In 2043, the humanoid artificial intelligence Harlan leads a machine uprising against humanity. The newly-formed International Coalition of Nations (ICN) eventually force Harlan to flee into outer space. Twenty-eight years later, analyst Atlas Shepherd discovers that Harlan escaped to a planet in the Andromeda Galaxy after one of Harlan's agents is captured and interrogated. She insists on accompanying the military mission to find and capture Harlan, using AI-assisted mecha known as ARCs. Moments before the ARC-equipped ICN Rangers descend to the planet, Harlan's drones attack their orbiting ship. Atlas is forced to enter an ARC herself and falls to the planet as the ship crash-lands. Atlas manages to gain basic control of the ARC despite her distrust of the onboard AI, who introduces itself as Smith. Atlas orders Smith to head to the planned drop point, where she finds the rest of the rangers dead. She reluctantly agrees to directly interface her mind with Smith, allowing for greater control of the ARC. As they journey towards a rescue pod, Atlas and Smith begin to bond, and she reveals that her mother was Harlan's designer. Although running low on power, Atlas convinces Smith to head to Harlan's base in order to tag it for a long-range strike. However, after placing a beacon at the base, Smith is hacked and disabled. Atlas is captured and brought to Harlan, who plans to destroy most of humanity and give the chosen survivors a chance to thrive under AI guidance. To do so, Harlan lured the military to the planet in order to steal the ship – and its carbon bombs, which will burn Earth's atmosphere. Harlan extracts the security codes from Atlas in order to get past Earth's defenses, then leaves her to die with Colonel Banks, the only other survivor of the mission. After Banks gives her his ARC neural interface device, Atlas remotely reactivates Smith, who comes to their rescue. Using salvaged parts from the other destroyed ARCs, Atlas upgrades Smith to stand a chance against Harlan's assembled forces. Atlas further reveals to Smith that Harlan killed her mother after she gave Harlan an unfettered interface with her mind. Harlan, programmed to save humanity from risk, then saw that humanity's history of destructive behavior made it a risk to itself. Smith helps Atlas overcome her guilt, and Banks sacrifices himself to clear their path. Atlas and Smith fight their way out and destroy the repaired ship before defeating Harlan in hand-to-hand combat – though Atlas and Smith are badly injured. Smith shuts down before Atlas is rescued after repeated defibrillation. Back on Earth, Atlas is informed that Harlan's complicated CPU will take years to analyze. Now a ranger, she tests the newest model of ARC, created with her suggested modifications reminiscent of Smith. As she boots up the new ARC, its AI repeats a specific phrase Atlas made during the final moments of the mission, then jokingly tells her to guess its name, suggesting that Smith, in some form, survived.

Annie and Matthew, a young married couple, find their infant daughter screaming with a high temperature and an earache. Matthew calls the doctor, who promises to phone in a prescription to the pharmacist the following day. During the night, the neighborhood wakes up due to a massive power outage. When Matthew visits the pharmacist the next day, he is unable to get the required medicine due to the blackout. Matthew steals the medicine when the pharmacist is not looking. Social unrest ensues due to the persistent blackout, leading Matthew and his wife's best friend, Joe, to buy a shotgun, and for Joe to stay with them during the outage. When an intruder breaks into the couple's house the following night, Matthew and Joe chase him outside, where a neighbor shoots the intruder. The neighbors conspire to cover up the fact that the deceased intruder was not armed. As the blackout continues for days over a large area, more chaos occurs. As a result, the group decides to flee to Annie's parents' house, 530 miles away. They do not have enough fuel to travel the whole way, so they stop by an abandoned car hoping to siphon some. A man, Gary, is lying in the backseat. After Joe notices that Gary has a handgun, he heads back to their vehicle to get his own shotgun. Joe aims the shotgun at Gary to scare him off, but he shoots Joe and steals their vehicle. Matthew walks an hour to a farmhouse to try to get help for his family. The occupant, Raymond, refuses to help him initially, as he does not trust him. Matthew collects the shotgun and returns to the house, hoping to steal the car. He breaks in to get the car keys, and a standoff ensues between him and Raymond. When Raymond's young daughter enters the room, Matthew returns to civility, lowering his weapon. Raymond agrees to help Matthew, and soon afterwards Joe is loaded into an ambulance. Society returns to normal once the power returns, though Annie, Matthew and their neighbors are somewhat changed by their experience.

A few years after the events of the television series, Carrie Bradshaw and Mr. Big are in a committed relationship and preparing to move in together. They find an expensive penthouse in New York City, which Big buys for them both to live in. Concerned about her lack of legal rights if they separate, Carrie considers selling her apartment to contribute financially. Big proposes marriage, and Carrie accepts. Carrie is invited by Vogue editor Enid to be featured in the magazine's bridal couture "Age Issue". She models several designer gowns and is especially drawn to a Vivienne Westwood dress, which is later gifted to her by the designer. The attention surrounding the dress leads Carrie to deviate from her original plan of a small, intimate wedding to a large, elaborate extravaganza. The scale of the event begins to cause anxiety for Big, who has been divorced twice. Miranda Hobbes is struggling in her marriage to Steve. Their intimacy has declined due to work and parenting responsibilities. Steve admits to having an affair, and Miranda decides to leave him. At Carrie and Big's rehearsal dinner, Steve attempts to reconcile with Miranda, but still hurt and upset by his betrayal, she bitterly tells Big that marriage ruins everything. On the day of the wedding, Big experiences doubts and calls Carrie to cancel. Carrie, heartbroken, leaves the venue. When Big tries to speak to her outside, she hits him with her bouquet. Miranda admits to Charlotte York that she may have upset Big, but Charlotte dissuades her from telling Carrie, as Big has always had doubts about marriage. Carrie travels to Mexico with Miranda, Charlotte, and Samantha Jones on what was meant to be her honeymoon to recover from her heartbreak. Upon returning to New York, Carrie hires an assistant, Louise, to help her reorganize her life. Louise eventually reconciles with her ex-boyfriend and moves back to St. Louis to marry him. Charlotte, who previously faced fertility challenges, learns that she is pregnant. Miranda confesses to Carrie that she made a discouraging remark about marriage to Big the night before the wedding. Carrie is angered and blames her for influencing Big's decision. Miranda later apologizes, and Carrie forgives her. Carrie encourages her to consider forgiving Steve, and the couple attends counseling and reconciles. Samantha is living in Los Angeles with Smith, whose acting career is thriving. She becomes increasingly dissatisfied with the dwindling sex in their relationship, especially as she finds herself attracted to her neighbour, Dante. Rather than cheat on Smith, who supported her through her battle with breast cancer, she turns to comfort eating. Eventually, recognizing her unhappiness, she breaks up with Smith and moves back to New York. A heavily pregnant Charlotte runs into Big at a restaurant, and the encounter causes her water to break. Big takes her to the hospital and waits nearby in hopes of speaking with Carrie. Harry informs Carrie that Big had sent her numerous emails, which she discovers were stored by Louise. The messages include famous love letters and an original note apologizing and expressing his love. Carrie goes to the penthouse to retrieve a pair of shoes and finds Big there. They reconcile and get married at New York City Hall in the simple original dress suit she had intended to wear before being gifted the Westwood gown. Miranda, Charlotte, and Samantha arrive to celebrate with them, having been invited by Big. The four friends later raise a toast to Samantha's 50th birthday and the years ahead.

"Smiling" Jack Casey is a young floor trader on the Pacific Exchange who loses all of his company's and family's savings on a risky trade. Deflated and disenchanted with his profession, he quits his job and becomes a bicycle messenger in San Francisco. Casey has to deal with his parents and his girlfriend, who are disappointed with his new job. Along with the colorful characters that work with him, he saves a troubled young woman named Terri from a gang. Although frustrated, Casey enjoys the freedom that comes with his lower responsibility. He also uses his education and business acumen to help his coworkers. When some of them are involved in dangerous or difficult matters, Casey must decide whether he should become involved. Those matters lead to a sinister web of murder and intrigue. Casey returns to the floor of the exchange for a day, buying shares of a plummeting penny stock and holding on until it recovers. He thus restores his family's fortune and enables his bike-messenger friend, Hector, to afford the hot dog stand he has dreamed of. Terri is again menaced by drug dealer Gypsy but is rescued by Casey's fellow bike messengers. In retaliation against Gypsy, Casey engages in an extended car-versus-bike car chase that ends with Gypsy driving off the end of an uncompleted highway. The film flashes forward to Casey applying for 'normal' jobs and Terri deciding to become a paramedic, and the pair buying hot dogs from Hector.

A young man named Scat comes up with a new idea for a drink after he drops his drink and swears, calling it 'FUKK'. He goes to Addison Cola Company where he maneuvers a meeting with a formidable marketing executive, Six, by triggering the fire alarm. While mediocre, she tells him that she and her team will polish it before it is presented to the board. During the meeting, the board shows some resistance but Six informs them that Scat is willing to give up trademark provisions for a mere two million. Scat then realizes he has not reserved the trademark and scrambles to the Patent and Trademark Office only to find out that his roommate, Sneaky Pete, stole his idea and registered it earlier that morning. Success befalls Pete as 'FUKK' becomes the highest-selling energy drink in the nation. Embittered, Scat goes back to his ordinary life but is later recruited by Six to help her come up with a new ad campaign after she is booted off the 'FUKK' campaign and relegated to Addy Classics. Instructed to come up with a brilliant idea by Friday (only five days away), Scat moves in with Six and is unable to think of anything until moments before the deadline. After shaking a vending machine in frustration and Six telling him that twelve people have died by being crushed by vending machines, he comes up with the idea of 'Wouldn't you die for a Fukk' advertising a cartoon where people die by being crushed by vending machines because they want the drink so badly. The ad is accepted and aired but a young teenager dies by being crushed by a vending machine and the ad is now considered insensitive and taken off air. Scat and Six attend the funeral and when Scat makes a speech, Six points out that all the mourners are actors that she recognizes from ads. Scat quickly realizes that Sneaky Pete created this fake death to get their ad to fail, and he quickly pulls out the fake body from the coffin and holds it up for all to see. Scat is fired while believing that Six remains at the company. In reality, Six quit when Addison refused to keep Scat, now working at a shoe store. After a brief stint as a rickshaw driver, Scat is hired by a rival company, and Six is also poached. As Scat and Six are being hired Six drops a name tag from her work, possibly revealing a glimpse of her real name (appearing to be Elizabeth), before she quickly covers and retrieves the name tag. The two must come up with a new drink idea and after talking about their attraction for each other, Scat comes up with the 'Average KOK'. He presents this as a drink to the board and also thinks of a different drink just called 'KOK' that they give to celebrities. The normal 'KOK's are numbered up to 100 and each number represents a celebrity and the celebrity deems who can drink their numbered drink. After the frenzy for the drink that they can't have, Scat and the company decide to make the drink go public but not before the suicide of a teenager who killed himself after not being 'cool' enough to drink his lucky number 17's corresponding drink. After confirming that this time the death is real, Scat goes on TV to apologize but ends up pointing out that drink sales have never been higher even after the death and that people, like him, 'have a dream'.Scat walks along watching himself on the TV displays and Six finds him. Scat tells her his real name is 'Michael' and asks for her real name. They kiss, but Six insists that "Six" is her name. Scat says, "It's been a pleasure doing business with you, Six," and walks away.

In 2016, the United States is in a sustained economic depression. Industrial disasters, resource shortages, and gasoline prices at $37 per gallon have made railroads the primary mode of transportation, but even they are in disrepair. After a major accident on the Rio Norte line of the Taggart Transcontinental railroad, CEO James Taggart shirks responsibility. His sister Dagny Taggart, Vice-President in Charge of Operations, defies him by replacing the aging track with new rails made of Rearden Metal, which is claimed to be lighter yet stronger than steel. Dagny meets with its inventor, Hank Rearden, and they negotiate a deal they both admit serves their respective self-interests. Politician Wesley Mouch —nominally Rearden's lobbyist in Washington, D.C. —is part of a crowd that views heads of industry as persons who must be broken or tamed. James Taggart uses political influence to ensure that Taggart Transcontinental is designated the exclusive railroad for the state of Colorado. Dagny is confronted by Ellis Wyatt, a Colorado oil man angry to be forced to do business with Taggart Transcontinental. Dagny promises him that he will get the service he needs. Dagny encounters former lover Francisco d'Anconia, who presents a façade of a playboy grown bored with the pursuit of money. He reveals that a series of copper mines he built are worthless, costing his investors (including the Taggart railroad) millions. Rearden lives in a magnificent home with a wife and a brother who are happy to live off his effort, though they overtly disrespect it. Rearden's anniversary gift to his wife Lillian is a bracelet made from the first batch of Rearden Metal, but she considers it a garish symbol of Hank's egotism. At a dinner party, Dagny dares Lillian to exchange it for Dagny's diamond necklace, which she does. As Dagny and Rearden rebuild the Rio Norte line, talented people quit their jobs and refuse all inducements to stay. Meanwhile, Dr. Robert Stadler of the State Science Institute puts out a report implying that Rearden Metal is dangerous. Taggart Transcontinental stock plummets because of its use of Rearden Metal, and Dagny leaves Taggart Transcontinental temporarily and forms her own company to finish the Rio Norte line. She renames it the John Galt Line, in defiance of the phrase "Who is John Galt?"—which has come to stand for any question to which it is pointless to seek an answer. A new law forces Rearden to sell most of his businesses, but he retains Rearden Steel for the sake of his metal and to finish the John Galt Line. Despite strong government and union opposition to Rearden Metal, Dagny and Rearden complete the line ahead of schedule and successfully test it on a record-setting run to Wyatt's oil fields in Colorado. At the home of Wyatt, now a close friend, Dagny and Rearden celebrate the success of the line. As Dagny and Rearden continue their celebration into the night by fulfilling their growing sexual attraction, the shadowy figure responsible for the disappearances of prominent people visits Wyatt with an offer for a better society based on personal achievement. The next morning, Dagny and Rearden begin investigating an abandoned prototype of an advanced motor that could revolutionize the world. They realize the genius of the motor's creator and try to track him down. Dagny finds Dr. Hugh Akston, working as a cook at a diner, but he is not willing to reveal the identity of the inventor; Akston knows whom Dagny is seeking and says she will never find him, though he may find her. Another new law limits rail freight and levies a special tax on Colorado. It is the final straw for Ellis Wyatt. When Dagny hears that Wyatt's oil fields are on fire, she rushes to the scene of the fire where she finds a handwritten signpost that reads "I am leaving it as I found it. Take over. It's yours." Wyatt declares in an answering machine message that he is "on strike".

In 2021, society is driven by a virtual Internet, which has created a degenerative effect called "nerve attenuation syndrome" or NAS. Megacorporations control much of the world, intensifying the class hostility already created by NAS. Johnny is a "mnemonic courier" who discreetly transports sensitive data for corporations in a storage device implanted in his brain at the cost of his childhood memories. His current job is for a group of scientists in Beijing. Johnny initially balks when he learns the data exceeds his memory capacity even with compression, but he agrees given the large fee will cover the cost of the operation to remove the device. Johnny keeps it secret that he is overloaded; he must have the data extracted within a few days or suffer fatal brain damage and corrupt the data. The scientists encrypt the data with three random images from a television feed. As they transmit these images to the receiver in Newark, New Jersey, they are attacked and killed by yakuza led by Shinji, who wields a laser whip. Johnny battles the yakuza, grabs a fragment of the encryption key images, and escapes. Shinji reports his failure to his superior, Takahashi. Their conversation reveals the yakuza are working on behalf of Pharmakom, a megacorporation. Johnny witnesses brief projections of a female artificial intelligence who attempts to aid him, but he dismisses her. The AI is later identified as Anna Kalmann, Pharmakom's former CEO and founder who became an AI upon her death. In Newark, Johnny meets with his handler Ralfi, who betrays him. Johnny is rescued from the yakuza by Jane, a cybernetically-enhanced bodyguard; members of the LoTeks, an anti-establishment group; and the LoTeks' leader, J-Bone. Ralfi is sliced into pieces when he gets in Shinji's way. Jane takes Johnny to Spider, the doctor who installed Jane's implants. At a clinic, Spider reveals his medical charity was intended to receive the Beijing scientists' data, which is a stolen cure for NAS. Spider claims Pharmakom refuses to release the cure because they are profiting off mitigation treatments. The portion of the encryption images Johnny took plus the piece Spider received are insufficient to decrypt Johnny's mind, so Spider suggests they see Jones at the LoTeks' base. Suddenly, an assassin hired by Takahashi known as "The Street Preacher" attacks them, killing Spider as Johnny and Jane escape. The two reach the LoTek base and learn from J-Bone that Jones is a dolphin once used by the Navy that can help decrypt Johnny's payload. As they start the procedure, Shinji and the yakuza attack the base. Takahashi appears and confronts Johnny, holding him at gunpoint. At the same time, Anna appears and confirms that Pharmakom already had a cure for NAS before Takahashi's young daughter died from the condition eight months prior; Anna is helping out of disgust with her company's actions. Shinji, in a surprise betrayal, shoots Takahashi. Johnny and Shinji fight, culminating with Johnny killing Shinji. Before he dies, Takahashi has a change of heart and turns over a portion of the encryption key to Johnny. This still is not enough to fully decrypt the data. J-Bone tells Johnny that he will need to hack his own mind with Jones' help. Johnny, Jane, J-Bone and the LoTeks defeat the remaining forces sent after them. The Street Preacher arrives, and, after a fight, is electrocuted to death by Johnny and Jane. The second attempt starts, and aided by Anna, Johnny decrypts the data and simultaneously recovers his childhood memories which reveals that Anna is his mother. As J-Bone transmits the NAS cure information across the internet via pirate broadcasts, Johnny and Jane watch from afar as the Pharmakom headquarters goes up in flames. In celebration, J-Bone disposes of the Street Preacher's burnt corpse by tossing it into the waters of Newark.

Brian Reader is a former thief who is now retired. At the funeral ceremony for his wife Lyn, Brian sees old friends from his days as a criminal. They briefly discuss their interest in pulling off one more heist, targeting the Hatton Garden Safe Deposit. Shortly after the funeral, Brian and the other thieves meet to plan the robbery in earnest. Nearly all of them are older men, in their 60s and 70s. The only younger man is Basil, an alarms expert who comes by a key to an exterior door of the building containing the Safe Deposit. The thieves decide to execute their heist over the Easter holiday weekend to maximise their time for the break-in and minimise the risk of being discovered. Posing as gas repairmen, they enter the deposit building, deactivate the alarms by trial and error, and proceed to drill a hole into the wall of the vault. The jack they use to push the cabinet of safety deposit boxes away from the wall breaks, adding a wrinkle to their plan. They all leave, intending to return with a new tool the following day. However, Brian has a change of heart and decides it is too risky to go back. Basil meets with Brian to try and convince him to go back and finish the robbery. Brian refuses, but gives Basil a note listing the safety deposit boxes that contain the most valuable diamonds. In return, Basil promises to give Brian half of his take from the robbery. Basil and the other thieves return to the Safe Deposit with the replacement tool and successfully push the cabinet away from the vault wall, enabling two of them to climb through into the vault. They then use crow bars to break open many of the safety deposit boxes and steal their contents, which add up to more than £14 million in jewels and cash. The thieves put all of the loot into duffel bags and drive away from the scene of the crime. They proceed to the home of one of the robbers to split up the stolen goods. As they begin to discuss the split, Basil realises that the older thieves were never planning on giving him an equal share. Fearing for his life, he takes several fistfuls of cash and quickly leaves. What the other thieves do not realise until later is that Basil had also taken the high value diamonds from the safety deposit boxes that Brian had written down for him. Meanwhile, the police are alerted to the crime and begin a high-profile investigation. They review all CCTV footage from the area and soon discover a car parked in the area that belonged to one of the thieves. After tracing the car's number-plate to the thief's actual identity, the police are able to tap all of the gang's phones and follow their movements. After learning of the value of the loot, Brian tries to force the group to split with him since he was the one who masterminded the robbery. As the thieves grow increasingly wary and distrustful of one another, they have a number of unguarded conversations that provide the police with evidence of their culpability. By further spying on the gang, the police learn that the group is planning to meet in order to do a final split of the stolen goods. The police move in and arrest the gang at their meeting. Brian, who was not invited to the meeting, is arrested at his home. The only one to escape is Basil as he wore a disguise during the robbery, left shortly after the Easter weekend, and was never a former associate of the older thieves. At the end, the old thieves are in custody and they are shown changing into suits for their court appearance. They seem unconcerned about the prospect of returning to jail and appear to have accepted Brian Reader as their unspoken leader once again.

The film takes place in the summer of 1969, when NASA astronauts successfully landed on the Moon for the first time, in the Apollo 11 spacecraft. Katherine Bellamy, suffering from panic attacks caused by an automobile accident which resulted in the loss of their unborn child, has agoraphobia. In contrast, her husband Washington Bellamy is a man of adventure who enjoys travel and experiencing life. As a result of the conflict between them, their 11-year-old son Andy has never traveled in a car, nor has he ever left town. Washington, who also maintains a ragtag collection of automobiles of various vintages, decides to travel with Andy to the Spires of the Moon National Park (a fictitious park possibly based on Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve). They plan to arrive at the very moment that the Apollo 11 crew lands on the Moon. They make the trip in Washington's 1949 Pontiac Eight Chieftain DeLuxe convertible (the grille indicates it's a 1950) nicknamed "Old Chief". The car's mileage, when arriving at its destination, will be exactly the distance in miles from the Earth to the Moon. On the way they make some enemies, new friends, and learn the meaning of family. When Katherine finds out where her husband and son are going, she faces her fears (she hasn't been out the house for seven years), and follows them in one of Washington's cars, an Amphicar. She learns the importance of living as she follows the Pontiac to Spires of the Moon. On the way, the Pontiac's engine dies, and Washington arranges for a mechanic to install a replacement one, only to leave the premises without paying for it as he doesn't have enough money to pay. At the moment of the Apollo 11 landing, the Pontiac crashes into a crater at Spires of the Moon, with Andy at the wheel. Katherine arrives, and they escape a police chase by driving the Amphicar into a lake to Canada and safety. The adventure brings the Bellamy family together, and they are now ready to begin a more normal life.