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.

A young woman named Bugs learns that the Matrix is running old code in a loop, enacting the moment when Trinity first found Neo within the Matrix. Bugs discovers a program embodying Morpheus and helps free him from the simulation. Thomas Anderson is the creator of a video game series called The Matrix, based on his faint memories as Neo. At a coffee shop, he regularly encounters Tiffany, a married mother with no recollection of her past, on whom Anderson based the game character Trinity. Anderson has created a simulation called a Modal to develop game characters. He struggles to separate perceived reality from dreams, a known concern among his co-workers and partner. Thomas's psychoanalyst prescribes him blue pills that he takes each day to suppress the occurrences, but he stops taking them. Meanwhile, as Bugs and Morpheus work to extract Neo from the Matrix, Anderson's business partner regains his memories as Agent Smith, Neo's former nemesis. Neo awakens in a pod and notices Trinity confined in another nearby, before being extracted to Bugs's hovercraft Mnemosyne. Neo is brought to the human city Io, the sister city of Zion, where he reunites with an elderly Niobe. She explains that sixty years have passed in the real world since the Machine War ended, and that Neo's allies, including the original Morpheus, have all died over time. The peace achieved by Neo's sacrifice lasted for many years, but the large number of humans leaving the Matrix created a serious power shortage, causing the machines to fight over limited resources. Soon afterward, Zion was targeted in an attempt to get humans to use as the power supply once more. However, this attempt caused many machines, who still remembered Neo's sacrifice and the promise of peace, to turn on the others in order to protect the humans. This allowed most of Zion's citizens to escape. Io was then founded by both machines and humans who have been working together ever since against the remaining machines who want to return things to the way they were before the war. Niobe refuses to risk Io's safety to help Neo free Trinity and confines him to his quarters. Bugs and her crewmates free Neo and enter the Matrix to contact Trinity. They are attacked by Smith and other exiled programs, including the Merovingian, but Neo and the Mnemosyne crew defeat them as Neo's abilities return. The group leaves and locates Trinity, but before Neo can talk to her, his therapist appears and immobilizes him by manipulating time. He reveals that he is The Analyst, a program designed to study the human psyche. The Analyst explains that after Neo's and Trinity's deaths, he wanted to study Neo's body and his anomalous powers as The One and convinced his superiors to resurrect both of them. He discovered that due to The One's inherent connection to all humanity in the Matrix, manipulating Neo could make the Matrix produce more energy. Moreover, he found that the code anomaly in Neo was shared in his bond with Trinity, and that by suppressing their memories and keeping them close but always apart, the Matrix generated much more energy. Solving the energy crisis put The Analyst in a position to seize power from The Architect, after which he rebuilt the Matrix to control humans with emotional manipulation, claiming that humans generally believe what they want to believe. Neo's liberation destabilized the system and triggered a fail-safe to reboot the Matrix, but The Analyst stalled the reboot by convincing his superiors that threatening to kill Trinity would coerce Neo to return to his pod. Neo and Bugs return to Io and talk to Sati, an exiled program that Neo previously met. Seeking to avenge her parents' deaths at the hands of the Analyst, Sati helps devise a plan to free Trinity. Back in the Matrix, Neo makes a deal with The Analyst: he will return to his pod if he fails to convince Trinity to leave the Matrix. Tiffany reaffirms her identity as Trinity while talking with Neo. Realizing that he has lost, The Analyst attempts to kill her, but Agent Smith appears and attacks him, seeking revenge for his own imprisonment after being restored as a result of Neo's resurrection. Neo, Trinity, and the others escape in their vehicles, chased through the streets by hordes of bot programs and attack helicopters. As the last ones to be extracted from The Matrix, Neo and Trinity become cornered atop a skyscraper. Holding hands, they leap off and Trinity begins to fly, taking them to safety. With Trinity's newfound control over the Matrix, both return to confront The Analyst. They thank him for giving them a second chance by resurrecting them while they also express their contempt. Neo and Trinity fly off into the sky together, making plans to remake The Matrix.

In 2063, astrophysicists on a climate change –ravaged Earth find a habitable planet. A scouting mission is sent, although the roughly 86-year flight means that only some of the original crew, expanded with their children and grandchildren, will reach the planet. The 30-person launch crew are bred on Earth through in vitro fertilisation (IVF) using genius donors, and live their infancy and childhood in isolation in order to help cope with spending their remaining lives mostly in flight. To shorten the wait for news back to Earth, the 30 are launched as preadolescents on the spaceship Humanitas; they are joined by adult program commander Richard, to guide them through the journey's early stage. The plan is for IVF to be performed when the crew turns 24, to be repeated on those offspring when they turn 24. During the tenth year of the flight, Christopher and Zac discover a chemical is added to everyone's food that suppresses the sex drive and pleasure response, keeping them docile and manageable. The pair stop taking the chemical, with their surging hormones driving them to become competitive, careless, and anxious to engage in sexual relations. Their crewmate Sela, who has trained as chief medical officer, is assaulted by one of the boys, which distresses female members of the crew as well as Richard. During a repair effort outside the Humanitas to address a failed Earth communication system, Richard is killed and a fire damages more ship systems. Christopher is voted the new chief officer, which upsets Zac, who then tells the others to stop ingesting the chemical. The mission descends into madness as many of the young men and women revert to their most primal state. A power hungry Zac tells the weak minded others that an alien killed Richard, and he will protect them, letting them eat all the (closely conserved) food they want. He convinces all but five to follow him rather than Christopher. Christopher and Sela, who have become a couple, find and repair a video disk that reveals Zac killed Richard and precipitated the further systems damage by turning on the electricity to the communications array while Richard was working on it. They show the others, but Zac convinces many that an alien is inhabiting one of them, which leads his followers to murder one of their own. Christopher inadvertently leads Zac to a weapons cache for their grandchildren to use on the planet. Three of the holdouts join Zac's mob, leaving only Christopher, Sela, and Phoebe to oppose Zac. One of Zac's mob kills Phoebe, but Sela kills him in return. She and Christopher eject Zac into space, and his followers acquiesce to living peacefully. Sela is voted chief officer. The crew permanently forgoes the suppression chemical and learn to manage their emotions. They fall in love and have children naturally rather than via the planned IVF. After another 76 years, Humanitas and its multi-generational crew arrive at the planet, which appears from orbit to be as Earth-like as hoped.

Dr. Lawrence Angelo, a scientist at Virtual Space Industries (VSI), conducts experiments using psychoactive drugs and virtual reality to enhance cognitive performance in a program called "Project 5". Although Angelo's intentions are benevolent, VSI is funded by "The Shop", a clandestine organization seeking military applications for his research. One of his test subjects, a chimpanzee named Rosco, gains enhanced intelligence, warfare training, and increased aggression; he eventually escapes but is killed by the laboratory's security forces. In response, Angelo decides to recruit Jobe Smith, an intellectually disabled gardener, as a new test subject, promising him increased intelligence. Angelo redesigns the treatments to eliminate the "aggression factors" used in the chimpanzee experiments. Not only does Jobe's intelligence improve, but he also develops psychokinesis and telepathy. He continues his training at the lab until an accident forces Angelo to halt the experiment. Sebastian Timms, the project director, monitors the progress and secretly replaces Angelo's new medications with the original Project 5 formula. When Jobe invites his new lover Marnie to the lab for cybersex, he accidentally lobotomizes her. Undeterred, Jobe continues the treatments on his own and begins killing those who mistreated him in the past, as well as Harold Parkette, the abusive father of his 10-year-old friend, Peter. Angelo discovers the drug switch and confronts Jobe, who captures him and reveals his plan to achieve the ultimate stage of evolution by transforming into a being of "pure energy" within the VSI computer mainframe, intending to connect to all the world's computer systems. Jobe vows that his "birth" will be signaled by every phone on Earth ringing simultaneously. The Shop sends a team to capture Jobe, but he uses his newfound abilities to destroy them. Jobe then enters the VSI mainframe, abandoning his physical body and becoming a digital being. Angelo remotely accesses the VSI computer, encrypting its connections to the outside world, thereby trapping Jobe in the mainframe. As Jobe frantically searches for an unencrypted network, Angelo sets bombs to destroy the building. Feeling responsible for Jobe's fate, Angelo enters virtual reality, attempting to reason with him one last time, even if it means dying together. Jobe overpowers Angelo, crucifying his digital form. When Peter enters the building, Jobe realizes the boy is in danger from the bombs. Out of lingering care for Peter, Jobe allows Angelo to escape the mainframe to save the child. Jobe himself escapes through a maintenance line just before the building explodes. Later, Angelo is at home with Peter and his mother, Carla, when the telephone rings. Soon, another phone rings, followed by phones ringing worldwide—Jobe's signal that he has succeeded.

April Flowers (Michelle Meyrink) is kept away from boys by her overprotective mother (Barbara Harris) because flames have a tendency to spontaneously erupt whenever her hormones are aroused; for April, "protection" on a dinner date is carrying a fire extinguisher. As her mother explains, April is a "fire girl," whose very unstable body chemistry causes spontaneous combustion when she is aroused. As such, the only men April meets more than once are firefighters. When April reconnects with Andy (William O'Leary), a former neighbor who has returned to April's life, he challenges April's and her mother's assumption and presses his luck to prove to her that her hormones are not, in fact, explosive. Hijinks result; as Andy tries to prove his point, he is thwarted at every turn by April's mother. Further complications ensue when April befriends a lonely, obsessive pyromaniac named "Ellen" (Wallace Shawn), who becomes incensed at the constant mishearing of his real name "Ellen" for "Helen," after which he throws Bic lighter flicking snits, trying to set his tormentors ablaze.

After 32 people mysteriously drop dead in Boston, the U.S. government calls in scientists Dr. Joshua "Josh" Keyes and Dr. Serge Leveque. They determine that each person had a pacemaker and that electrical interference has caused them to malfunction. Other incidents involving the Earth's magnetic field lead Josh and Dr. Conrad Zimsky to the conclusion that the Earth's inner core has stopped rotating. Unless it is restarted, the magnetic field will continue to degrade and eventually collapse, exposing the Earth to devastating solar radiation. The U.S. government devises a plan to detonate nuclear weapons within the Earth's outer core to restart the rotation. They bring on Zimsky's former partner, Dr. Ed "Braz" Brazzelton, to build a vessel to deliver the bombs. The vessel, named Virgil, is made of unobtainium, a material that Braz developed to withstand extreme pressure. NASA pilots Commander Robert Iverson and Major Rebecca "Beck" Childs are enlisted to pilot Virgil and computer hacker Theodore Donald "Rat" Finch is recruited to avoid general panic by keeping news of further disasters and Virgil 's mission off the internet. Virgil is launched through the Marianas Trench and enters the crust using a laser-based drilling array. After entering the mantle, Virgil drills and falls into a gigantic empty geode, damaging the drilling array. While working to free the vessel from the outside, Iverson is killed by a falling shard. They escape before the geode is flooded with magma. As Virgil passes through a field of diamond formations, one of them breaches the compartment housing the weapons-control module. Serge sacrifices himself to get the team the information and tools they need to detonate the nukes before the compartment is sealed and jettisoned. The team reaches the outer core and realizes that it is much less dense than previously believed, meaning that their nuclear payload is too small for their current plan. Zimsky shares this with mission leader Lieutenant General Thomas Purcell and reveals to the team his work on DESTINI, a U.S. tectonic weapon that likely stopped the core's rotation. Purcell orders them to return, as he plans to try to use DESTINI to restart the core. However, Josh argues that doing so could permanently destabilize it and trigger massive natural disasters. The team elects to continue over Zimsky and Purcell's objections. A burst of ultraviolet rays destroys the Golden Gate Bridge and causes power outages along the West Coast. Concerned about further power outages preventing DESTINI from being fired, Purcell gives the order to do so. Josh communicates with Rat about DESTINI and the latter prevents Purcell from firing the weapon by redirecting power away from it. The team devises a plan to place a bomb in each of Virgil 's remaining compartments, jettison them, and stagger the detonations, using constructive wave interference to increase the force of the bombs. Braz sacrifices himself, going into the uncooled crawlspace of the ship and activating the control so they can manually detach compartments. As they set the charges, Josh and Zimsky realize that the last bomb needs more explosive power than the others. The bomb in the second-to-last compartment falls on Zimsky's leg and he is unable to escape before the compartment is ejected. Josh uses the nuclear fuel rods from Virgil 's reactor to provide the additional energy for the final detonation. The main compartment is left powerless as the bombs begin to detonate, killing Zimsky, and successfully restarting the core's rotation. Josh recalls that unobtainium can convert heat and pressure to energy and the two restore Virgil 's power in time to ride the pressure wave from the explosions out of the core. Eventually they breach the ocean floor near Hawaii, but lose power due to the cold water. Purcell and the U.S. Navy conducted search operations for them until Rat realized that the Virgil crew is using low-power ultrasound to draw whales to them, leading to Josh and Beck being rescued. Shortly afterward, Rat uploads information about Virgil, its team, and DESTINI to the internet, leading to worldwide news reports and tributes to the lost team members.

An iguana nest is exposed to the fallout of a military nuclear test in French Polynesia. Years later, a Japanese cannery vessel in the South Pacific is suddenly attacked by a giant creature, with only one fisherman surviving. While confined in a hospital in Tahiti, the traumatized survivor is visited by a mysterious Frenchman, who questions him over what he witnessed. The survivor repeatedly replies "Gojira". NRC scientist Dr. Niko "Nick" Tatopoulos is researching the effects of radiation on wildlife in the Chernobyl exclusion zone when he is interrupted by an official from the U.S. State Department who has come to pick him up for a special assignment. Nick is sent to Panama to observe a trail of destruction and footprints left by an unknown creature and then Jamaica to examine the damaged ship with massive claw marks on it. Nick identifies skin samples he discovered in the shipwreck as belonging to an unknown species. He dismisses the military's theory of the creature being a living dinosaur, instead deducing that it is a mutant created by nuclear testing in French Polynesia, close to where it was last spotted. The creature drowns several fishing trawlers in the Eastern American Seaboard, and travels to New York City, leaving a path of destruction. The U.S. military orders an evacuation of the city. On Nick's advice, a plan is set to lure the creature into revealing itself with a large pile of fish. However, their attempt to kill it fails, causing further damage to the city before it escapes. Nick collects a blood sample and, by performing a pregnancy test, discovers the creature reproduces asexually and is about to lay eggs. Nick also meets up with his ex-girlfriend Audrey Timmonds, a young aspiring news reporter. Unnoticed by Nick, she uncovers a classified tape in his provisional military tent concerning the monster's origins and turns it over to the media. She hopes to have her report put on TV to launch her career as a news reporter. Charles Caiman misuses the tape in his own report, declaring it his discovery, and dubs the creature " Godzilla ". As a result of the tape's disclosure, Nick is removed from the operation, and he ends his relationship with Audrey. His taxi is hijacked by the mysterious Frenchman, who identifies himself as Philippe Roaché, an agent of the French secret service. Philippe explains that he and his colleagues have been closely watching the events to cover up their country's role in the nuclear testing that created Godzilla. They suspect a nest somewhere in the city and cooperate with Nick to trace and destroy it. Godzilla resurfaces again and evades a second military strike. After diving into the Hudson River, it is attacked by Navy submarines. After destroying one submarine, it is shot down by torpedoes as it tries to burrow to safety; Godzilla sinks to the river bed and is believed to be dead by the authorities. Meanwhile, Nick and Philippe's team, followed by Audrey and her cameraman Victor "Animal" Palotti, find the nest inside Madison Square Garden. The eggs begin to hatch, and the offsprings attack the team as they carry the scent of fish. Nick, Animal, Audrey, and Philippe take refuge in the Garden's broadcast booth and successfully send a live news coverage to alert the military of the offsprings presence. A prompt response involving an airstrike is initiated as the four escape moments before the Air Force jets bomb the arena. Audrey and Nick reconcile before Godzilla emerges from the Garden's ruins, having survived the torpedo attack. Enraged by the deaths of its young, it chases them across the streets of Manhattan. The team manages to trap Godzilla within the suspension cables of the Brooklyn Bridge, allowing the returning Air Force to strike it down with missiles. Godzilla collapses to the ground and dies, as the remaining citizens and authorities celebrate. Audrey tells Caiman that she quits working for him after what he has done, before leaving with Nick and Animal. Philippe, taking Animal's tape and promising to return it after removing its specific contents, thanks Nick for his help, and parts ways. Meanwhile, in the ruins of Madison Square Garden, a single surviving egg hatches, and the hatchling roars to life.

In 1999, Parker Barnes is a former Los Angeles police officer imprisoned for killing political terrorist Matthew Grimes, who killed Parker's wife and daughter. Barnes killed Grimes but also accidentally shot two news reporters in the process and was sentenced to 17 years to life. Barnes and fellow convict John Donovan are testing a virtual reality system designed for training police officers. The two are tracking down a serial killer named SID 6.7 at a Japanese sushi restaurant in virtual reality. SID (short for Sadistic, Intelligent, Dangerous, a VR amalgam of the most violent serial killers throughout history) causes Donovan to go into shock, killing him. The director overseeing the project orders the programmer in charge of creating SID, Dr. Darrel Lindenmeyer, to shut down the project with Commissioner Elizabeth Deane and her associate, William Wallace, as his witnesses. Following a fight with another prisoner, Barnes meets with criminal psychologist Dr. Madison Carter. Meanwhile, Lindenmeyer informs SID that he is about to be shut down because Donovan's death was caused when SID disabled the fail-safes. At SID's suggestion, Lindenmeyer convinces another employee, Clyde Reilly, that a sexually-compliant virtual reality model, Sheila 3.2, another project created by Lindenmeyer, can be brought to life in a synthetically grown android body. However, Lindenmeyer replaces the Sheila 3.2 module with the SID 6.7 module. Now processed into the real world, SID 6.7 kills Reilly. Once word gets out of SID being in the real world, Deane and LAPD Chief William Cochran offer Barnes a deal: if he catches SID and brings him back to virtual reality, he will be pardoned. Barnes agrees, and with help from Carter they discover that Matthew Grimes, the terrorist who killed Barnes's wife and daughter, is a part of SID 6.7's personality profile. After killing a family along with a group of security guards, SID heads over to the Media Zone, a local nightclub, where he takes hostages. Barnes and Carter go to the nightclub to stop him, but SID escapes. The next day, SID begins a killing spree at the Los Angeles Olympic Auditorium where a UFC match is taking place. Barnes arrives at the Stadium to capture SID and finds him on a train, where another hostage is being held by SID. Barnes seemingly kills the hostage in front of horrified witnesses and is sent back to prison. Having caught up with Barnes after the incident, Carter tries to prove Barnes's innocence, but Barnes is freed from his prisoner transport by SID, who once again escapes. Wallace and Deane are about to have Barnes terminated via a fail-safe transmitter implanted in his body, but Cochran destroys the system after learning from Carter that Barnes didn't kill the hostage on the train. SID kidnaps Carter's daughter Karin and takes over a television studio. Lindenmeyer, having come out of hiding, sees what SID is doing and is impressed but is captured by Carter. After a fight on the roof of the studio, Barnes ultimately destroys SID's body but is unable to learn where he hid Karin. They place SID back in VR to trick the location out of him which proves to be one of the fan enclosures on the studio roof. When SID discovers that he is back in virtual reality, he goes into a rage. Cochran lets Carter out of VR, but Lindenmeyer kills Cochran before he can release Barnes. Barnes starts to go into the same shock that Donovan suffered, but Carter kills Lindenmeyer and saves Barnes. Barnes and Carter return to the building that SID took over in the real world and save Karin from a booby trap set up by SID that's similar to the one that killed Barnes' family. After Karin is saved, Barnes destroys the SID 6.7 module.

Fifty years after a nuclear holocaust, mankind is decimated and the surviving nations—the American western-influenced Market and the Soviet-Russian-influenced Confederation—have agreed to outlaw traditional open war. In their place, disputes are settled with gladiator-style matches between giant robots operated by pilots called "robot jox" who are contracted to fight ten matches. The Confederation champion is Alexander, who has killed his last nine opponents thanks in part to a spy in the Market leaking information to the Confederation. The Market's champion, Achilles has won nine fights and will fight his final match against Alexander for the territory of Alaska. Achilles is supported by robot designer "Doc" Matsumoto and strategist Tex Conway, the only jox to win all ten of his contract fights. As Achilles gets the upper hand in the match, Alexander launches a rocket fist at him. The projectile goes out of control and heads toward the bleachers. Achilles intercepts the projectile but his robot takes the full force of the impact and is knocked into the crowd, killing over 300 people. The referees declare the match a draw and order a rematch, but Achilles, shaken by what happened, declares this was his contractual tenth match and announces his retirement. He goes to live with his brother Philip and his family, and finds he is publicly branded a traitor and a coward. Meanwhile, a new jox is chosen to face Alexander, a genetically engineered "gen jox" named Athena, who is the first female jox. Worried for Athena and attracted to her, Achilles returns to the Market and agrees to fight Alexander again, infuriating Athena. As Achilles' robot is rebuilt, Matsumoto refuses to divulge any knowledge of its new weapons so it cannot be leaked by the spy, and Conway confides in Achilles he believes Matsumoto is the spy. Conway confronts Matsumoto in his office. Matsumoto reveals he has analyzed Conway's final fight and deduced that the "lucky" laser hit Conway claims allowed him to defeat a clearly superior opponent was in fact deliberately aimed; Matsumoto accuses Conway of being a Confederation agent. Conway confesses and shoots Matsumoto, who secretly records the deed as part of the mission briefing. Conway informs the Market leadership that Matsumoto was the spy. On the day of the fight Athena drugs Achilles and steals his jox suit to commandeer the robot. Unable to stop the fight once she takes the field, the Market decides to support her. While watching Matsumoto's briefing on the robot's new weaponry, the footage of Conway killing Matsumoto is played and Conway jumps down the robot's elevator shaft to his death. Alexander takes the field against Athena. Athena takes the early advantage, but Alexander overpowers her and incapacitates the robot. The fight is declared in Alexander's favor and referees order him to stand down. Achilles arrives on the field and takes over the robot from Athena while Alexander smashes the referee hovercraft; the two jox stand to continue the fight. Both robots take to the air and a short space battle ensues. Alexander critically damages Achilles' robot, forcing him to crash land and flee for cover to the arm of Alexander's robot Athena sliced off earlier in the fight. Achilles hotwires the arm to launch its fist at Alexander, destroying his robot. Alexander emerges from the wreckage and the two battle with poles before Achilles finally convinces Alexander a match does not have to end with the death of a jock. Alexander throws down his weapon, and they salute each other with the jox's traditional "crash and burn" thumbs up (this iconic thumbs up would be referenced by Hideo Kojima in his Death Stranding Series).

The movie begins with a woman hearing a phone ring at a subway train and goes to the public phone booth to answer it. She hears nothing at first until high pitched beeping sounds slowly climb up, which makes the woman shake vibrantly and make her eyes bleed and is then thrown onto the escalator due to the explosion that sounded like thunder. Nat Bridger, an ecology professor, goes to the Thorner home after teaching his class. Thorner and his wife can't handle the fact that their daughter, Sandra, is dead (the woman from the opening scene) after her murder. Later that night, a businessman, Gordon Smith is later electrocuted by the phone he was using when it ringed and was thrown out through the large glass window and crashes onto a car and was killed. The next day, Nat goes for a ceremony and gets called for the letter of authorization to send to the caller. He goes to see Lt. Merra when he finds out that Sandra's death was caused for a heart attack. Then Nat stays over at Stanley Markowitz place and interviews a lady who had witnessed the murder. Later that night, Mrs. Andersen gets killed by the phone. Nat tries to figure out why the phone at the subway was repaired and gets rejected at first then gets to talk to the supervisor at a business industry. He met Ridley Taylor inside not so long ago after a talk with the supervisor and invites her to dinner. And another phone gone wrong happened at Connie Lawson and was killed. Later the next day, Nat gets into an argument with Meara for not helping him on the case. Nat gets followed by a tourist guy who takes pictures and thinks he's working for someone but gets pulled away. After being arrested and healed by Stanley, Nat goes to the phone control center to search for evidence that can led to the mystery and finds pairs of phones that were used for the murders. After Nat has arrived at Ridley's house, Stanley gets murdered by the phone. Nat and Meara go to the commissioner about Stanley's discussion on the phone murders and gets called out. Nat goes to Stanley's house for evidence until he realizes that from the video tape player, an address that led to Ridley's house and plays the tape at Ridley's house realizing that Noah Clayton, the tour guide, must be the phone operator, killing people by the use of a phone. After Nat leaves, Ridley gets a phone call from Noah and before he can kill her through the phone, Ridley throws it away, not getting killed. Nat and other men, along with Ridley, go to the Power company for clues and Nat gets the phone call from Clayton, revealing his innovations for killing people through phones for revenge over perceived injustices. Before he kills Nat, the deadly high-frequency sonic pulse he designed for his telephone murders is reversed and sent back through the line, causing Clayton to convulse and a shelf behind him falls on him and is killed. The movie ends with the whole mystery solved and Nat gets a call from Al Histlip, the public safety department of the city, congrates him for solving the phone murders and as Ridley leaves to go home, Nat calls out "I'll call you" before the high pitch beeping noises come again and the movie cuts out to the credits.

At a corporation's base on the Neptunian moon Triton, mercenaries are setting up a defense perimeter to try to hold off an unstoppable cyborg warrior. The company's CEO E.J. Saggs and chief scientist Dr. Nabel seal themselves inside the control room. The cyborg destroys the soldiers' tank and then attacks a helicopter, which crashes into the control room. The soldiers are killed one by one, until Nabel finally deactivates the cyborg with a remote control. The remaining corporate employees discover that the cyborg was created by Nabel for the company. Saggs takes the remote and reactivates the cyborg, ordering it to kill Nabel. Meanwhile, John Canyon, one of the last independent "space truckers", drops off his cargo of square pigs at a "truck stop" space station, but becomes embroiled in a brawl with the trucking company head, Keller, who is sucked out into space. He and his two passengers—Cindy, a waitress who has promised to marry him in exchange for a ride to Earth to see her mother, and Mike, an up-and-coming trucker working for the company—take on a deal to transport alleged sex dolls to Earth. Chased by police investigating Keller's death, John takes his rig into the "scum cluster", a region controlled by pirates. The rig takes damage, leaving them adrift; they are soon captured by the pirate ship Regalia, commanded by the company-hating Captain Macanudo. Cindy agrees to have sex with him if he would take the cargo and let them go. The captain is revealed to be Nabel, who rebuilt his grievously injured body and went into piracy as revenge against Saggs for betraying him. The cargo that John's rig is carrying is in fact a full supply of the cyborg warriors Nabel designed and built for Saggs' company. One of the cyborgs activates, kills most of the crew, and severely damages the ship. John, Cindy and Mike take their rig and escape as the Regalia explodes. As they make their way back to Earth, John and Mike find a mortally wounded Macanudo in the hold, who reveals the true nature of the cargo to them. John releases Cindy from any obligation of marrying him, and tells her and Mike to take the escape pod while he releases the cargo in the atmosphere, where it will burn up on re-entry. Cindy and Mike land safely, but the rig is unable to return to space and explodes in the sky; however, John is able to safely escape before the explosion. John, Cindy and Mike go to the hospital to see Cindy's mother, who became sick twenty years earlier and was frozen until a cure was found; John is smitten with her at first sight. Meanwhile, Saggs—now President of Earth after the government was privatized—visits John, Cindy and Mike in the hospital, where he offers John a new rig and gives the trio a suitcase full of money to keep them quiet about his cyborg invasion plan. John tactfully agrees to the deal, convinced they will all be assassinated if they don't accept, but Mike angrily throws the suitcase out the window. Below, Saggs re-enters his presidential limousine; having planted a bomb in the suitcase, he triggers the detonator just as the suitcase lands on his limousine's roof, killing him. With Saggs dead and Earth safe, but also having inadvertently blown up the president, Mike, Cindy, John and Cindy's mother quietly escape to the spaceport and blast off in their brand new rig.