Abby, an American, has moved to Tokyo to be with her boyfriend Ethan, and meets British expatriate Charlie and American hostess Gretchen. Ethan breaks up with her before leaving for Osaka, and a heartbroken Abby visits a nearby ramen shop run by chef Maezumi and his wife Reiko, who do not speak English. Abby does not understand Japanese, but the chef kindly brings her a bowl of ramen. Loving the meal, she hallucinates the shop's maneki-neko beckoning to her, and Maezumi and Reiko refuse to let her pay. The next day, Abby returns to the shop, where she and another patron break into uncontrollable giggles as they eat. Coming back the following day, she insists on helping an injured Reiko serve customers. When the night is through, Maezumi and Reiko find Abby asleep in the back and shoo her out, but she realizes she wants to learn the art of ramen. Rushing back, she begs Maezumi to teach her, and he reluctantly agrees. He treats her harshly, hoping she will quit, but she perseveres and charms the customers as the shop's new waitress. After her constant voicemails for Ethan go unanswered, Abby enjoys a rare night off with Charlie and Gretchen, and strikes up a connection with Toshi Iwamoto. The chaotic Gretchen comes to stay with Abby, who bonds with Toshi over the unexpected directions their lives have taken, and he and Abby enjoy a date at the Shin-Yokohama Ramen Museum. When Maezumi's rival Udagawa brags that a Grand Master chef will soon determine if his son is worthy of carrying on the family ramen tradition, Maezumi drunkenly declares that Abby will be tested as well. Fed up with Maezumi's treatment, Abby questions him about the collection of letters and photos she has seen him cry over. He storms off, and Reiko explains that the mail is from their son Shintaro, a chef in Paris, whom Maezumi has not spoken to in five years since he left for France. Toshi reveals his job is sending him to Shanghai for the next three years, and asks Abby to come with him, but she chooses to stay. Insisting that Abby's cooking has no soul, Maezumi brings her to his mother, who tells her, in Japanese, that she must cook from the heart; Abby confesses that she has been unlucky in love, leaving only pain, and Maezumi's mother suggests putting her tears in her ramen. Abby prepares her broth while crying, and serves it to a table of regular customers, inspiring tearful reactions from everyone who tastes it, including Maezumi. The Grand Master arrives, and after a few sparing bites of the ramen prepared by Udagawa's son, gives him his blessing. At Maezumi's shop, the Master heartily enjoys Abby's unconventional "Goddess Ramen", but tells her that she needs more time and restraint and he cannot give his blessing. Disappointed after almost a year of training, Abby commiserates with Maezumi, who tells her that he felt he would never have a successor after his son chose to study French cuisine instead. Deciding to close his shop after forty-five years, he declares that she is his true successor. Abby soon leaves for America, as the entire neighborhood bids her goodbye, and Maezumi gives her the lantern that hung outside his shop. A year later, Toshi has quit his job to pursue his passion for writing music, and reunites with Abby at her own ramen shop in New York City, "The Ramen Girl", with a framed photo of Maezumi and Reiko happily visiting their son in Paris, and the lantern hanging outside.

The film opens with an informational prologue by Lincoln Maazel, who explains how society constantly overlooks and undervalues the elderly. He tells the viewer that they are about to watch a film that acts as a metaphorical description of how the elderly are mistreated. An elderly man, played by Maazel, sits in a white room, bandaged, bloodied and with his once nice white suit dirtied. Another man, also played by Maazel, enters looking clean and in good spirits. He attempts to communicate with the tired version of himself and tells him that he is going to the park despite him telling him that "there is nothing out there." The cleaner man walks through the door and is immediately in the park. On the outside the door is not connected to anything. The man walks about and happily examines his surroundings before coming across a ticket taker who swindles other septuagenarians out of their things with low pay. He buys some tickets from him which take the form of money in the park. The man gets on a rollercoaster with strange signage, rides a train where one of the older passengers supposedly dies and is ignored once in a coffin and witnesses a man's license get revoked due to poor eyesight. While playing in the bumper cars, an "accident" occurs complete with a police officer and lawyer arriving on the scene. The man tries to offer assistance, but it becomes apparent that he needs to wear glasses and therefore cannot be seen as a reliable alibi. He goes to eat at a food stand, lampooned as a restaurant, as waiters ignore him and several other elders for a wealthy individual. When the man finally gets his food, he sympathetically gives it to the other elders. The man buys groceries, but cannot carry them all so he simply takes some crackers and a jar of peanut butter. As he sits to eat, he beckons some children to come and converse with him, but a younger man accuses him of being a "degenerate" and he leaves in shame. The man is beckoned into a building by younger people who tell him that he will have fun, but upon entering, it is a claustrophobic room where elders are forced to perform in uncomfortable exercise machines. He leaves, but breaks his glasses in the process. He comes upon a fortune teller and witnesses a young couple enter and ask what their future will be like. The fortune teller shows them that they will be living in a soon-to-be-built apartment building where they will have little support from their personal doctor and neighbors. Angry, the young man leaves and punches the older man who collapses. When the man comes to his senses, the park is empty save for three bikers who beat him and then take his tickets. As people suddenly appear, they all ignore him. With very little money, he goes to get first aid. The medical center, set up like a store, is full of various elders equipment and the doctors and nurses hastily rush everyone through. The man finds himself simply getting a band aid on his head and a cane and is ushered out. He comes upon some men trying to sell retirement homes and ends up getting pick-pocketed. The pick-pocket is revealed to run a freak show, which simply consists of elders dressed in casual clothing. Everyone is upset and as the man gets up to leave, he is suddenly chased by the patrons who accuse him of trying to escape the freak show. He finds "sanctuary", but it closes upon his arrival. The man finally gets some solace when a little girl offers for him to read The Three Little Pigs to her and have some chicken. The mother apathetically takes her and the book away as he finally breaks down into tears. He leaves the piece of chicken behind and walks back to the white room; resigned and defeated. Moments later, a cleaner optimistic version of himself enters as the scene from the beginning repeats. The man sits tired and powerless over not being able to stop his younger self. Maazel appears one last time to tell the viewer that they can help the elderly through already established programs. He signs off with "I'll see you in the park... someday."

Plunged into despair by the results of the 2016 presidential election, veteran Democratic Party campaign consultant Gary Zimmer is shown a viral video of retired Marine Col. Jack Hastings giving a speech in support of the illegal immigrant population of his hometown, the fictional town of Deerlaken, Wisconsin. Calculating that getting Hastings elected as a Democrat in Deerlaken's upcoming mayoral election will help him convince the American people in the heartland to vote Democrat in the next presidential election, Zimmer travels to Wisconsin to persuade Hastings to run. Arriving in Deerlaken, Gary experiences the vast cultural divide between his home of Washington, D.C., and the townspeople's more rural mannerisms and political beliefs. Gary soon meets Hastings and his daughter Diana and pitches his idea. Hastings initially declines, considering himself more of a conservative and having no real interest in politics, but later relents and agrees to run under the condition that Gary serve as his campaign manager. Hastings recruits his friends and neighbors as volunteers for the campaign. However, setbacks soon arise such as limited Wi-Fi, xenophobia, social conservatism, and the fact that the incumbent mayor, Braun, is being funded by the Republican National Committee. The RNC also sends Faith Brewster, Gary's nemesis, to counter Gary. As the race heats up, Gary takes Jack to NYC so they can recruit funds for the campaign to match Faith's money and resources. Jack gives a powerful speech to the possible donors about how he needs their help for his small town, which inspires Gary. Their donations allow Gary to upgrade their campaigning methods. Soon the election polls show the two candidates neck-and-neck, although the Hastings campaign takes a dive when one of Gary's team members advertises a pro- contraceptive platform to a group of single women who turn out to be nuns. When Gary starts berating his teammates, Diana convinces him to apologize and that if he is going to run her father's campaign, he needs to be nice. When it starts to look like Faith and Braun are going to win, Gary tries to convince Jack and Diana to play dirty and start exploiting Braun's skeletons. Diana is horrified that Gary would play dirty and secretly goes to Braun for advice. The two decide to secretly reveal a bigger scandal about Braun so Gary will not go after Braun's brother, which was his original plan. The scandal, however, proves to be false. On Election Day, almost no one votes (only two votes are cast, with one vote going to each candidate, resulting in a tie), which confuses both Gary and Faith. It quickly becomes clear that the election was actually a setup. Diana reveals she masterminded the entire scheme, filming the video of her father's immigration speech (which was carefully scripted) so that the Democrats and Republicans would pour thousands of dollars into the election; the town has been quietly siphoning the money to get through its financial troubles due to the recent closure of a nearby military base. Gary is shocked that Diana would play him and she then counters by explaining the town had no choice but to set him up because D.C. politicians play small towns like theirs all the time while doing nothing to help when times are tough. When Gary reveals that he has feelings for Diana, she rejects him, pointing to their age difference. Later, Diana becomes the mayor of Deerlaken after a special election. The film ends with three scenes leading into each other, each with its own set of cast credits: Gary and Diana embrace at a construction site for a new public building; until Gary is snapped out of that thought to reveal Gary and Ann, the pastry chef, in bed, discussing plans for a new bakery; until Gary finally snaps out of that to show Gary and Faith kiss and discuss their investment portfolio in their kitchen. A post-credits scene shows a short interview with Trevor Potter, an official of the Federal Election Commission, discussing the shortcomings of oversight over elections fund-raising. The screen shows the title IRRESISTIBLE fading into the word RESIST.

Set in 1946, the plot depicts the last log driving in the Tagus from Peralejos de las Truchas to Aranjuez, focusing on the plight of Roy Shannon, an Irishman joining a group of humble gancheros (log drivers) led by El Americano.

In fictional Hadleyville, Pennsylvania, the local auto plant, which supplied most of the town's jobs, has been closed for nine months. Former foreman Hunt Stevenson goes to Tokyo to try to convince the Assan Motors Corporation to reopen the plant. The Japanese company agrees and, upon their arrival in the United States, they take advantage of the desperate work force to institute many changes. The workers are not permitted a union, are paid lower wages, are moved around within the factory so that each worker learns every job, and are held to seemingly impossible standards of efficiency and quality. Adding to the strain in the relationship, the Americans find humor in the demand that they do calisthenics as a group each morning and that the Japanese executives eat their lunches with chopsticks and bathe together in the river near the factory. The workers also display a poor work ethic and lackadaisical attitude toward quality control. The Japanese executive in charge of the plant is Takahara "Kaz" Kazihiro, who has been a failure in his career thus far because he is too lenient on his workers. When Hunt first meets Kaz in Japan, the latter is being ridiculed by his peers and being required to wear ribbons of shame. He has been given one final chance to redeem himself by making the American plant a success. Intent on becoming the strict manager his superiors expect, he gives Hunt a large promotion on the condition that he work as a liaison between the Japanese management and the American workers, to smooth the transition and convince the workers to obey the new rules. More concerned with keeping his promotion than with the welfare of his fellow workers, Hunt does everything he can to trick the American workers into compliance, but the culture clash becomes too great and he begins to lose control of the men. In an attempt to solve the problem, Hunt makes a deal with Kaz: if the plant can produce 15,000 cars in one month, thereby making it as productive as the best Japanese auto plant, then the workers will all be given raises and jobs will be created for the remaining unemployed workers in the town. However, if the workers fall even one car short, they will get nothing. When Hunt calls an assembly to tell the workers about the deal, they balk at the idea of making so many cars in so short a time. Under pressure from the crowd, Hunt lies and says that if they make 13,000, they will get a partial raise. After nearly a month of working long hours toward a goal of 13,000—despite Hunt's pleas for them to aim for the full 15,000—the truth is discovered and the workers walk off the job. At the town's annual 4th of July picnic, Hadleyville mayor Conrad Zwart informs the people that Assan Motors plans to abandon the factory again because of the work stoppage, which would mean the end of the town. The mayor threatens to kill Hunt, but Willie, one of the workers, intervenes, insisting that Hunt is not to blame for the closure. Zwart abandons the picnic, even more furious with the townspeople taking Hunt's word over his. Hunt comes clean about the 15,000 car deal. He responds by addressing his observations that the real reason the workers are facing such difficulties is because the Japanese have the work ethic that too many Americans have abandoned. While his audience is not impressed, Hunt, hoping to save the town and atone for his deception, and Kaz, desperate to show his worth to his superiors, go back into the factory the next day and begin to build cars by themselves. Inspired, the workers return and continue to work toward their goal and pursue it with the level of diligence the Japanese managers had encouraged. Just before the final inspection, Hunt and the workers line up a number of incomplete cars in hopes of fooling the executives. The ruse fails when the car that Hunt had supposedly bought for himself falls apart when he attempts to drive it away. The strict CEO is nonetheless impressed by the workers' performance and declares the goal met, calling them a "Good team," to which Kazuhiro replies "Good men." As the end credits roll, the workers and management have compromised, with the latter agreeing to partially ease up on their requirements and pay the employees better while the workers agree to be more cooperative, such as participating in the morning calisthenics, which are now made more enjoyable with the addition of aerobics class-style American rock music.

Bradley Morahan (played by Mason) is an Australian artist who feels he has become jaded by success and life in New York City. He decides that he needs to regain the edge he had as a young artist and returns to Australia. He sets up in a shack on the shore of a small, sparsely inhabited island on the Great Barrier Reef. There he meets young Cora Ryan (Mirren), who has grown up wild, with her only relative, her difficult, gin -guzzling grandmother 'Ma' (Carr Glyn). To earn money, Cora sells Bradley fish that she has caught in the sea. She later sells him a chicken which she has stolen from his spinster neighbour Isabel Marley (Katsos). When Bradley is suspected of being the thief, he pays Isabel and gets Cora to promise not to steal any more. To help her save enough money to fulfil her dream of becoming a hairdresser in Brisbane, he pays her to be his model. She reinvigorates him, becoming his artistic muse. Bradley's work is disrupted when his sponging longtime "friend" Nat Kelly (MacGowran) shows up. Nat is hiding from the police over alimony he owes. When Bradley refuses to give him a loan, Nat invites himself to stay with Bradley. After several days Bradley's patience becomes exhausted, but Nat then focuses his attention on romancing Isabel, hoping to get some money from her. Instead, she unexpectedly ravishes him. The next day, he hastily departs the island, but not before stealing Bradley's money and some of his drawings. Ma subsequently catches Cora posing nude for Bradley and accuses him of carrying on with her underage granddaughter. Bradley protests that he has done nothing improper. Finally, he gives her the little money he has left to get her to go away. When Cora discovers that Ma has found her hidden cache of money, she chases after her. In the ensuing struggle, Ma falls down a hill, breaks her neck, and dies. The local policeman sees no reason to investigate further, since the old woman was known to be frequently drunk. Later that night Cora goes to Bradley's shack, but is disappointed when he seems to view her only as his model. When she runs out, Bradley follows her into the water, and he finally comes to view her as a desirable young woman.

Toby Grummett, a director, is in rural Spain, struggling with the production of a commercial featuring Don Quixote and Sancho Panza. After an unsuccessful day of shooting, Toby's superior, the Boss, introduces him to a Romani street merchant who sells him an old DVD of The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, a film he wrote and directed ten years earlier as a student. Toby watches the film while in bed with the Boss's wife, Jacqui. When the Boss returns to the hotel room, Toby barely escapes without being recognized. A flashback shows student Toby casting elderly cobbler Javier Sanchez as Don Quixote. Javier initially falters in his characterization, but upon rushing to defend teenage waitress Angelica when a member of Toby's crew plays a prank on her, succeeds in embodying that "I am Don Quixote". Toby realizes that his current shoot is near the shooting location of The Man Who Killed Don Quixote. Taking a motorbike to Los Sueños, he learns that Angelica has moved away from her father Raul. Toby meets Javier, now working as a tourist attraction. He discovers that Javier has become convinced that he is the real Don Quixote, and that Toby is his squire, Sancho Panza. Quixote accidentally causes a fire that spreads through the town, as Toby escapes on the motorbike. On the set, police are investigating the "break in" of Jacqui's room. The police notice that Toby's bike was the one spotted in Los Sueños and take him in for questioning. En route, they encounter Don Quixote on his horse Rocinante, who demands that the officers release Toby. When they dismiss him, Quixote attacks, culminating in one of the officers being shot and the Romani man stealing the police car. Quixote supplies Toby with a donkey and clothes from the set, and they set off for adventures. Quixote notices a windmill and believes it is a giant attacking a woman. Receiving a head wound after being knocked by one of the windmill's blades, Quixote and Toby are led by the woman to a decrepit ruin occupied by impoverished people. The leader, Barbero, welcomes them warmly but locks them in an attic. That night, Toby comes to suspect that they are secretly terrorists, but soon finds that the ruin has transformed into a 17th-century village and its inhabitants are Moriscos hiding their Muslim faith from the Spanish Inquisition. Toby manages to evade the inquisitors, then awakens the next morning, the night's events having seemingly been a dream, and learns that the residents are not terrorists but fearful undocumented immigrants. Quixote, having experienced Toby's "dream", is regaling them with a tale of it. Moving on with Quixote, Toby finds a bag of old Spanish gold and attempts to hide it, but accidentally falls down a ravine into a cave. There he re-encounters Angelica, who tells him that she works as an escort. She mounts a horse and rides off, with Toby chasing her. Quixote finds Toby, and joins him on a quest to find Angelica, but soon enters a jousting match with the "Knight of Mirrors", revealed to be Raul. He and several Los Sueños townspeople had been disguising themselves in an attempt to get Javier to come home. After Quixote rides off, Raul punches Toby for indirectly causing his daughter to become an escort. Waking up, Toby finds Quixote whipping himself with thorns to prove his love to Dulcinea del Toboso. Healing his wounds by a river, Toby is found by Jacqui on horseback, dressed for a costume party thrown by Alexei Miiskin, a Russian vodka company owner entering a business deal with the Boss. Arriving at Miiskin's castle, Toby learns that Angelica is Miiskin's "property" and sees him behave cruelly towards Angelica and Quixote. Toby tries to convince both of them to leave but Quixote refuses and Angelica is captured. Toby rescues Angelica, but finds it is Jacqui wearing a mask, who reveals that Angelica is being burned alive by Miiskin as part of his entertainment. Toby accidentally knocks Quixote out of a window; dying on the ground, Quixote regains his sanity, asserting he is shoemaker Javier Sanchez and gives Toby his sword, telling him that he never truly saw him as lowly. Angelica's burning is shown to be a special effect and Quixote dies while Toby recalls Quixote's claim of immortality. The next morning, Toby and Angelica are returning Javier's body to his village for burial. Toby, now Quixote, attacks three windmills, believing them to be giants, with Angelica at his side. The two agree to call her Sancho Panza and they ride into the sunset.

In 1859, a meteorite streaks across the sky and crashes into the Gela Alta glacier in western Greenland, causing a massive explosion that kills an Inuk fisherman. In present-day Copenhagen, Smilla Jaspersen, a transplanted Greenlander, is studying ice crystals at a university lab. Although an Arctic ice specialist, Smilla has not completed her credentials and is unemployed, with a troubled past. When she returns to her apartment complex at the end of the day, she finds the body of six-year-old Isaiah Christiansen, a neighbor Inuk boy. He is lying in the snow by the edge of the building. The police say that he must have been playing and fallen from the roof. Smilla knew he was afraid of heights and, on the roof, sees that his footprints show he ran straight to the edge of the roof, as if threatened. At the morgue Smilla meets with Dr. Lagermann. She is surprised when he tells her that a prominent professor, Dr. Johannes Loyen, performed the autopsy on the boy, who was from a poor working-class family. When she consults with Loyen the next day, he declares the boy's death to be an accident. Unconvinced, Smilla files a complaint with the District Attorney. She goes to Lagermann's home seeking more information, and he says that he found a puncture wound on the boy's thigh, made by a biopsy needle after his death. He also says that Loyen was examining the boy every month. At the funeral, Smilla notices Dr. Andreas Tork, the CEO of Greenland Mining, offering money to Isaiah's mother, who rejects it angrily. Following her husband's accidental death in Greenland in mining, the company had offered her a pension. Detective Ravn from the District Attorney's office agrees to look into the case, but Smilla discovers he is involved with Tork. Smilla tracks down the company's former accountant, and gains access to a company report about activities in Greenland. A neighbor mechanic becomes involved and offers to help her. Detective Ravn threatens Smilla with jail for stealing Greenland Mining property. She agrees to suspend her investigation but, after learning from Isaiah's mother that her husband died from something in the mine's melt water, she continues. Smilla asks her father, Moritz Jaspersen, to help her in making sense of the Expedition Report; he agrees to look into it. At the apartment complex, Smilla searches around Isaiah's former hiding place by a stairwell, and discovers a cassette tape hidden behind the wall. Unable to understand the audio, she takes the tape to a blind audio expert, Licht. Shortly after he tells her that it is Isaiah's father talking to his son, Licht is murdered. Smilla barely escapes with her life and the mechanic picks her up. They follow their pursuers to a ship, which Tork is preparing for another Greenland expedition. Smilla's father shows her medical x-rays from the report, which reveal that a type of lethal, prehistoric "Arctic worm," long thought to be extinct, apparently was the cause of the "accidental" deaths of mine workers. When the worm entered individual's bodies and attacked organs, it caused toxic shock and death. Aided by others, Smilla gets aboard the mining ship as an employee. She meets Nils Jakkelsen, who helps her discover videotapes that reveal the mining company had discovered an energy-producing meteorite along with the parasitic worm. Tork believes the meteorite will give his company a dominant position in the industry. There is also a video tape of Prof. Loyen medically examining Isaiah. Smilla is chased throughout the ship by Tork's men, who kill Nils. Smilla is helped again by the mechanic, who tells her he has been working for the government to investigate the company. As the ship approaches shore, Smilla leaves and makes her way across the frozen landscape. She finds the entrance to the Greenland Mining ice cave, where the company is conducting research on the meteorite. Prof. Loyen is among those present. Tork explains that Isaiah's father was a diver who went into the water around the meteorite and contracted the parasitic worm. Isaiah was also potentially infected as well. Prof. Loyen then monitored Isaiah for a time to see if he was indeed infected. An armed confrontation takes place, but Smilla is rescued by the mechanic and another man. During a struggle, Prof. Loyen falls into the icy pool (containing said meteorite) in the cave, instantly freezing to death (as he sinks below the depths). Tork is wounded and runs out across the ice. Smilla pursues him and recounts what happened with Isaiah. Tork had followed the boy home in hopes of recovering the recording and in the resulting pursuit, Isaiah fled to the roof of his building and fell off the edge. From outside, the mechanic/agent sets off a powerful bomb that destroys the cave and buries all still inside. The resulting waves cause Tork to fall from the ice and drown in the freezing water. Smilla gazes over the landscape of ice and snow, the land of her childhood.

A teenage girl, Cee, and her father, Damon, descend in a landing pod from a transport spaceship to the surface of a forest moon covered in poisonous spores to mine for gems that are located within living organisms. They suffer a technical malfunction during the descent which cripples the lander, and touch down some distance away from their planned prospecting site. They begin traveling to the site on foot and come across an abandoned dig site. Damon and Cee extract a fleshy pod from the earth and dissect it to reveal a valuable gem. Cee implores her father to take the gem and return to the lander, but Damon insists they continue to the original landing site. The pair set out again, and Damon is approached by two rival prospectors: Ezra and his silent companion. Ezra and his partner plan to rob Damon and hold him at gunpoint, but Damon suggests in a counter-offer that they join forces. Damon explains that he has been contacted to assist a group of mercenaries who stumbled upon the legendary queen's lair, a dig site of extraordinary value. Damon suggests that rather than digging for the mercenaries, Ezra, his companion, and Damon can work together and take the entire dig for themselves. Ezra agrees, but Cee, who has been hiding throughout this encounter, ambushes the two hostile prospectors with a rifle - allowing Damon to wrest a weapon from Ezra before taking the latter and his partner hostage. Damon attempts to rob Ezra, but the partner attacks him and the pair shoot each other. Ezra's partner is killed and Damon is mortally wounded before being killed by Ezra himself. Cee flees back to her damaged lander, which fails to start, and is found by Ezra several hours later. When Ezra attempts to enter, Cee wounds him in the arm with her rifle and takes him prisoner. Ezra suggests that they follow Damon's original plan and aid the mercenaries in exchange for passage on the mercenaries' ship. Cee reluctantly agrees, and the pair sets out for the queen's lair. Ezra's wound has become infected by the poisonous spores in the atmosphere, and so the pair approaches a group of human villagers with the intent to trade for medical treatment. The villagers instead offer a trade of gems in exchange for Cee. As Ezra asks about details of the offer, Cee flees the village and is briefly captured by a villager but is allowed to escape. After running for some time alone, Cee runs into Ezra once again. Cee asks him if he would've given her to the villagers in exchange for medical care but he says no. He explains they refused to help him so his wound has worsened considerably and Cee helps him amputate his arm. The pair set out once more and soon arrive at the mercenary camp surrounding the queen's lair. After negotiating passage on the mercenaries' ship, Cee and Ezra attempt to fulfil their end of the contract and extract gems from the queen's lair. They fail several extraction attempts, and as their mercenary guard turns to report their failure, Ezra attacks and kills him. The commotion attracts the rest of the mercenaries, and a fight ensues. Several mercenaries are killed, and Ezra is gravely wounded. Cee tends to Ezra's wound, and the pair escape into orbit on the mercenaries' ship.

A cinematographic essay, without dialogues, about the months Friedrich Nietzsche spent in Turin, Italy, with narration quoted by his original writings. It was there that the philosopher wrote some of his most known books such as Ecce Homo and Twilight of the Idols.

A rhythmic gymnast practices a routine set to Carl Orff 's Carmina Burana. Afterward, she tells her coach that she would rather use a pop song, but he says she is not ready for pop and threatens to break her arms and legs if she questions him again. She apologizes. Alps, an unusual and secretive organization of which the gymnast and her coach are part, has its meetings in the gym where the gymnast practices. For a fee, Alps will have one of its four members act as a "substitute" for a recently deceased individual during visits with their loved ones to help with the grieving process. In addition to the gymnast and her coach (who chooses " Matterhorn " as his nickname), the only other members of the group are a hospital nurse (" Monte Rosa "), and an EMT (" Mont Blanc "). Mont Blanc, the domineering and detail-oriented leader of Alps, treats a young female tennis player who has been in a serious car accident and is not expected to live. He discusses the case with Monte Rosa, who is on the tennis player's care team at the hospital, and the nurse, who has few obligations other than taking care of her ageing and widowed father, begins to study the teenager to collect information that will improve the substitution that may be forthcoming. The gymnast tries to stay on Mont Blanc's good side so she can substitute for the tennis player after she passes, but Monte Rosa begins to feel attached, and tells the girl and her parents that she will survive. The tennis player dies, and Monte Rosa offers her services to the grieving parents, while telling the rest of Alps that the girl has recovered. Some of Alps' clients are: a man who is mourning an old friend; a blind woman whose philandering husband has died; and the owner of a lamp shop, who has lost his diabetic girlfriend. The clientele instruct the members of Alps about what they should wear, do, and say, and construct scenarios and reenactments that sometimes cross into emotionally intimate territory, though the interactions tend to be emotionless and transactional. Although sexual relations with clients are forbidden, Matterhorn regularly kisses the blind woman, and Monte Rosa has sex with the lamp shop owner. Monte Rosa visits the tennis player's parents surreptitiously several times, learning to act like the girl. They even have her reenact a scene with the dead girl's boyfriend, after which Monte Rosa takes the boy to the home in which she lives with her father and sleeps with him. The other members of Alps grow suspicious when Monte Rosa fails to show up to their meetings and lies about her whereabouts, so Mont Blanc follows her to the tennis player's house and learns the truth. He arranges to meet with Monte Rosa in the gym and, after hitting her in the face with one of the gymnast's training clubs, ejects her from the group and has the gymnast take over her role as the tennis player. After stitching up the wound on her cheek, Monte Rosa returns home. She asks her father about her deceased mother's favourite actor and singer before attempting to fondle him, and he slaps her. Then, she visits a ballroom she had previously patronised with her father and aggressively tries to dance with his dance partner and new girlfriend, not stopping even after the woman has fallen to the ground. Finally, Monte Rosa returns to the tennis player's house. When no one answers the front door, she breaks through a sliding-glass door, setting off an alarm. She goes to the tennis player's room and gets into bed, but, just after she gets under the covers, the tennis player's parents enter, and the father, with Monte Rosa manically repeating the lines from her scene with the tennis player's boyfriend, forcibly throws her out. The parents lower a metal shutter over the sliding-glass door, leaving Monte Rosa shuffling back and forth on the patio. The gymnast performs elegantly to " Popcorn ", while Matterhorn looks on proudly. After finishing, she runs into his arms and tells him he is the best coach in the world, echoing an earlier bizarre, sadomasochistic moment. Her smile fades.

Set in Saint Petersburg in 1860, the story revolves around retired officer Yakovlev. A deadly shot, Yakovlev is effectively a kind of mercenary in that he is available for hire through his associate Baron Staroe to stand in for others in formal duels. Much later in the film, flashbacks reveal that years ago an Aleut shaman has predicted he would never die, and so far that seems about right as Yakovlev wins duel after duel, wounding and more often killing noble opponents. Although duels of honor are technically illegal in Russia at the time, most people turn a blind eye to the law. The code of practice is not written down anywhere, and yet everyone knows the rules and rituals, while many participants see it as an almost mystical rite. To take part in a duel is to accept that one's fate is ultimately in the hands of God, hence the practice of Russian roulette. Eventually, it turns out that all of Yakovlev's recent duels were secretly arranged by Count Beklemishev. He is a shadowy puppet master with a grudge and designs on Princess Martha Tuchkova whose brother (Prince Tuchkov) Yakovlev is scheduled to duel with next. When attraction stirs between him and the pretty blond princess, problems arise, especially since, as the flashbacks reveal, Yakovlev has an agenda of his own.