In the fictional town of Spurbury, Vermont, four Vermont state troopers patrol a 50-mile (80 km) section of highway and compete for prominence with the local police department. Although they are warned that their station risks being shuttered due to low productivity, the troopers – Lieutenant Arcot Ramathorn, "Rabbit" Roto, "Mac" Womack, and Carl Foster – delight in playing practical jokes on unsuspecting motorists and each other, rather than enforcing the law. They particularly enjoy tormenting fellow trooper Rodney Farva, a cocky and overzealous officer who has been suspended from the road for an incident involving a school bus and school children. The troopers, led by Captain John O'Hagen, are called to investigate an abandoned Winnebago off the highway, only to find the Spurbury police have already arrived. Entering the RV the police and troopers discover the body of a murdered woman. Claiming the investigation, the Spurbury police chief, Bruce Grady, hopes to force the closure of the troopers' station, thereby securing increased funding for his agency. The animosity leads to a brawl between the assembled officers. The troopers observe a tattoo on the dead woman depicting a monkey. During a routine traffic stop of a semi-truck shortly after, Foster and Womack discover a large shipment of marijuana marked with stickers depicting the same monkey. The troopers suspect the dead woman and the marijuana are related. However, Chief Grady laughs off the claim and refuses Captain O'Hagen's suggestion that the troopers and local police cooperate on the investigation. Foster begins a relationship with Spurbury police officer Ursula Hanson and, while attempting to have sex with her in the now-impounded Winnebago, discovers hidden bundles of marijuana, all bearing the same monkey sticker. Foster conspires with Ursula, who hates her coworkers and is stuck manning the front desk, to reveal the bust at an upcoming visit by the governor, thereby proving the troopers' suspicions and embarrassing the local police. Meanwhile, Farva is reinstated to patrol and partnered with an exasperated Ramathorn. However, Farva attacks a restaurant cashier and is arrested by the Spurbury police. Chief Grady offers Farva a job with his department in exchange for information about the drug investigation, but Farva refuses. Farva is subsequently reprimanded by an infuriated O'Hagen, who re-suspends Farva. The governor arrives in Spurbury; Ramathorn and Foster break into the police impound and steal the Winnebago, planning to reveal the marijuana discovered by Foster at a press conference. They barely make it in time, only to discover the marijuana has already been seized by the Spurbury police, with Chief Grady claiming credit. Foster accuses Ursula of revealing the location of the marijuana in exchange for a favorable assignment. Having nothing to show for their efforts, the state troopers expect their station to be shut down. Back at the station, the troopers find Farva dressed in a Spurbury police uniform; Foster realizes that it was Farva, not Ursula, who betrayed the location of the marijuana. The troopers, including Captain O'Hagen, handcuff Farva to a toilet and drunkenly vandalize Chief Grady's house. Ursula offers to help the troopers get back at Grady and tips them off to intercept a drug-running truck. As they attempt to pursue it, the troopers encounter an escaped Farva, who holds them at gunpoint and berates them for not taking him seriously as a cop. O'Hagen intervenes and the troopers convince Farva to help them stop the drug smugglers. Following the truck to a nearby airfield, the troopers observe it being loaded with marijuana from a Canadian-marked plane. Chief Grady and several Spurbury officers then arrive, and the troopers realize that the local police are running protection for the smugglers. After creating a diversion, the troopers brawl with the Spurbury officers and smugglers, ultimately arresting them. Some days later, the governor sends Captain O'Hagen a letter thanking him for his efforts, but telling him the station will still be shut down. Three months later, Ramathorn and Rabbit, as deliverymen, find themselves bringing a keg of beer to a party hosted by underage college students they previously arrested. As the teenagers torment the seemingly powerless ex-troopers, they remove their deliverymen's uniforms to reveal that they are Spurbury police officers, having replaced their corrupt predecessors.

By 2022, the cumulative effects of overpopulation, global warming, and pollution have caused ecocide, leading to severe worldwide shortages of food, water, and housing, bringing human civilization to the brink of collapse. New York City has a population of 40 million, and only the elite can afford spacious apartments, clean water, and natural food in walled-off communities patrolled by armed guards. Their homes are fortified, with moats, security systems, and bodyguards for their tenants. Usually they have sex slaves, who are referred to as "furniture", have no human rights, and are passed from one apartment owner to the next. Meanwhile, the majority live in squalor, haul water from communal spigots, and eat highly processed food wafers made by the Soylent Corporation — a large food processing firm. Their mainstay products, Soylent Red and Soylent Yellow, are a staple food, and the latest product, a new, more nutritious, and flavorful wafer derived from plankton, Soylent Green, is introduced to the populace. NYPD Detective Robert Thorn lives in a cramped apartment with his aged co-worker and friend Sol Roth, a brilliant former college professor and police researcher (referred to as a "Book"), who helps him with his cases. Thorn is called to investigate the murder of the wealthy and influential William R. Simonson, a member of the Soylent Corporation's board, which he suspects was an assassination. With the help of Simonson's concubine Shirl, his investigation leads to a priest whom Simonson had visited shortly before his death. Due to the sanctity of the confessional, the visibly exhausted priest can only hint to Thorn at the contents of the confession. Soon after, the priest is murdered in the confessional by Tab Fielding, Simonson's former bodyguard. Under the direction of Governor Henry C. Santini, Thorn's superiors order him to end the investigation. Still, he continues. He soon becomes aware that a stalker is following him. As Thorn tries to control a violent mob during a Soylent Green shortage riot, he is attacked by the assassin who killed Simonson. The killer shoots three times at Thorn but misses, accidentally striking several innocent bystanders in the crowd. Thorn manages to locate the killer and throw him to the ground. The killer shoots Thorn in the leg before being crushed by the hydraulic shovel of a police riot-control vehicle, which continually scoops up shovelfuls of people in the crowd and swivels to dump them for disposal. In researching the case for Thorn, Roth brings two volumes of the Soylent Oceanographic Survey Report, 2015–2019, taken by Thorn from Simonson's apartment, to the team of other "Books" (elderly former professors and retired judges now turned researchers) at the "Supreme Exchange". The "Books" quickly conclude from the oceanographic reports that the oceans are dying and cannot actually produce the plankton from which Soylent Green is allegedly made, thus revealing that the ingredients in Soylent Green are, in fact, human bodies. This information confirms to Roth that Simonson's murder was ordered by his fellow Soylent Corporation board members, who knew Simonson was increasingly troubled by this truth and feared he might disclose it to the public. Shaken by the truth, Roth decides to "return to the home of God" and seeks assisted suicide at a government clinic. Thorn discovers this and rushes to stop him, but he arrives too late. Before dying, Roth whispers his discovery to Thorn, who is horrified. Thorn moves to uncover proof of crimes against humanity and to bring it to the attention of the Supreme Exchange so the case can be brought to the Council of Nations to take action. Thorn secretly boards a waste truck transporting human bodies from the euthanasia center to a waste-disposal plant, where he witnesses human corpses instead being processed and turned into Soylent Green. Thorn is discovered but escapes. As he returns to the Supreme Exchange, he is ambushed by Fielding and his men. Finding refuge in the church where Simonson confessed, Thorn kills his attackers but is seriously wounded in a gunfight. As paramedics tend to Thorn, he urges his commanding officer, Chief Hatcher, to spread the truth. Thorn shouts to the surrounding crowd, "Soylent Green is people!"

In 35,000 B.C. during the Ice Age, in what will become North Texas, two cavemen hunters encounter an extraterrestrial life form in a cave, which kills one and infects the other with a black oil -like substance. In 1998, a boy falls into a hole and is infected by the black oil that seeps from the ground. Firefighters who enter the hole to rescue him do not come out. A team of men wearing hazmat suits later extracts the bodies of the boy and the firefighters. Meanwhile, FBI Special Agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully, investigating a bomb threat against a federal building in Dallas, discover the bomb in a building across the street. As the building is evacuated, Special Agent in Charge Darius Michaud remains, ostensibly to disarm the bomb. Instead, he simply waits for the bomb to detonate. At the Office of Professional Review hearing supervised by FBI Assistant Director Jana Cassidy, Mulder and Scully are chastised because the firefighters and the boy were also in the building during the bombing. That evening, Mulder is accosted by paranoid doctor Alvin Kurtzweil, who explains that the "victims" were already dead and that the bombing was staged to cover up how they died. At the hospital morgue, Scully examines one of the victims, finding evidence of an alien virus. Meanwhile, The Smoking Man goes to Texas, where Dr. Ben Bronschweig shows him one of the lost firefighters, who now has an alien organism residing inside his body. The Smoking Man orders Bronschweig to administer a vaccine to it, but to burn the body if it fails. Later, the alien organism gestates and kills Bronschweig. Mulder and Scully travel to the site of the hole in Texas, where they find it has been hastily turned into a new playground, and encounter the boys whose friend fell in. Driving in the direction the boys indicated, the pair encounters a train of white gasoline tankers and follows it to a cornfield surrounding two glowing domes. Inside the domes, grates in the floor open and swarms of bees fly out, overwhelming the agents. They flee through an adjacent cornfield, chased by black helicopters, and escape when the helicopters disappear. In D.C., Scully attends another OPR hearing; meanwhile, Mulder meets with Kurtzweil to obtain more information. Scully arrives at Mulder's apartment to tell him she has been transferred to SLC but plans to resign from the FBI. The two are about to kiss when Scully is stung by a bee that had lodged itself under her shirt collar. She falls unconscious while Mulder calls paramedics, but the ambulance driver shoots Mulder and takes Scully away. She is seen later in an isolation unit being loaded onto a plane. An unconscious Mulder is picked up by another ambulance. Not severely injured, he slips out of the hospital with the help of The Lone Gunmen and FBI Assistant Director Walter Skinner. He then meets a former adversary, the Well-Manicured Man, who gives him Scully's location and a vaccine against the virus that has infected her. As Mulder leaves, the Well-Manicured Man shoots his driver and then kills himself in a car bomb before his betrayal of The Syndicate is discovered. 48 hours later, Mulder finds Scully in an underground facility in Antarctica, which also contains many humans suspended in ice-like enclosures. He breaks Scully's confinement and uses the vaccine to revive her, but this disrupts the facility, and the cocooned aliens begin trying to escape. After Mulder and Scully escape to the surface, an alien vessel emerges from beneath the ice and travels into the sky. Mulder watches it disappear into the distance as Scully regains full consciousness. At another hearing, Scully's testimony is disregarded, and evidence in Texas is destroyed. To the hearing moderator, she hands over the only remaining proof of their ordeal—the bee that stung her—while noting that the FBI is currently unable to investigate this evidence. Outside, Mulder reads an article about the domes and crop fields in Texas that have been covered up. Scully reveals that she is willing to continue working with him: "If I quit now, they win." At another crop outpost in Tunisia, the Smoking Man warns Conrad Strughold that Mulder remains a threat, explaining what Mulder has found out about the virus. He then hands him a telegram revealing that the X-files unit has been reopened.

Technicians at a secret underground facility prepare for an annual ritual designed to save humanity from extinction. Similar operations around the world stage elaborate sacrificial scenarios based on local horror traditions. Most have already failed this year, and when a Japanese operation unexpectedly collapses, the American team finds they are humanity's last hope. Five college students set out for a weekend getaway at an isolated cabin owned by the cousin of Curt Vaughan, a confident athlete. Accompanying him are his girlfriend Jules, Dana, Holden, and Marty, an eccentric but perceptive stoner. Although the group appears ordinary, unseen technicians are already manipulating their environment. Chemicals pumped through vents subtly alter the students' moods and behavior, nudging them into familiar horror-movie roles: the athlete, the scholar, the fool, the virgin, and the promiscuous party girl. Once inside the cabin, hidden cameras monitor the friends as they explore, while technicians bet on which monsters the group will accidentally unleash. The students discover strange relics and artifacts in the cellar. Dana reads aloud from an old diary belonging to Patience Buckner, whose sadistic family once lived on the property. Her words awaken the Buckners as violent undead killers. Manipulated by chemicals released into the woods, Curt and Jules wander outside to have sex where Jules is brutally murdered by the zombie Buckners. Curt barely escapes. Marty discovers the surveillance equipment hidden throughout the cabin but is attacked while trying to warn the others. The survivors attempt to flee but the facility blocks their escape with collapsing tunnels and sealed roads. Curt attempts a dramatic motorcycle jump across a ravine, crashes into an invisible force field and falls to his death. Attempting to escape in an RV, Holden is killed and the vehicle crashes into the lake. Dana struggles ashore, only to be cornered by one of the Buckners. At the facility, the technicians celebrate, believing the ritual is nearly complete. Their relief is interrupted when Marty suddenly reappears, rescues Dana, and leads her to a hidden elevator connected to the underground complex where the pair uncover the horrifying truth. The entire cabin ordeal has been orchestrated as a ritual sacrifice to appease the "Ancient Ones", colossal subterranean beings capable of destroying the world. The objects in the cellar determine which monsters are released upon the victims, and the chosen victims themselves are forced into symbolic archetypes required by the ritual. When security forces corner Dana and Marty, they unleash imprisoned werewolves, ghosts, giant snakes, mutant killers, and countless other horrors. The technicians who coldly manipulated the victims are massacred in gruesome fashion. Dana and Marty reach an ancient temple beneath the facility, where the director explains the sacrifices must occur in sequence, with the "virgin" dying last or surviving. Since Marty, the designated fool, unexpectedly survived, the ritual remains incomplete. The director urges Dana to kill him and save humanity. A werewolf mortally wounds Dana before she can decide. Marty kills the creature, and together they realize they no longer believe humanity deserves saving through endless cycles of ritual murder. Accepting the consequences, they share a final moment together as the temple collapses. One of the Ancient Ones rises, bringing about the end of the world.

Barry Kohler, a young amateur Nazi hunter, spies on a meeting of the fugitive Nazi organisation Kameraden in Paraguay. At this meeting, infamous Auschwitz doctor Josef Mengele issues instructions for the assassinations of 94 civil servants in Western Europe and North America, all of them low-ranking and aged around 65, on particular dates over the next two years. Kohler telephones Ezra Lieberman, a famous (as well as penniless and cynical) Nazi hunter living in Vienna, to inform him of his discovery. While still on the phone, Kohler is surprised by the Kameraden and killed. With the help of his sister Esther, British journalist Sidney Beynon and Jewish-American vigilante leader David Bennett, Lieberman begins investigating the deaths of civil servants fitting the profile who die suddenly over the next few months. He is struck by the fact that all of the dead men have sons aged 13 who look exactly alike, with pale skin, dark hair and blue eyes. He discovers that all of the boys were illegally adopted and that some of the adoptions were facilitated by Kameraden member Frieda Maloney, who has since been jailed. Lieberman interviews Maloney, who tells him that the boys were provided by an intermediary in Brazil. She mentions that one of the adoptive fathers she dealt with, American Henry Wheelock, gave her a newborn puppy in exchange for her baby. Seeking an explanation for the boys' identical appearance, Lieberman consults the biologist Dr Bruckner, who explains the principles of cloning. Lieberman deduces that the boys are clones of Adolf Hitler, all created from a single DNA sample by Mengele, who has also been seeking to ensure that their childhoods imitate that of the original Hitler by having them adopted by parents who resemble Hitler's own abusive father Alois (a civil servant in the Austro-Hungarian Empire) and doting mother Klara. This is done in the hopes that their later lives will follow the same course, and that as adults they will establish new Nazi regimes in their respective countries. The murders of the fathers are part of this plan, designed to reflect the death of Alois when Hitler was 13. Based on this revelation, and the age of Maloney's dog, Lieberman realises that Henry Wheelock is due to be murdered in just four days' time. Alarmed by the progress of Lieberman's investigation and Mengele's increasingly erratic behaviour (after he beats one of his men nearly to death for killing his target on the wrong date), the Kameraden leadership attempts to shut down the project, but Mengele escapes. Lieberman travels to rural Pennsylvania to warn Henry Wheelock, only to discover that Wheelock has already been murdered by Mengele, posing as Lieberman. The doctor badly wounds Lieberman with a gunshot, but is then cornered by the family's vicious Doberman Pinschers (Mengele fears dogs). When Wheelock's son Bobby arrives home from school, Mengele attempts to tell him about his real origins. He makes no attempt to deny killing Wheelock, telling Bobby that he must rise above his worthless adoptive family and embrace his destiny. This enrages the boy, who orders the dogs to kill Mengele. Lieberman recovers a list from Mengele's pocket detailing the identities of all 94 clones, and then collapses from blood loss. As Lieberman recuperates in hospital, he is visited by Bennett who asks him to hand over the list so that his vigilante group can eliminate the clones. Lieberman refuses and instead burns the list, declaring that they are innocent children who may yet grow up to be harmless. The final scene shows Bobby Wheelock gazing in fascination at photographs he took of Mengele's mauled corpse.

Workers building an extension to the London Underground at Hobbs End dig up a skull. Palaeontologist Dr. Matthew Roney identifies it as a five-million-year-old apeman, more ancient than previous finds. Part of a metallic object is uncovered nearby. Believing it to be an unexploded bomb from the London blitz, they call in an army bomb disposal team. Meanwhile, Professor Bernard Quatermass learns that his plans for the colonisation of the Moon are to be taken over by the military, who want to establish missile bases in space. Colonel Breen is assigned to Quatermass's British Experimental Rocket Group. When the bomb disposal team call for Breen's assistance, Quatermass accompanies him to the site. When another skull is found within a chamber of the "bomb", they realise that the object itself must also be five million years old. Noting the ship's imperviousness to heat, Quatermass suspects it is of alien origin. Roney's assistant, Barbara Judd, goes to the site with Quatermass. She becomes intrigued by the name of the area, recalling that "Hob" is an old name for the Devil. A policeman mentions a legend that the bombed-out house opposite the station is haunted. All three go there to investigate. Quatermass and Barbara later find historical accounts of hauntings and other spectral appearances going back centuries, coinciding with disturbances of the ground around Hobbs End. A member of the bomb disposal team witnesses a spectral apparition of Roney's apeman appearing through the object's wall. An attempt to open a sealed chamber in the object using a Borazon drill fails. Later, however, a small hole is seen. The hole widens to reveal the corpses of insectoid creatures with horned heads. An examination of their physiology suggests that they came from Mars. They resemble images of the Devil; Quatermass believes that the spaceship is the source of the spectral images and disturbances. They reveal their findings to the press. Quatermass theorises that the occupants of the spaceship came from a dying Mars. Unable to survive on Earth, they sought to preserve part of their race by creating a colony by proxy, by enhancing the intelligence of and imparting Martian faculties to the indigenous primitive hominids. Quatermass theorises that the insectoids used medical and surgical techniques that were more advanced than those on present-day Earth. These apemen's descendants evolved into humans, retaining the vestiges of Martian influence buried in their subconscious. Breen thinks that the "alien craft" is Nazi propaganda designed to sow fear among Londoners. A government minister believes Breen and decides to unveil the spaceship at a press conference. The drill operator, Sladden, is later overcome by a psychic force and flees. His mind unleashes telekinetic energy displays, disrupting people and property. He comes to rest in a church. Before recuperating, Sladden has a vision of insect creatures under an alien sky. Sladden sees himself as one of them and feels that he has to flee to save his life. At Hobbs End, Quatermass brings a machine which taps into the primeval psyche. While trying to replicate the circumstances under which Sladden was affected, he notices that Barbara has fallen under the spaceship's influence. Using the machine, he records her thoughts. Quatermass presents the recording to the minister and other officials. It shows Martians engaged in what he interprets as a genocidal race purge, to cleanse the Martian hives of all mutations. The minister and Breen dismiss the recording. A power line later is dropped within the craft, giving it a jolt of electrical energy. The effect and range of the spaceship's influence on Londoners increases; they go on a rampage, attacking all those perceived as different, with deadly telekinetic displays of energy. Breen is drawn towards the spaceship and killed by the energy emanating from it. Quatermass falls under the alien control too, but is snapped out of it by Roney, who is unaffected. A small portion of the population turns out to be immune. The psychic energy intensifies, ripping up streets and buildings, while a spectral image of a Martian resembling the image of the Devil of legend towers above London. Recalling stories about how the Devil could be defeated with iron and water, Roney theorises that the Martian energy can be discharged into the earth. Roney climbs a building crane and swings it into the image. The crane bursts into flames as it discharges the energy, killing Roney. The image and its effects on London disappear.

A man named Goreng awakens in a cell numbered 48. His cellmate Trimagasi explains that they are in a tower-style holding facility. Once per day, food arrives on "the platform" that lowers from level 0, stopping for two minutes on each level. Prisoners can only eat while the platform is stopped on their level, and are subjected to fatal temperatures if they keep any food. Prisoners are randomly reassigned to a new level each month. Trimagasi reveals that when assigned to level 132, he and his former cellmate cannibalized someone. One day, a woman named Miharu rides down the platform, whom Trimagasi explains regularly descends the pit to search for her child. Goreng explains that he volunteered to spend six months in the facility in exchange for a diploma, while Trimagasi confides that he is serving a year-long sentence for manslaughter. The following month, they are reassigned to level 171. Trimagasi ties up Goreng and explains his plans to feed himself using Goreng's flesh. When he begins cutting into Goreng's leg, Miharu arrives, attacks Trimagasi, and frees Goreng, who kills Trimagasi. Encouraged by Miharu, Goreng eats Trimagasi's flesh and subsequently becomes haunted by hallucinations of Trimagasi. The next month, Goreng wakes on level 33 with a woman named Imoguiri and her dog, Ramesses II. Imoguiri was the administration official who interviewed Goreng before sending him to the pit, having admitted herself after being diagnosed with terminal cancer. Imoguiri only eats every other day, letting Ramesses II eat on the days that she does not, and tries unsuccessfully to convince the pair below them to ration their food. One day, Miharu arrives injured. Goreng and Imoguiri nurse her back to health. That night, Goreng breaks up a fight between Miharu and Imoguiri to then discover that Miharu has killed Ramesses II. After Miharu leaves, Goreng mentions her child to Imoguiri, who says there are no children in the pit and Miharu came alone. The following morning, Goreng wakes to find that they have been reassigned to level 202 and that Imoguiri has hanged herself. He consumes her flesh, plagued with hallucinations of his former cellmates. The next month, Goreng is assigned to level 6. His new cellmate, Baharat, is a religious man who has been attempting to escape the pit for months. Estimating that there are 250 levels, Goreng convinces Baharat to ride the platform down with him and ration the food. They forbid anyone on the first fifty levels to receive any, arguing that they get to eat every day, and fend off those who defy them. Fellow prisoner Sr. Brambang advises them that civility is more effective than violence and convinces them to send a symbolic message to the administration by leaving a single panna cotta untouched. As they descend further, they hand out portions to the prisoners, attacking those who refuse to cooperate. They encounter Miharu being attacked and try to save her, but she is killed and they are both left severely injured. Goreng and Baharat continue to descend, eventually stopping at level 333, where Goreng notices a child whom he deduces is Miharu's daughter. They get off the platform, letting it continue downward, and reluctantly feed the girl the panna cotta. That night, Baharat shakes Goreng awake and tells him, "The girl is the message." Goreng awakens, revealing this encounter to have been a dream, and finds that the real Baharat has bled to death. Goreng and the girl ride the platform to the very bottom level. Goreng once again hallucinates Trimagasi, who encourages him to get off the platform. Goreng insists that he has to ride the platform back up to the top, as he is the bearer of the "message," but Trimagasi replies, "The message requires no bearer." Goreng gets off the platform and the two walk away, watching as the child ascends.

In 1999 Los Angeles, Hannon Fuller owns a multibillion-dollar computer enterprise and is the inventor of a newly completed virtual reality (VR) simulation of 1937 Los Angeles, filled with simulated humans unaware they are computer programs. When Fuller is murdered just as he begins premature testing of the VR system, his friend and protégé, Douglas Hall, who is also the heir to the company, becomes the primary suspect. The evidence against him is so strong that Hall begins to doubt his own innocence. Between interrogations by LAPD Detective Larry McBain, Hall meets Jane Fuller, Hannon's estranged daughter, who intends to shut down the new VR system. Hall then romances her. When a local bartender is murdered after he claims to have witnessed a meeting between Hall and Fuller on the night Fuller was murdered, Hall is arrested. He is released when Jane gives him an alibi. With the assistance of his associate Jason Whitney, Hall attempts to find a message that Fuller left for him inside the simulation. Entering the virtual reality, Hall becomes a bank clerk named John Ferguson. Hall learns that Fuller left the message with a bartender named Jerry Ashton, who read the message and discovered he is an artificial creation. Ashton becomes suspicious of Hall, as once Hall leaps out of Ferguson in the men's restroom of the hotel where Ashton works, Ferguson does not know where he is. When Hall enters the simulation later, He goes to Ashton and asks about the letter. Frightened and angry about the true nature of his world, Ashton tries to kill Hall. Hall barely survives to escape the VR. McBain informs Hall that Jane does not exist, as Fuller never had a daughter. Hall tracks her down only to discover her double, Natasha Molinaro, working as a grocery store clerk, but Molinaro does not recognize Hall. This leads Hall to perform an experiment outside the VR system, something that Fuller's message instructed him to try: drive to a place where he never would have considered going otherwise. He does so, and discovers a point beyond which the world becomes a crude wireframe model. Hall grasps the intended revelation behind Fuller's message: 1999 Los Angeles is itself a simulation. Jane explains the truth to Hall: his world is one of thousands of virtual worlds, but it is the only one in which one of the occupants has developed a virtual world of their own. Jane Fuller lives in the real world outside the 1990s Los Angeles simulation. After Fuller's death, she entered the virtual version to assume the guise of Fuller's daughter, gain control of the company, and shut down the simulated 1937 reality, a plan foiled by Hall being made the company heir. The virtual Hall is modeled after David, Jane's real-world husband, though Jane has since fallen in love with Hall. David committed the murders via Hall's body, being driven to increasingly jealous and psychopathic behavior from prolonged use of VR to live out his dark fantasies. Whitney enters the 1937 simulation as Ashton, who has kidnapped Ferguson and bound him in the trunk of his car. When Whitney is killed in a car crash inside the 1937 simulation, Ashton's consciousness takes control of Whitney's body in the 1990s simulation and takes Hall hostage. Hall tells Ashton that he is not in the real world, and that they are both products of a VR simulation. Hall takes Ashton to the place where he was 'born': a computer lab. David assumes control of Hall again to kill Ashton and then attempts to rape and murder Jane. Jane is rescued by Detective McBain, who shoots and kills David. McBain at this point has realized the nature of his own reality, and jokingly asks Jane if someone will unplug him. She answers "no", so McBain requests that Jane never meddle with the simulation again. David's death as Hall in the 1990s simulation allows Hall's consciousness to take control of David's body in the real world. He wakes in 2024, connected to a VR system. He disconnects the system and finds Jane and her father, upon whom Hannon Fuller was modeled. Jane wants to tell Hall all about the simulation, and just as she begins, the film ends; the screen image collapses to a thin line of light before going dark, like a computer monitor being turned off.

In the fictional country of Lugash, a mysterious thief seizes the Pink Panther diamond and leaves a white glove embroidered with a gold "P." With its national treasure once again missing, the Shah of Lugash requests the assistance of Inspector Clouseau of the Sûreté, as Clouseau had recovered the diamond the last time it was stolen. Clouseau has been temporarily demoted to beat cop by his boss, Chief Inspector Charles Dreyfus, who despises him to the point of obsession, but the French government forces Dreyfus to reinstate him. Clouseau joyously receives the news and duly departs for Lugash, but not before fending off a surprise attack from his servant Cato, who had been ordered to do so to keep the Inspector on his toes. Upon examining the crime scene in the national museum — in which, due to his habitual clumsiness, he wrecks several priceless antiques — Clouseau concludes that the glove implicates Sir Charles Litton, alias "the notorious Phantom," as the thief. After several catastrophic failures to stake out Litton Manor in Nice, Clouseau believes a mysterious assassin is attempting to kill him. He follows Sir Charles' wife, Lady Claudine Litton, to the Gstaad Palace hotel in Switzerland in search of clues to her husband's whereabouts and repeatedly bungles the investigation. Meanwhile, Sir Charles is teased about the theft by his wife and realizes he has been framed. Arriving in Lugash to clear his name, Sir Charles barely avoids being murdered and sent to the Lugash secret police by his associate known as the "Fat Man", who explains that with the leading suspect dead, the secret police will no longer have an excuse to continue purging their political enemies. Escaping to his suite, Litton finds secret police Colonel Sharki waiting for him, who implies the Fat Man's understanding is correct, but reminds him the diamond must be recovered eventually. Sir Charles pretends to cooperate, but is unable to hide his reaction when he recognizes a face on the museum's security footage. He avoids another plot by the Fat Man and his duplicitous underling Pepi and escapes from Lugash, secretly pursued by Sharki, who believes Sir Charles will lead him to the diamond. In Gstaad, Clouseau, still tailing Lady Claudine, is suddenly ordered by Dreyfus over the telephone to arrest her in her hotel room. However, when Clouseau calls back to clarify the order, he is told that Dreyfus is on vacation. Sir Charles, who in the meantime has chartered a private flight out of Lugash, arrives at the hotel and is first to confront his wife. Lady Claudine admits she stole the jewel to spark excitement in their lives. Colonel Sharki shows up, but just as he prepares to kill them both, Inspector Clouseau barges in. Sir Charles explains things to Clouseau, and Sharki is about to kill the three of them. However, Dreyfus has followed Clouseau and is outside the hotel room with a rifle — Dreyfus is in fact the "mysterious assassin" who has been trying to kill Clouseau all this time — and just as Dreyfus shoots at Clouseau, the Inspector ducks to check if his fly is undone, and the shot kills Sharki instead. The other three take cover, while Dreyfus, insanely enraged by his latest failure to kill Clouseau, goes berserk until he is arrested. For once again recovering the Pink Panther, Clouseau is promoted to Chief Inspector, while Sir Charles resumes his career as a jewel thief. At a Japanese restaurant in the epilogue, Cato unexpectedly attacks Clouseau again and triggers a massive brawl, destroying the premises; Clouseau chastises Cato for his ill timing but then attempts to attack the latter from behind, only to fail and crash into the kitchen causing more damage. Dreyfus is committed to a lunatic asylum for his actions, where he is straitjacketed inside a padded cell and vows revenge on Clouseau. The film ends when the Pink Panther (in cartoon form) enters Dreyfus' cell and, after watching the credits roll by, films him writing "The End" on the wall with his foot.

Rožat "Rusty" Sabich is the right-hand man of Kindle County prosecutor Raymond Horgan and is known as an effective and ruthless prosecutor. In his most recent case, Rusty oversees the prosecution of a mother who tortured her son by placing his head in a vise in their basement, delivering a damning closing argument where he uses the boy's own words - "mommy hurt my head" - to convict her. Shortly thereafter, Rusty's colleague Carolyn Polhemus is found raped and murdered in her apartment. Horgan insists that Rusty take charge of the investigation, as he faces a fierce re-election challenge from Nico Della Guardia and Tommy Molto, both disgruntled former members of his office. Rusty faces a conflict of interest since he had a brief sexual affair with Carolyn; despite having since reconciled with his wife Barbara, he remains obsessed with Carolyn. Det. Harold Greer is initially in charge of the murder investigation, but Rusty has him replaced with his friend Dan "Lip" Lipranzer, whom he asks to limit the scope of the murder investigation. Horgan loses patience with Rusty's handling of the case, particularly after admitting he also had a brief relationship with Carolyn. When Della Guardia wins the election, he and Molto (who replaces Rusty as chief deputy) reappoint Greer to take over the case. Greer learns about the affair, and Rusty is arrested and indicted for Carolyn's murder. Rusty hires Sandy Stern as his lawyer, while the case is assigned to Judge Larren Lyttle. As the trial begins, an important piece of evidence - a beer glass with Rusty's fingerprints - goes missing and Lyttle refuses to delay until it is found. Horgan perjures himself on the stand, claiming Rusty insisted on handling the investigation and was deliberately slow in pursuing leads. However, Stern forces Raymond to admit that Rusty never confessed to having an affair with Carolyn, and Raymond's own affair with her caused him to show improper favoritism. Lip uncovers that Carolyn had stolen a file for a bribery case involving a criminal named Leon Wells, one of Carolyn's old clients from her days as a probation officer. Wells confesses that Carolyn helped him solicit and deliver bribe money to Judge Lyttle to escape prosecution. The thrust of Stern's defense is that Della Guardia and Molto have framed Rusty to exploit the case's public notoriety, repeatedly referencing the missing file to unsettle Lyttle. During cross-examination of the coroner, it is revealed that Carolyn underwent a tubal ligation, thus having no reason to use the spermicidal contraceptive which was found on her. Stern then proves the fluid sample was not actually taken from Carolyn's body, implying the coroner is complicit in framing Rusty. Based on the disappearance of the beer glass, the lack of motive, and the fluid sample's validity nullified, Judge Lyttle promptly dismisses the charges against Rusty. Rusty confronts Stern about the bribery file, believing that he blackmailed Lyttle into dismissing. Stern reveals that Lyttle also had a sexual relationship with Carolyn and that both he and Raymond knew that Lyttle was taking bribes. Though Lyttle had offered his resignation, Raymond felt that he was a brilliant judge and deserved another chance. Despite this, Stern believes Lyttle tried the case with integrity. He then pointedly asks Rusty if justice really was served, implying he has doubts. Lip meets with Rusty and reveals the missing beer glass, explaining he didn't bother returning it to evidence when he was taken off the case. He admits he also doubts Rusty's innocence. Disillusioned, Rusty throws the glass into a river. While repairing a fence on his property, Rusty discovers a small hatchet coated with blood and hair and realizes it is the murder weapon. Barbara discovers him cleaning it and, in a detached monologue, admits she murdered Carolyn because of the affair, which drove her into a near-suicidal depression. She explains she had left enough evidence for Rusty to know it was her but did not anticipate him being charged. In a voice-over, Rusty explains that Carolyn's murder remains unsolved as trying two people for the same crime is impossible and he could never bring himself to take Barbara away from their son. Rusty accepts his role in bringing about Carolyn's death, stating that as with most cases there is "a crime, a victim, and punishment".

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

Jess prepares to take her autistic son Tommy on a boat trip with her friend Greg. When Tommy becomes upset, she tells him that he just had a bad dream. Jess goes to a Florida harbor without Tommy, explaining that he is at school, and boards Greg's boat with his deckhand Victor, his married friends Sally and Downey, and Sally's friend Heather. On the boat she has a dream about crabs on a beach, and wakes up disturbed, but then she forgets what disturbed her. At sea, a storm approaches, and while Greg radios the Coast Guard, he listens to a distress signal from a woman pleading for help. She says that someone is killing everyone but is cut off before she can provide her location. The sudden storm capsizes the boat. Heather is swept away, but the others climb onto the overturned sailboat when the storm clears. The five survivors board a passing ocean liner, the Aeolus. It appears to be deserted even though they saw the silhouette of a person aboard. Jess experiences a sense of déjà vu as they explore the ship. They find Jess's keys and fresh food in the dining room. Jess spots someone watching them and Victor gives chase. Jess and Greg find the words "go to theater" written in blood on a mirror, but Greg insists the crew must be playing a prank. Jess returns to the dining room, where the food is now rotting. Victor, with a head wound, tries to strangle Jess, but she fights him, and he collapses. Jess hears gunfire and follows it to the ship's theater, where Greg lies dead from a gunshot. Sally and Downey say that Greg told them Jess shot him. Someone in a burlap mask shoots Sally and Downey. Jess runs, grabs an ax and disarms the shooter, who tells her, "You have to kill them; it's the only way to get home" before Jess knocks her overboard. Jess hears yelling and sees another copy of her group on Greg's boat, who spot her (as the earlier unidentified figure). This new set of passengers boards the ship. They spot her after she drops her keys, and she attempts to warn the new Victor when he chases her, only to accidentally injure his head on a wall hook. She finds dozens of her own lockets and notes in her own handwriting telling her to kill them all. She takes a shotgun and confronts the new group, intending to "change the pattern", but a third Jess shoots the new Greg and stabs the new Downey and Sally. The old Jess chases the new Sally, who sends the distress signal heard on Greg's boat. Jess catches up to her on a deck filled with dozens of Sally's corpses, and Sally succumbs to her wound as, below them, the new Jess kills the third Jess. The overturned boat returns again with another copy of her group, and the old Jess realizes the loop restarts once everyone is killed. Desperate to stop the loop, she sets the loop into motion by writing on the mirror in blood, dumping bodies overboard, and telling the latest Sally and Downey to go to the theater. She then arms herself, dresses in the shooter's outfit, and puts on a burlap mask. After she shoots the latest group and is disarmed, she urges the latest Jess to kill everyone, before being knocked overboard. She awakens near crabs on a beach, having washed ashore, and she discovers that it is earlier that morning. She returns home and watches from outside her house as her earlier self yells abusively and strikes Tommy out of frustration with his autism. She distracts her counterpart with the doorbell, then kills her, and tells Tommy that he just had a bad dream. She puts the bagged body in her car's trunk and leaves with Tommy, vowing to him that things will change. A seagull hits their windshield and dies, but after she tosses it off the road, she sees there's a pile of many dead seagulls. Realizing she is still trapped in the loop, Jess hurriedly drives away, but crashes into a truck, killing Tommy. A taxi driver approaches her. Jess asks him to take her to the harbour, evidently hoping to bring back her son. The driver tells her he will wait for her, and she promises him that she will return. Exhausted, she joins the others on Greg's boat, starting the loop again.