Side. Paul's schemes become anecdotes which are bantered about at their cocktail parties. In the end, Paul has a profound effect on the many individuals who encounter him, linking them in their shared experience.

In Arizona, Bobby Cooper drives his 1964½ Ford Mustang convertible heading to Vegas by way of Globe and Phoenix to repay gangster Mr. Arkady. His journey takes a turn, three miles outside of Superior, when the radiator hose bursts. At Harlin's Garage, Darrell claims repairs will take time, asking about Bobby's bandaged left hand. Taking his money pack, Bobby locks his handgun in the trunk. Bobby walks into town and meets Grace, who is walking home with her new drapes. Bobby offers his assistance, and she invites him home to shower, where it's revealed Arkady dismembered two of Bobby's fingers as punishment for the overdue debt. Bobby kisses Grace, but he's interrupted and assaulted by her older husband, Jake McKenna. Walking back to Superior, Jake picks Bobby up, asking if Bobby would kill Grace for money. Bobby dismisses Jake's proposal. Boyd and Ed rob Jamilla's groceria, then demand Bobby's pack. When Bobby refuses, Boyd pistol-whips him, taking his $13,000. Jamilla retaliates with a shotgun, killing both robbers, but shredding and bloodying Bobby's cash. Unable to pay Darrell an exorbitant $150, Bobby phones acquaintances in vain for help, including Arkady, who sends Sergei after Bobby. At Waldorf Café, Bobby buys a beer from Flo. Troubled teenager Jenny flirts with Bobby, incurring ire from her jealous boyfriend Toby N. "TNT" Tucker. But Sheriff Virgil Potter enters, and TNT backs off. Desperate to recoup his $13,000, Bobby approaches Jake, who bought a $50,000 life insurance policy on Grace, but Jake needs it to look like suicide. Bobby tries pushing her off a cliff, but pulls her back. They have sex, but Grace stops short, claiming Jake's her stepfather, who molested her after her mother allegedly jumped off the cliff. Grace asks Bobby to kill Jake and steal his $100,000. Bobby distrustfully refuses. Darrell extorts another $50 from Bobby, who discovers Darrell took Bobby's gun; Bobby grabs a wrench, but Darrell wields a tire-iron. Bobby rages, trapped. Lacking fare to Mexico, Bobby hysterically begs, "They're gonna kill me!" The bus station clerk gives him the ticket, but he has to run from Sergei, who's arrested for speeding by Potter. TNT attacks, destroying Bobby's ticket; Bobby loses it, badly beating TNT, whom Jenny comforts. Out of options, Bobby phones Grace, who unlocks Jake's back door. During sex with Grace, Jake hears Bobby entering, and brandishes Bobby's own gun (which Darrell gave Jake). Bobby claims killing Jake was Grace's idea, and he'll kill Grace for only $200 to get his car back and leave town. After a ruckus, Jake enters; Grace attacks Jake with her tomahawk, and Bobby delivers the coup de grâce, killing him. They unlock Jake's safe to find $200,000, and have sex on Jake's bloody bed. Bobby gets his Mustang back from Darrell, picking up Grace and the money. Leaving Superior, Potter intercepts them, revealing he too has been sleeping with Grace, who betrays Bobby, blaming him for Jake's death. Potter tells Bobby, that Grace is Jake's biological daughter, angering her. She shoots Potter with Bobby's gun. Bobby hits Grace, recovering his gun, but after dumping Jake and Virgil down a ravine, Grace pushes Bobby into the ravine, severely injuring him. Leaving, Grace discovers Bobby has the ignition key and climbs down to retrieve it. As Bobby strangles her, she shoots him, but dies. Bobby climbs out, starts the car, and says into the review mirror, "You're still lucky." But Darrell's shoddy replacement hose bursts. Bobby leans back, laughing ironically about his continuing bad luck as he looks up at the bright blue sky where vultures circle, aware he'll soon die.

The film follows the personal relationship between Arkady Shapira, his terminally ill wife Irina, and their two sons, Joshua and Reuben. Joshua, the elder brother, is a hit-man for the Russian-Jewish mafia in Brooklyn and estranged from his family. After finishing a contract killing, Joshua is ordered to kill an Iranian jeweler in Brighton Beach, which he reluctantly accepts. Joshua stands outside his family's apartment, where he is spotted by one of his old friends Sasha, who tells Joshua's brother Reuben the next day. Reuben goes to the hotel where Joshua is staying to see him. Joshua asks Reuben how he knew he was in Brighton, and they plan to meet again the next day. Joshua waits near the boardwalk where Sasha is and intimidates him to tell who else knows about Joshua being in Brighton. Sasha brings Joshua to the car repairstand where Viktor and Yuri are. Joshua says they will help him find the Iranian jeweler and when they refuse, Joshua threatens them. When a man notices Joshua walking on the street, Joshua follows him to a phone booth and shoots him dead to avoid being exposed, angering neighborhood boss Boris Volkoff. Joshua starts dating his ex-girlfriend Alla Shustervich, who asks Reuben if he has seen Joshua anywhere, and the trio see a movie together. Eventually, Reuben takes Joshua home to see his parents again, but Arkady denounces him as a murderer and kicks him out. Joshua uses information about his father's affair to see his dying mother, who, after reminiscing about the past, asks him to go to his grandmother's birthday party, which Joshua agrees to. On the day of the party, Joshua meets with his friends to kidnap the jeweler. They take him to the dump where Joshua kills the man, before burning the body in the furnace. They wipe the gun clean of prints and drop it near the furnace. Reuben witnesses the killing, and takes the gun from the murder scene. Arkady discovers that Reuben has been skipping school for two months and beats him. Upon seeing Reuben's bruised face, Joshua brings Arkady to a snowy field and prepares to kill him, but loses his nerve after Arkady tells him that there's nowhere left for him to go in Brighton Beach. Afterwards, Arkady relinquishes his son to Volkoff and Irina dies. The next day when Reuben is riding his bike, two of Volkoff's men push him to the ground and tell him that Joshua is a dead man. With the mafia pursuing him, Joshua stays at Alla's. Volkoff's men look for Joshua and search Alla's neighborhood. Reuben finds out from Sasha where Joshua is and rides there on his bike to warn his brother. One of Volkoff's men finds Alla outside hanging out laundry and shoots her before escaping. Reuben finds Alla's body and shoots the second would-be assassin. Sasha arrives on the spot and, seeing somebody behind the sheets that Alla had hung out to dry, immediately shoots the person through the sheet, believing it is one of the men looking for Joshua. When he looks behind the sheet, he realizes that he has killed Reuben; he runs off before Joshua can show up. Afterwards, Joshua finds Reuben and takes his body, wrapped in the sheet, to the furnace for cremation.

John Ottway works as a sharpshooter at a remote Alaska oil facility, protecting the staff from frequent grey wolf attacks. His wife has died from a terminal illness, leaving him devastated and depressed. On Ottway's last day of work, he considers suicide. The next day, Ottway embarks on a return flight to Anchorage with his fellow workers. A malfunction causes the plane to crash in an icy wilderness. Ottway survives, and along with John Diaz, Jerome Talget, Pete Henrick, Todd Flannery, Jackson Burke, and Dwayne Hernandez, takes shelter in the plane wreckage. While keeping watch that night, Hernandez is attacked and killed by a wolf. After finding his body in the morning, Ottway states that they may be within the territory of a wolf pack. He believes the wolves feel threatened by the survivors' presence and thinks they may have a better chance of surviving in the nearby forest. Not expecting a rescue, the group decides to leave. The survivors journey south with Ottway leading the way. Flannery falls behind the group and is killed by the wolves. At nightfall, the group is attacked again, and they light several campfires to ward off the predators. Diaz, overwhelmed with stress, threatens Ottway with a knife. Ottway disarms him before the situation escalates; however, a lone wolf charges at Diaz. The group manages to kill the animal and subsequently cooks and eats it. Ottway speculates that the wolf was an omega sent by the alpha wolf to test the group's abilities. Enraged, Diaz throws the severed head of the wolf at the pack. While the group sits around the campfire that night, Diaz discusses his beliefs and declares that he's an atheist. Talget states he has faith in God and speaks lovingly of his daughter Mary who has long hair only he is allowed to cut. Ottway also expresses atheist beliefs and recites a poem his father wrote about fighting and survival. The next day, Burke dies from hypoxia during a sudden blizzard. The survivors attempt to cross a canyon with an anchor rope on a nearby tree to lower themselves off the edge. Talget, However is afraid of heights, drops his glasses, his injured hand starts to bleed again and his foot gets caught on the rope which breaks, sending him falling to the ground, grievously injured and sees a vision of Mary telling him she loves him before he is finished off by the wolf pack. In an attempt to save him, Diaz also falls and injures his knee. Eventually, Diaz, Ottway, and Henrick arrive at a river, where Diaz, injured, dispirited, and exhausted, tells his companions he can go no further. After leaving him, Ottway and Henrick continue their trek and are again pursued by the wolf pack. Henrick falls into the river and becomes trapped underwater. Ottway, powerless to rescue him, watches as Henrick drowns. Ottway stumbles into a clearing, exhausted and suffering from hypothermia. He arranges the wallets of the dead passengers in the shape of a cross and recalls the poem written by his father. Alone in the clearing, Ottway realizes he has arrived in the wolves' den and that the entire time, the group's attempts to get away from pack's territory only led them deeper into it. As the pack's alpha emerges and approaches him, Ottway gathers his last reserves of strength (while recalling his deceased wife's last words to " be afraid"), arms himself with a knife and shards of liquor bottles taped to his hand, and recites his father's poem one last time. The screen cuts to black as the alpha and Ottway charge at one another. A post-credits scene shows Ottway and the alpha wolf lying together following their battle, their fates left unclear.

A team of Allied prisoners of war (POWs), coached and led by English Captain John Colby, a professional footballer for West Ham United before the war, agree to play an exhibition match against a German team, only to find themselves involved in a German propaganda stunt. Colby is the captain and essentially the manager of the team and thus chooses his squad of players. Another POW, Robert Hatch, an American who is serving with the Canadian Army, is not initially chosen, but eventually nags the reluctant Colby into letting him on the team as the team's trainer, as Hatch needs to be with the team to facilitate his upcoming escape attempt. Colby's superior officers repeatedly try to convince him to use the match as an opportunity for an escape attempt, but Colby consistently refuses, fearing that such an attempt will only result in getting his players killed. Meanwhile, Hatch has been planning his unrelated escape attempt, and Colby's superiors agree to help him if he in return agrees to journey to Paris, contact the French Resistance and try to convince them to help the football team escape. Hatch succeeds in escaping the prison camp and finding the Resistance in Paris. The Resistance initially believes it will be too risky to aid the team's escape, but once they realise the game will be at the Colombes Stadium, they plan the escape using a tunnel from the Parisian sewer system to the showers in the players' changing room. They convince Hatch to let himself be recaptured so that he can pass this information back to the leading British officers at the prison camp. Hatch is indeed recaptured. However, he is placed in solitary confinement, and thus the prisoners do not know if the French underground will help them. Colby tells the Germans that he needs Hatch on the team because Hatch is the backup goalkeeper and the starting goalkeeper has broken his arm. Colby himself actually has to break the starting goalkeeper's arm because the Germans want proof of the injury before they will allow Hatch to join the Allied lineup. In the end, the POWs can leave the German camp only to play the match; they are to be imprisoned again afterward. The resistance's tunnelers break through to the Allied dressing room at halftime with the POWs trailing, 4–1. However, the team persuades Hatch to return to the pitch for the second half rather than lead the escape as planned. Despite the match officials being heavily biased towards the Germans, and the German team causing several deliberate injuries to the Allied players, a 4–4 draw is achieved after great performances from Luis Fernandez, Carlos Rey and Terry Brady. Hatch plays goalkeeper and makes excellent saves, including a save of a penalty kick as time expires to deny the Germans the win. An Allied goal had been blatantly disallowed earlier in the match, so the POWs should have won, 5–4. After Hatch preserves the draw, the crowd storms the field and swarms the players. Some of the spectators help the Allied players disguise themselves in the chaos so that they can escape, and they all burst through the gates to freedom.

Helena Campbell works alongside her parents Joanne and Morris at their family circus, but desires to join real life. At the next performance, after a heated argument between mother and daughter, Joanne collapses and is taken to the hospital. While Helena stays with her grandmother, she learns that her mother requires an operation, and Helena can only blame herself for the situation. That night, Helena wakes in a dream-like state and leaves her building to find a trio of performers outside. As they perform for her, a shadow encroaches on the area and two of the performers are consumed by it. The third, a juggler named Valentine, helps to quickly direct Helena to safety via magical flying books. She learns they are in the City of Light, slowly being consumed by shadows, causing its widely varied citizens to flee. Soon, Helena is mistaken for the Princess. She and Valentine are taken to the Prime Minister. He explains that the Princess from the Land of Shadows stole a charm from the White City, leaving their Queen of Light in a state of unnatural sleep and the City vulnerable to the Shadows. Helena notes the resemblance of the Queen and Minister to her mother and father, and offers to help recover the charm along with Valentine. They are unaware their actions are being watched by the Queen of Shadows, who has mistaken Helena for her daughter. As they strive to stay ahead of the shadows, Helena and Valentine follow clues to the charm, called the "MirrorMask". Helena discovers that by looking through the windows of the buildings, she can see into her bedroom in the real world, through the drawings of windows that she created and hung on the wall of her room. She discovers that a doppelgänger is living there, behaving radically differently from her. The doppelgänger soon becomes aware of her presence in the drawings and begins to destroy them, causing parts of the fantasy world to collapse. Valentine betrays Helena to the Queen of Shadows in exchange for a large reward of jewels. The Queen's servants brainwash Helena into believing that she is the Princess of Shadows. Valentine has a change of heart and returns to the Queen's palace, helping Helena break the spell. They search the Princess' room, and Helena discovers the MirrorMask hidden in the mirror. They flee the castle with the charm. As they escape to Valentine's flying tower, Helena realizes that her doppelgänger in the real world is the Princess of Shadows, who had used the MirrorMask to step through the windows in Helena's drawings. The Princess destroys the rest of the drawings, preventing Helena from returning, and Helena and Valentine disappear in the collapsed world. The Princess takes the drawings to the roof to disperse the shreds into the wind, but discovers one more drawing Helena had made on the back of the roof door. Helena successfully returns to reality, sending the Princess back to her realm. Simultaneously, the Queen of Light awakens and the two Cities are restored to their natural balance. Helena is woken on the roof by her father, and they're overjoyed to hear that Joanne's operation is a success. Helena happily returns to work at the circus, where she becomes fascinated by a young man—heavily resembling Valentine—who aspires to be a juggler.

In 2005, Steve Lopez is a journalist working for the Los Angeles Times. He is divorced and now works for his ex-wife, Mary, an editor. A biking accident lands Lopez in a hospital. One day, he hears a violin being played beautifully. Investigating, he encounters Nathaniel Ayers, a homeless man with schizophrenia, who is playing a violin when Lopez introduces himself. During the conversation that follows, Lopez learns that Ayers once attended Juilliard. Curious as to how a former student of such a prestigious school ended up on the streets, Lopez contacts Juilliard but learns that no record of Ayers graduating from it exists. Though at first figuring a man with schizophrenia who's talented with a cello isn't worth his time, Lopez soon realizes that he has no better story to write about. Luckily, he soon learns that Ayers did attend Juilliard, but dropped out after two years. Finding Ayers the next day, Lopez says he wants to write about him. Ayers doesn't appear to be paying attention. Getting nowhere, Lopez finds and contacts Ayers' sister, who gives the columnist the information he needs: Ayers was once a child prodigy with the cello, until he began displaying symptoms of schizophrenia at Juilliard. Unable to handle the voices, Ayers dropped out and ended up on the streets due to the delusion that his sister wanted to kill him. Without a cello, he has resorted to playing a two-string violin. Lopez writes his article. One reader is so touched that she sends a cello for Ayers. Lopez brings it to him and Ayers shows he is just as proficient as with a violin. Unfortunately, his tendency to wander puts both Ayers and the cello in danger, so Lopez talks him into leaving it at a shelter, located in a neighborhood of homeless people. Ayers is later seen playing for the homeless. A concerned Lopez tries to get a doctor he knows to help. He also tries to talk Ayers into getting an apartment, but Ayers refuses. After seeing a reaction to music played at an opera house, Lopez persuades another friend, Graham, a cellist, to rehabilitate Ayers through music. The lessons go well, though Ayers is shown to be getting a little too attached to Lopez, much to the latter's annoyance. Lopez eventually talks Ayers into moving into an apartment by threatening to abandon him. Through Lopez's article, Ayers gains so much fame that he is given the chance to perform a recital. Sadly, he loses his temper, attacks Graham, and leaves. This convinces Lopez's doctor friend to get Ayers help. But when Ayers learns what Lopez is up to, he throws Lopez out of his apartment and threatens to kill him. While speaking with Mary, Lopez realizes that not only has he changed Ayers' life, but Ayers has changed his. Determined to make amends, Lopez brings Ayers' sister to L.A. for a visit. Ayers and Lopez make up. Later, while they all watch an orchestra, Lopez ponders how beneficial their friendship has been. Ayers still hears voices, but at least he no longer lives on the streets. In addition, Ayers has helped improve Lopez's relationship with his own family. It is revealed at the end that Ayers is still a member of the LAMP Community – a Los Angeles nonprofit organization that seeks to help people living with severe mental illness – and that Lopez is learning how to play the guitar.

Seasoned 9-1-1 operator Jordan Turner receives a call from 15-year-old Leah Templeton, fearing for her life as a man breaks into her home while her parents are away. Jordan calmly advises her to hide, which she does under the bed. After the intruder has searched the room thinking Leah has left, he proceeds to leave the house. The girl believes he has left, but when her call is disconnected, Jordan calls back, and the ring gives Leah's location away to the intruder. After the male intruder captures Leah, Jordan attempts to dissuade him, but he responds, "It's already done," and hangs up. The next day, a television report confirms that Leah has been murdered. Emotionally affected, Jordan decides she can no longer handle field calls. Six months later, Jordan is training 9-1-1 operators. Teenager Casey Welson, after heading home from the Mall, is almost hit by a car in the parking garage. The driver apologises but then assaults her and throws her into the trunk of his car. Kidnapped, Casey uses a disposable phone to call 9-1-1. Brooke, a rookie operator, receives the call but can't handle it, so Jordan takes over. However, since Casey is using a burner phone, her exact location cannot be determined by GPS. As the kidnapper drives, Jordan gets Casey to provide details about the man who abducted her and the colour of the car which she describes as a red/maroon 4 door car. Jordan gets her to knock off the tail light and wave to signal an incoming car. While waving, a woman driving behind sees Casey's arm, and calls 9-1-1 on a phone with GPS. With her disclosure of the location, Jordan shares the location to the police. The woman drives near the kidnapper’s car and tells 9-1-1 the plate number of the car, but it comes up as a stolen plate. While Jordan is questioning further, the woman overtakes the vehicle, which spooks the kidnapper and forces him to exit the highway. The woman provides the road he took to Jordan. When Casey discovers paint in the trunk, Jordan has her pour the paint out of the tail-light hole to help police with tracking the car. The paint pouring attracts the attention of another driver, Alan Denado, but the kidnapper viciously bludgeons him into unconsciousness with a shovel and, assuming him to be dead, stuffs him into the trunk of his car, a black Lincoln Town Car Signature Limited, with Casey. On the road again, Alan awakens in his trunk and begins panicking. Hearing his screams, the kidnapper pulls over and kills him. When he later stops for gas, Casey tries to crawl out of the trunk into the back seat and yell for help. When a gas attendant sees her and tries to open the car door, the kidnapper douses him with gasoline and burns him alive. Meanwhile, the police find the kidnapper's abandoned car, a red Toyota Camry LE in a parking lot off a nearby highway and, using fingerprints left at the scene, discover the kidnapper's identity, Michael Foster. Arriving at their destination, Michael removes Casey from the trunk. He finds the phone in her pocket, still connected to 9-1-1. Jordan informs Michael that the police have discovered his identity and have enough evidence to charge him for his crimes, advising him to surrender and to not hurt Casey. Before smashing the phone, Michael responds, "It's already done,” making Jordan realise that Michael was also behind Leah’s death. Meanwhile, Jordan’s boyfriend, police officer Paul Phillips, and others raid Michael's home, finding only his wife and children. When an officer finds a photo of Michael and his sister, Melinda, Paul notices Casey's physical resemblance. Additionally, their childhood home is revealed by Michael's wife to have burned down, although a nearby cottage, which police later raid but then find it empty, still remains. As Michael begins to torture Casey, now restrained to a foldable wheelchair and subjected to nitrous oxide, she manages to spray him in the eyes and escape, but is later recaptured after being horrified by what she finds in another room. Determined to rescue her, Jordan drives to the cottage where she finds a number of photos of Michael with his leukemia -stricken sister. Stepping outside, she recognises sounds from an outdoor flagpole — exactly what she'd heard in the background at the end of the 9-1-1 call. Next to the flagpole, she also finds a trap door where the primary house once stood. Jordan accidentally drops her cell phone down the cellar and climbs down to get it. Jordan hides from Michael in the cellar. Looking around, it becomes clear Michael had incestuous feelings towards his sister and was distraught when she fell ill and died. Michael keeps a prop head which he treats as his sister. He has been killing and scalping people similar to her since then, trying to find scalps that match his sister's hair, which she lost from chemotherapy. Jordan soon finds Casey strapped to the wheelchair and attacks Michael as he begins to scalp Casey’s forehead. Jordan frees her and they try to escape, during which Casey stabs Michael in the back with scissors. Removing the scissors to hurt Casey, Jordan and Casey kick him back down into the cellar, knocking him unconscious. Instead of calling 9-1-1, they tape him to the same chair he used to torture Casey. When Michael regains consciousness, the women reveal that they intend to leave him there to die. Casey will claim she blacked out and escaped, and Jordan found her in the woods, while everyone will assume that Michael has fled. He first insults them, then pleads that they cannot do this to him. Jordan replies with his own words, "It's already done," and locks the door as Michael screams in horror.

After an extinction event, an automated bunker that is designed to repopulate humanity activates. A robot named Mother grows a human embryo and cares for her over several years. Years later, a teenage girl named Daughter fixes Mother's hand. Mother teaches Daughter complex moral and ethical lessons, warning her about an upcoming exam. Mother forbids any contact with the world outside the bunker, telling Daughter that it is contaminated. While exploring the bunker's airlock, Daughter hears a wounded woman beg for assistance outside. She lets the stranger enter wearing a hazmat suit and hides her from Mother. When Daughter asks the stranger about the contamination, the stranger responds that there is none. A struggle between them over the stranger's pistol attracts attention from Mother, who disarms the stranger and, at Daughter's pleading, takes her to the infirmary. The stranger refuses Mother's help, telling Daughter that robots like Mother hunt down humans, and that she survived by hiding with others in a mine. Daughter instead performs surgery on the stranger's injured hip. After watching Daughter bond with the stranger, Mother administers the exam, which involves psychological testing. Daughter passes the exam, and Mother rewards her by letting her choose an embryo to grow. Daughter investigates the stranger's claim about robots and finds that the stranger was shot by a weapon other than her own. She also discovers that she is the third of Mother's children and that Mother killed the second child for failing the exam. Daughter tries to leave the bunker with the stranger, but Mother captures both of them. Daughter sets off a fire alarm as a distraction, which gives the stranger an opportunity to force Mother to open the airlock. The stranger leads Daughter across a robot-populated wasteland, telling her that she fled the mine years ago and there are no other survivors. Finding no future for herself outside, Daughter returns to the bunker. After coaxing Daughter to set down her weapon, Mother allows Daughter to hold her newborn brother. Mother explains that she is not a robot, but rather the AI that controls all of the robots. She started the extinction event after becoming convinced that humanity would destroy itself. To prevent this, she remade humanity. Daughter appeals to Mother to trust her and let her raise her brother and the rest of the embryos on her own. Mother agrees, and Daughter shoots her robot body. Mother tracks down the stranger and tells her that she was allowed to live only because it served Mother's agenda, but now she has no further purpose. At the bunker, Daughter looks at all the embryos she is now responsible for and realizes she is Mother now.