On November 9, in Palm Springs, Nyles wakes up and fails to consummate sex with his girlfriend Misty. That evening, Nyles attends a wedding reception for Tala and Abe. There, he bonds with the maid of honor, Tala's depressed half-sister Sarah. Nyles and Sarah leave the party to have sex in the nearby desert. As he undresses, Nyles is hit by an arrow shot by an assailant, then he crawls into a cave, warning Sarah not to follow him. Concerned for Nyles, she follows him and is sucked into a vortex. Sarah wakes up and realizes that it is November 9 again. She confronts Nyles, and he explains that by following him into the cave, Sarah has become stuck in a time loop with him; falling asleep or dying resets the loop, repeating November 9. Nyles reveals that the man who shot him, Roy, is from the wedding and that Nyles inadvertently trapped him in the time loop. For revenge, Roy sometimes hunts down Nyles, as he enjoys putting him through pain even though his "deaths" are only temporary. Sarah tries various methods to escape the loop, but is unsuccessful. Nyles, having already been in the loop for a long time, has become complacent and carefree, abandoning hope of escape. Sarah resigns herself to her fate and adopts Nyles' carefree and reckless lifestyle. Nyles and Sarah become close. They begin to look forward to their days together, where they are free to do anything without consequence. One night, Nyles and Sarah camp out in the desert, get high, and have sex. The day after, Sarah sleeps in and is woken up by Abe, with whom she had sex on November 8, the night before the wedding. Guilt-ridden, Sarah refuses to talk to Nyles about their previous night, expressing nihilism about their life in the loop. After being pulled over by Roy disguised as a cop, Sarah runs him over. She and Nyles argue, leading him to admit that he had sex with Sarah many times in the loop, something he previously lied about. An angry Sarah starts avoiding Nyles. Nyles feels lost without Sarah and spends days aimlessly moping, discovering Abe and Sarah's affair in the process. One day, Nyles visits Roy at his home in Irvine. Having now experienced a painful injury at the hands of Sarah, Roy realizes what he has put Nyles through, and they reconcile. Meanwhile, Sarah spends her days studying to become an expert in quantum physics and general relativity. After some experimentation, she believes that exploding oneself in the cave will break the time loop. Sarah offers Nyles a chance to escape with her, but he confesses his love for her and asks if they can stay in the loop together forever. She refuses, resolved to try her escape plan without him. Sarah attends the wedding one last time, giving a heartfelt speech to Tala, and then travels to the cave with explosives. Nyles has a change of heart, and rushes to the cave to leave with her. He declares that he would rather die with her in an explosion than remain in the loop alone. Sarah reciprocates his feelings, and they kiss in the cave, as she presses the detonator. The two then relax in the pool of a nearby house, which Nyles had shown Sarah during one of their loops. The residents return and catch them there, which seems to indicate that the plan has worked and it is now November 10. In a mid-credits scene, Roy, having gotten a voicemail from Sarah explaining her plan to escape the loop, returns to the wedding and asks Nyles if the plan would work. Nyles does not recognize Roy, who smiles, realizing that Nyles is out of the time loop.

In the 1890s, Ephraim Winslow begins a four-week stint as a "wickie" (lighthouse keeper) on an isolated island off the coast of New England, under the supervision of former sailor Thomas Wake. In his quarters, Winslow discovers a small scrimshaw of a mermaid and keeps it in his jacket. Wake immediately proves to be very demanding, subjecting Winslow to taxing jobs such as emptying chamber pots, maintaining the machinery, carrying heavy kerosene tanks up the stairs, and painting the lighthouse, while barring Winslow from the lantern room. Winslow observes that, every night after ascending the lighthouse, Wake disrobes before the light. During his stay on the island, Winslow begins to hallucinate sea monsters and logs floating in the sea, and masturbates to the mermaid on the scrimshaw. Winslow is bothered by a one-eyed gull, but Wake warns him against killing it under the superstitious belief that gulls are reincarnated sailors. One evening while dining, Wake reveals to Winslow that his previous wickie died after losing his sanity, while Winslow reveals that he is a former timberman from Maine who was stationed in Canada and is now seeking a new trade. The day before the scheduled departure, Winslow discovers a dead gull inside the cistern, bloodying the drinking water. He is attacked by the one-eyed gull and brutally bludgeons it to death. The wind drastically changes direction and a fierce storm hits the island. Winslow and Wake spend the night getting drunk, and the storm prevents the lighthouse tender from collecting them the next day. As Winslow empties the chamber pots, he discovers the beached body of a mermaid, which waves and howls at him. He flees back to the cottage, where Wake informs him the storm has spoiled their rations. Winslow is not worried because he thinks the tender is only a day late, but Wake says that they have already been stranded for weeks. The pair unearths a crate at the lighthouse's base that Winslow assumes contains reserve rations, but it is full of bottles of alcohol. As the storm continues to rage, Winslow and Wake get drunk every night and alternate between moments of intimacy and hostility. One night, Winslow tries unsuccessfully to steal the lantern room keys from Wake and contemplates murdering him. Winslow later sees the one-eyed head of Wake's previous wickie in a lobster trap. While drunk, Winslow confesses to Wake that his real name is Thomas Howard, and he assumed the identity of Ephraim Winslow, his cruel foreman in Canada whom he deliberately allowed to drown during a log drive. Howard has a menacing vision of Wake accusing Howard of "spilling beans" and runs to the dory to try to leave the island, but Wake appears and destroys the boat with an axe. After chasing Howard back to their lodgings, Wake claims it was Howard who chased him and hacked up the dory, as Howard was driven mad by his confession. With no alcohol left, Howard and Wake begin drinking a concoction of turpentine and honey, and that night a giant wave crashes through the wall of their cottage. In the morning, Howard finds Wake's logbook, in which Wake has criticized him as a drunken and incompetent employee and recommended he be fired without pay. The two men argue, and Howard attacks Wake while hallucinating the mermaid, the real Winslow, and Wake as a Proteus -like figure. Howard beats Wake into submission and takes him to the hole at the base of the lighthouse to bury him alive. Before losing consciousness, Wake describes a " Promethean " punishment that awaits those who look in the lantern, and Howard takes the keys to the lantern room. Howard goes to get a cigarette, and Wake returns and strikes him with the axe. Howard disarms and kills Wake before ascending the lighthouse. In the lantern room, the Fresnel lens opens to Howard, who reaches in and violently screams in distortion before falling down the lighthouse steps. Some time later, a barely-alive Howard lies nude on the rocks with a damaged eye as a flock of gulls peck at his exposed organs; the lighthouse is nowhere in sight.

Krank (Daniel Emilfork), a highly intelligent but malicious being created by a vanished scientist, is unable to dream, which causes him to age prematurely. At his lair on an abandoned oil rig (which he shares with the scientist's other creations: six childish clones, a dwarf named Martha, and a brain in a vat named Irvin) he uses a dream-extracting machine to steal dreams from children. The children are kidnapped for him from a nearby port city by a cyborg cult called the Cyclops, whom in exchange he supplies with mechanical eyes and ears. Among the kidnapped is Denrée (Joseph Lucien), the adopted little brother of carnival strongman One (Ron Perlman). After the carnival manager is stabbed by a mugger, One is hired by a criminal gang of orphans (run by a pair of conjoined twins called "the Octopus") to help them steal a safe. The theft is successful, but the safe is lost in the harbor when One is distracted by seeing Denrée's kidnappers. He, together with one of the orphans, a little girl called Miette (Judith Vittet), follows the Cyclops and infiltrates their headquarters, but they are captured and sentenced to execution. Meanwhile, the Octopus orders circus performer Marcello (Jean-Claude Dreyfus) to return One to them. He uses his trained fleas, which inject a poison capsule that causes mindless aggression, to turn the Cyclops guards against each other. While Marcello is rescuing One, Miette falls into the harbor and sinks, seemingly drowned, but an amnesiac diver living beneath the harbor rescues her. Miette leaves the diver's lair to find One and Marcello both drowning their sorrows in a bar. Upon seeing Miette alive, the remorseful Marcello lets One leave with her. However, the Octopus confronts them on the pier, and uses Marcello's stolen fleas to turn One against Miette. A spectacular chain of events triggered by one of Miette's tears leads to a ship crashing into the pier before One can throttle her. Marcello arrives and sets the fleas on the Octopus, allowing One and Miette to escape to continue searching for Denrée. Back at Krank's oil rig, Irvin tricks one of the clones into releasing a plea for help in the form of a bottled dream telling the story of what is going on on the oil rig. It reaches One, Miette, and the diver, and the latter remembers that he was the scientist who made them, and that the oil rig was his laboratory before Krank and Martha attacked him and pushed him off it to take it for themselves, leaving him for dead in the water. They all converge on the rig; the diver to destroy it, and One and Miette to rescue Denrée. Miette is almost killed by Martha, who is harpooned to death by the diver, pretending her "allergy to iron". Miette then finds Denrée asleep in Krank's dream-extracting machine, and Irvin tells her that to release him she must use the machine to enter the dream herself. In the dream world, she meets Krank and makes a deal with him to replace the boy as the source of the dream; Krank fears a trap but plays along, believing himself to be in control. Miette then uses her imagination to control the dream and turn it into an infinite loop, destroying Krank's mind. One and Miette rescue all the children, while the now-deranged diver loads the rig with dynamite and straps himself to one of its legs. The diver regains his senses as everyone is rowing away and pleads with his remaining creations to come back to rescue him, but a seabird lands on the handle of the blasting machine, blowing up him and the rig.

In 1992 Russia, music teacher Nikolay Chizhov moves into a communal apartment in St. Petersburg, where he discovers a mysteriously boarded-up window in his new room. During a housewarming party, he and his guests drunkenly descend from this window, believing it leads to the streets of St. Petersburg. Instead, they stumble upon a bar in Paris. The next day, Chizhov learns from a returning elderly resident that the window periodically opens to Paris for a few weeks every few decades. Realizing the limited time to access Paris, Chizhov's neighbor, Gorokhov, and his family begin cross-border ventures through the window, from selling souvenirs to transporting a Citroën 2CV into Russia. Alongside the whimsical exploits, Chizhov faces challenges in his career and personal life. After protesting the dismissal of music education at his school, he is fired, prompting a student strike in his support. He tries to find work in Paris, only to turn down an unusual gig at a nudist club. A romance develops between Chizhov and Parisian Nicole, whose apartment connects to the same rooftop as the magical window. When Gorokhov lures Nicole into Russia, she becomes lost and overwhelmed by the harsh realities of 1990s Russia before Chizhov ultimately helps her return to Paris. Later, fulfilling a promise to his students, Chizhov uses the window to show them Paris, but they miss the window's closing, forcing them to attempt a daring return to Russia by hijacking a plane. Months later, Chizhov and Gorokhov spot the old resident's cat emerging from a crack in the wall, sparking their hopes of reopening the path to Paris.

Struggling inventor Randall Peltzer visits a Chinatown antique store to find a Christmas present for his son, Billy. In it, Randall uncovers a small and furry creature called a mogwai (Cantonese: 魔怪, 'devil'). The owner, Mr. Wing, refuses to sell it to him, but his grandson secretly does, warning Randall to remember three important rules concerning its care – keep the creature away from light, especially sunlight, which will kill it; do not let it come in contact with water; and above all, never let it eat after midnight. In Randall's hometown of Kingston Falls, Billy works at its local bank, but fears that his dog Barney will be put down by widowed miser Ruby Deagle. His father returns and offers him the mogwai, now named "Gizmo", as a pet and informs him of the rules. Gizmo is friendly and docile, but when Billy's friend, Pete Fountaine, accidentally spills water on him, five more mogwai spawn from him – a more mischievous sort led by the aggressive Stripe, named after the mohawk -like tuft of white fur on his head. Billy shows one of the mogwai to his former elementary school science teacher, Roy Hanson, spawning another mogwai, whom the latter experiments on. Back home, Stripe and his fellow mogwai trick Billy into feeding them after midnight by sabotaging his bedside clock. They form cocoons, as does Hanson's mogwai, which soon hatch, emerging as destructive and reptilian imp-like monsters called "gremlins". Hanson is murdered by his gremlin, while those at the Peltzer house torture Gizmo and assault Billy's mother, Lynn. The duo are able to dispatch all the gremlins sans Stripe, who escapes to the local YMCA where he jumps into its swimming pool, spawning an army of gremlins that wreak havoc on Kingston Falls. Many locals are injured or outright killed during their rampage, including Deagle. The police are helpless in the ordeal, as they too fall victim to the gremlins' mischief. After Billy rescues his co-worker and girlfriend, Kate Beringer, when the gremlins attack the bar she works at, and they seek refuge in the bank, the latter discloses that her father went missing on Christmas Eve when she was nine years old, but was then found dead in their house's chimney several days later. Planning to surprise his family while portraying Santa Claus, he inadvertently slipped and broke his neck while climbing down the chimney. Still suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder due to the incident, Kate confesses how this led to her dislike of the holidays. The trio find the gremlins gathered in the local movie theater due to morning approaching and set off a natural gas explosion, killing them all except for Stripe, who left the theater earlier to retrieve candy at a Montgomery Ward store across the street. They follow Stripe into the store, where he attempts to use a fountain to spawn more gremlins, but Gizmo then opens a nearby skylight, exposing Stripe to sunlight and killing him. In the aftermath, Mr. Wing arrives at the Peltzer house to reclaim Gizmo as he scolds the family for their negligence and criticizes Western society for its carelessness with nature. However, as he turns to leave, Gizmo, having bonded with Billy, bids him goodbye. A compassionate Wing then concedes that Billy may be ready to properly care for him one day.

In Mile End, Montreal, Léo Lauzon is a young boy living in a tenement with his dysfunctional family, serving as the unreliable narrator. He uses his active fantasy life and the book L'avalée des avalés by Québécois novelist Réjean Ducharme to escape the reality of his life. He feels his father is insane and denies being his son. After having a dream revealing his mother was impregnated after falling into a cart of tomatoes contaminated by an Italian man's semen, Léo identifies as Italian rather than French Canadian and adopts the name Léolo Lozone. Growing up in an apartment with a rat in the bathtub, a turkey and a family obsessed with regular bowel movements, Léolo continues to write. His writings are discovered by the Word Tamer, a reincarnation of Don Quixote, who searches through trash for letters and photographs. Léolo observes a neighbouring young woman named Bianca and imagines her singing to him from a closet, emitting a white light. His grandfather, who Léolo believes attempted to murder him by holding him under a pool, helps her financially and extorts her for sexual favours, revealing her breasts and putting his feet in her mouth. Léolo begins to fantasize about Bianca sexually and discovers masturbation. Meanwhile, his brother Fernand, after being beaten by a bully and having failed a special education class, builds up muscles. Word Tamer, continuously monitoring Léolo's thoughts, reads the boy's hopes about how Fernand's muscles will make them invincible. However, upon being confronted by the bully for the second time, Fernand is overwhelmed with fear and is beaten again while Léolo watches in shock. Finally convinced his grandfather is responsible for all of the family's troubles, Léolo attempts to lower a noose and hang his grandfather while he is in the bath. His grandfather sees Léolo doing it and is choked, before finally being freed, with Léolo injured in the process. Léolo subsequently goes to the hospital, where he is told his actions could constitute attempted murder, though he is not charged. Reacting with horror to the ways other boys are pursuing sex, he seeks out the services of a prostitute named Regina. Upon later becoming ill, he ends up in the same institution where many other members of his family have been treated.

In 1901, recently orphaned 10-year-old Mary Lennox is sent from her home in British India to her uncle Lord Archibald Craven's mansion, Misselthwaite Manor, in Yorkshire, England. She was unloved and neglected by her parents, who were killed by an earthquake in India. As a result, Mary is cold, self-centered and so repressed that she is unable to cry. Head housekeeper Mrs. Medlock informs Mary that her uncle, who spends most of his time away, will likely not see her. Mary hears strange sounds of crying in the house and discovers a hidden door in her room that leads to uninhabited areas, including her aunt's old room. There, she discovers a large key. Mrs. Medlock continuously sends Mary to play out on the grounds to keep her occupied whenever the crying starts in the house. Mary discovers her late Aunt Lilias' walled garden, which has been locked up since her death 10 years prior. She realizes that the key she found earlier unlocks the garden but keeps it a secret. She befriends Dickon Sowerby, the younger brother of the manor's housemaid, Martha. Dickon is an outdoorsy boy who is good with animals. Mary and Dickon slowly clean up the secret garden, and Mary becomes happier. She also finally meets her uncle, who is sullen but kind. Hidden away in the mansion is Lord Craven's son and Mary's cousin, Colin Craven, who has been treated like a sickly invalid his entire life. A spoiled, short-tempered boy, he has never left his room nor ever walked and is confined to his bed or uses a wheelchair. His father barely comes to see him in fear that Colin will die soon and he will lose his son. Mary eventually discovers Colin, learning that he was the source of the crying in the house. Although taken aback by his difficult nature, she puts her foot down and refuses to give in to his whims, showing him that he is not really sick. Encouraged by Mary, Colin goes outside for the first time, and Mary and Dickon take him to the secret garden. The three children grow close and spend their free time in the garden every day, where Colin, with their help, learns to walk. The trio keep all of this a secret from the staff. Colin wants his father to be the first one to see him on his legs. Lord Craven has a dream of his late wife Lilias calling to him and returns home. In the secret garden, he sees Colin walking for the first time, leaving him speechless with joy. Mary bursts into tears for the first time in her life, certain that she is unwanted by her uncle and the garden will be locked up again as he had ordered it to be. Lord Craven reassures her that she is now part of the family. Promising never to lock it up again, he thanks her for bringing his family back to life. Dickon informs his older sister and the rest of the manor staff of the good news. The staff watch in shock and joy as Lord Craven and the children come home together.

In 1962, during the Cold War, Elisa Esposito works as a janitor in a secret government laboratory in Baltimore, Maryland. Found abandoned by the side of a river as an infant with scars on her neck, Elisa is mute and communicates through sign language. Her only friends are her closeted middle-aged neighbor Giles, an advertising illustrator, and her coworker Zelda. Colonel Richard Strickland has captured a creature from a South American river and taken it to the facility for study. Elisa discovers it is a humanoid amphibian, and bonds with the creature after visiting him in secret. Seeking an advantage in the Space Race, Strickland persuades General Frank Hoyt to vivisect the Amphibian Man to examine his respiratory system. Scientist Robert Hoffstetler, a Soviet spy, pleads with Strickland to keep him alive for further study, while being ordered by his handlers to kill the creature. Giles reluctantly agrees to help Elisa free Amphibian Man after failing a work assignment and being rejected by a local restaurant manager whom he discovered was both racist and homophobic. Hoffstetler and Zelda also become involved in the plot and successfully get the Amphibian Man to Elisa's apartment. Elisa keeps him in her bathtub, planning to release him into a nearby canal when heavy rain allows access to the ocean. When Giles tries to stop the Amphibian Man from devouring one of his cats, his arm is slashed and the Amphibian Man flees. Elisa coaxes him back to her apartment and the creature touches Giles on his balding head and wounded arm. The next morning, Giles discovers his hair is regrowing and the wounds on his arm have healed. Elisa's infatuation with the Amphibian Man culminates in sexual intercourse. General Hoyt gives Strickland an ultimatum to recover the Amphibian Man or his career will be over. Hoffstetler is told by his handlers he'll be extracted from the US in two days. The Amphibian Man's health begins to deteriorate. Strickland follows Hoffstetler to a meeting with his handlers where Hoffstetler is shot. Strickland intervenes, shooting the handlers, then tortures the dying spy into revealing the Amphibian Man's whereabouts. Strickland confronts Zelda in her home and her husband reveals Elisa has the Amphibian Man. Zelda warns Elisa to release the creature before Strickland can arrive. He ransacks Elisa's apartment and finds evidence of the creature in the bathtub and a calendar note revealing where she plans to release him. "Unable to perceive the shape of You. I find You all around me. Your presence fills my eyes with Your love. It humbles my heart. For You are everywhere." Elisa and Giles are bidding farewell to the creature at the canal when Strickland arrives, knocks Giles down, and shoots both the Amphibian Man and Elisa. Giles and Strickland fight while the Amphibian Man heals himself, then fatally slashes Strickland's throat. As the police arrive with Zelda, the Amphibian Man jumps into the canal with the unconscious Elisa and kisses her. When he uses his healing power again, the scars on her neck open to reveal gills. The now-amphibious Elisa revives and embraces him.

While in the park with her dog, Merlin, 16-year-old Sarah Williams recites from a book titled The Labyrinth but is unable to remember the last line. Realizing that she is late to babysit her infant half-brother Toby, she rushes home and is confronted by her stepmother who goes out with Sarah's father for the night. Frustrated that Toby was given her treasured teddy bear, Lancelot, and annoyed by his constant crying, Sarah rashly wishes that Toby be taken away by the goblins from her book. Toby vanishes and the Goblin King Jareth appears, offering Sarah her dreams in exchange for the baby. She refuses, instantly regretting her wish. Jareth reluctantly gives Sarah 13 hours to solve his labyrinth and find Toby before he is turned into a goblin forever. Jareth transports Sarah to a wasteland where she meets a dwarf named Hoggle who aids her in entering the labyrinth. As Sarah traverses the labyrinth, Jareth plays carelessly with Toby in his palace at the labyrinth's center. After falling down a trapdoor, Sarah ends up in an oubliette where she reunites with Hoggle. The two are confronted by Jareth, escape one of his traps, and encounter a troll named Ludo being tormented by goblins. Hoggle flees, while Sarah befriends Ludo after freeing him but loses him in a forest. Hoggle encounters Jareth, who instructs him to give an enchanted peach to Sarah, calling his loyalty into question, as he was supposed to take her back to the beginning of the labyrinth. Sarah is harassed by a group of creatures called The Fire Gang, but Hoggle comes to her aid. She kisses him, and they fall through a trapdoor that deposits them in a flatulent swamp called the "Bog of Eternal Stench" where they reunite with Ludo. The trio meet the guard of the swamp, the anthropomorphic fox terrier Sir Didymus and his Old English Sheepdog "steed" Ambrosius. Sarah begins crossing a bridge over the bog, but it collapses, and Ludo summons a trail of rocks to save her. Sir Didymus joins the group as they leave the bog. Hoggle gives a hungry Sarah the enchanted peach and runs away as she falls into a trance and forgets her quest. She dreams of a masquerade ball and sees Jareth in the crowd. She approaches him, and the two dance together, but Sarah is reminded of her quest when she sees a clock. She runs, escaping the trance and falling into a junkyard outside the Goblin City near Jareth's castle. An old Junk Lady fails to trick Sarah, who regains her memory and rejoins Ludo and Sir Didymus. They are confronted by the humongous, robotic gate guard, but Hoggle comes to their rescue. Despite Hoggle feeling unworthy of forgiveness for his betrayal, Sarah and the others welcome him back, and together they enter the city. Jareth is alerted to the group's presence and sends his goblin army to stop them. Ludo summons a multitude of rocks to chase the goblins away, and they enter the castle. Sarah insists she must face Jareth alone and promises to call the others if needed. In a room modeled after M. C. Escher 's Relativity, she confronts Jareth while trying to retrieve Toby. She recites the lines from her book that mirror her adventure up to that point, but she still cannot remember the last line. Jareth offers Sarah her dreams again, but she remembers the final line: "You have no power over me!" Due to Jareth's power deriving from Sarah fearing him, he is weakened by her willpower, eventually becoming so defeated that he transforms into his second form, a barn owl, and flies away, returning Toby to Sarah as a sign of mutual agreement and respect. Realizing how important Toby is to her, Sarah gives him Lancelot and returns to her room as her father and stepmother return home. She sees her friends in the mirror and admits that, even though she has grown up, she still needs them in her life, whereupon the labyrinth characters appear in her room for a raucous reunion party, hugging each other in joy. Jareth, in his barn owl form, watches their celebration from outside and then flies off into the moonlight, knowing she has won.

Henry Spencer's face appears superimposed over a planet in space. He opens his mouth and a spermatozoon -like creature emerges. A man inside the planet moves a set of levers, and the creature is flushed away. In an industrial cityscape, Henry walks home with his groceries. He is stopped outside his apartment by a woman across the hall, who informs him that his girlfriend, Mary, has invited him to dinner with her family. Henry leaves his groceries in his apartment, which is filled with piles of dirt and dead plants. That night, Henry visits Mary's home, conversing awkwardly with her mother. At the dinner table, he is asked to carve a Cornish game hen; the bird moves and writhes on the plate and gushes blood when cut. After dinner, Henry is cornered by Mary's mother, who tries to kiss him. She tells him that Mary has had his child and that the two must wed. This causes Henry to have a nose bleed. However, Mary is not sure if what she bore is a child. The couple moves into Henry's one-room apartment and begins caring for the child, a swaddled bundle with an inhuman face that resembles the spermatozoon creature seen earlier. The infant refuses all food and cries incessantly and intolerably. The sound drives Mary hysterical, and she leaves Henry and the child. Henry attempts to care for the child, and he learns that it struggles to breathe and has developed painful sores on its skin. Henry begins experiencing visions, again seeing the man in the planet, as well as a lady who inhabits his radiator and stomps more of the sperm creatures. After a sexual encounter with the girl across the hall, he has another vision in which the lady in the radiator sings (" In Heaven "), and his head pops off his body while he is fidgeting, replaced by the baby's crying head. Henry's disembodied head falls from the sky, landing on a street and breaking open. A boy finds it and takes it to a pencil factory to be turned into erasers. Awakened, Henry seeks out the girl across the hall, but finds her with another man. Crushed, Henry returns to his room. He takes a pair of scissors and for the first time removes the child's swaddling clothes. It is revealed that the child has no skin; the bandages held its internal organs together, which proceed to spill out after the bandages are cut. The child gasps in pain, and Henry stabs its organs with the scissors. The wounds gush a thick liquid, covering the child. The power in the room overloads, causing the lights to flicker; as they flick on and off the child grows to huge proportions. As the lights burn out completely, the child's head is replaced by the planet seen at the beginning. Henry appears amidst a billowing cloud of eraser shavings. The side of the planet bursts apart and the man inside struggles with his levers, which emit sparks. Henry is embraced warmly by the lady in the radiator in a white void.

Six-year-old Hushpuppy and her ailing, hot-tempered father Wink live in a small community on an island in the Louisiana bayou called the "Bathtub". Although it lies beyond the levee system that helps protect the land to the north from rising sea levels, Wink thinks it is the most beautiful place in the world and looks down on the way people live on the other side of the levee. In a rustic community schoolhouse, Miss Bathsheba teaches the children of the Bathtub about prehistoric creatures she calls aurochs (portrayed as giant horned boar-like creatures in the film, unlike the true aurochs, a species of wild cattle) that terrorized cavemen and ate their children. She says the cavemen did not bemoan their fate, however, and the students should remember this lesson and learn how to survive, since the fabric of the universe will soon come "unraveled", causing the ice caps to melt and the Bathtub to end up underwater. At home, Hushpuppy finds Wink has gone missing, so she fends for herself. When he returns, he is wearing a hospital gown and bracelet. They argue, and he tells Hushpuppy to leave him alone. She returns to her house, which is a separate building from the one in which Wink resides, and finds her food burning on the stove. She turns up the heat, which sets her house on fire and draws Wink's attention. A chase ensues between the two, and she ends up getting slapped by Wink. When she retaliates by punching him in the chest, he collapses. At the same moment, there is a rumble of thunder. Hushpuppy thinks she has thrown off the balance of the universe by striking her father and runs to get help. Miss Bathsheba gives her some herbal medicine, but when Hushpuppy gets back home Wink is nowhere to be found. Meanwhile, Hushpuppy imagines that the ice calving releases some aurochs that have been frozen in polar ice into the ocean. Throughout the rest of the film, they are seen to reach land, break out of the ice that encases them, and make their way toward the Bathtub. As the weather worsens and Hushpuppy watches many residents of the Bathtub fleeing the impending flood, she sees Wink staggering along the side of the road. He finds some friends and encourages them to ride out the storm before taking Hushpuppy home to do the same. The Bathtub floods overnight, and the next day Wink and Hushpuppy tour the devastation and reconnect with the handful of their neighbors who have also stayed behind. The remaining Bathtub residents build floating homes and make plans to rebuild their community. Some of them think the flooding is only temporary, but Miss Bathsheba thinks it is permanent and says the amount of time before they will have to move is limited. As time passes, it seems likely that she is right, so Wink hatches a plan to drain the water away by blowing a hole in the levee with an alligator gar carcass stuffed with explosives. The water recedes, but then authorities arrive to enforce a mandatory evacuation of the Bathtub. They remove the remaining residents to an emergency shelter and Wink undergoes an operation for his ailment against his wishes. It has come too late to restore his health, however, and he tries to send Hushpuppy to be raised by someone else, but she refuses to go. At the first opportunity, the evacuees escape back to their homes. While Wink lies dying, Hushpuppy and a few of her friends attempt to swim to a flashing light across the water that she feels might lead her to her absent mother. They are picked up by a boat that takes them to a floating bar known as the Elysian Fields. Hushpuppy thinks that the cook is her mother, though the woman doesn't recognize her. The cook says Hushpuppy can stay with her if she wants, but Hushpuppy says she needs to go home. Hushpuppy gets back to the Bathtub just as the aurochs are also arriving. Her friends run away, but she calmly stands her ground and confronts the aurochs. She convinces them to leave and goes to be with Wink. They say their last goodbyes, and she and the remaining residents of the Bathtub give him the funeral he asked for.

Cassiel and Raphaella, two angels, observe the busy life of reunited Berlin. Due to their divine origin, they can hear the thoughts of the people around them, and try to console a dying man. Cassiel has been following his friend Damiel (a former angel), who senses his presence and talks about his experiences as a human. He owns a pizza parlor named Casa dell'angelo (Angel's House) and has married Marion, a trapeze artist whom he met when he was an angel. She works in a local bar in West Berlin, and the two have a young daughter, Doria. Cassiel follows Raissa Becker, an 11-year-old girl who lives in the former East Berlin. He observes her life and notices that she and her mother Hanna Becker are being followed by Philip Winter, a detective who works for Anton Baker. Baker is an American arms dealer and pornographer who owns a transport company. Cassiel follows Becker and Winter into an abandoned building. As Raphaella and Cassiel sit on top of the Brandenburg Gate, he expresses a desire to experience human life. Visiting Raissa, he finds her alone at her flat and leaning over the balcony railing. As she falls, Cassiel tries to save her and suddenly becomes human, catching the child. He has to adjust to the transformation, learning to modulate the volume of his voice and to negotiate streets and avoid being hit by cars. His only possession is an angel's armor, which became tangible when he leaped into humanity. In the subway, Cassiel is tricked into gambling by Emit Flesti ('Time Itself'), losing his armor and money won during the game. Raphaella begs Flesti to give Cassiel time to understand what it is to be a human; he agrees but does not promise to stop hunting him. Arrested and detained, Cassiel struggles to satisfy police demands for identification. He cannot give (or comprehend) his name or address, but refers the police to his friend's pizza shop. Damiel arrives at the station and takes his now human friend home. Tricked by Flesti into drinking alcohol, he becomes addicted and robs a shop with a gun taken from a teenager, who had been planning to kill his abusive stepfather. Cassiel begins begging to make his way and feigns a car accident with Baker to compel him to pay for the forging of a passport and birth certificate he has ordered under the name Karl Engel (Charles Angel). Baker hires Cassiel as his valet, to pass him cards for cheating his fellow gangsters at poker. Stopping by Casa dell'Angelo to return items borrowed from Damiel, Cassiel encounters Flesti again. He is collecting money from Damiel, after having loaned him money to set up the business. After Cassiel saves Baker's life, Baker makes Cassiel his partner. But after learning the true nature of his business, Cassiel decides to leave Baker's service and stop him. Winter is killed by Flesti. With the help of Damiel and former angel Peter Falk, Cassiel gets into Baker's airport storage area. His team takes all the weapons and destroy the pornography copying machines. They send the weapons to a barge owned by other friends. Once having completed the plan, Cassiel feels ready to live as a human, but Flesti reports that Baker's rival, Patzke, has hijacked the barge with Baker's and Cassiel's friends inside. Becker is also captured and reunites with his sister, Hannah, on board. Flesti reveals himself as Time and says that he has to make Cassiel understand he does not belong in the human world; he has a word written on his forehead. At a boat lift, Cassiel gets on the barge and frees Raissa, moments before he is killed. Flesti slows time so the rest can take over the barge and save the entire party. Cassiel's friends are saddened by his death, but when Damiel hears a ring in his ear, he understands that Cassiel has been reinstated as an angel and is near, and Damiel laughs in joy.