Research scientist Galen Erso and his family are in hiding on the planet Lah'mu when Imperial weapons developer Orson Krennic arrives to press him into completing the Death Star, a superweapon capable of destroying planets. Galen's wife Lyra is killed in the confrontation while their daughter Jyn escapes and is rescued by Rebel extremist Saw Gerrera. Fifteen years later, cargo pilot Bodhi Rook defects from the Empire, taking a holographic message from Galen to Saw on the moon Jedha. Rebel Alliance intelligence officer Cassian Andor learns of the Death Star and Bodhi's defection from an informant at Kafrene. Jyn is freed from an Imperial labor camp on Wobani and is brought to the Rebels' base on Yavin 4, where Rebel leader Mon Mothma convinces her to find Galen so the Alliance can learn more about the superweapon. Cassian is covertly ordered to aid Jyn but to kill Galen rather than extract him. Jyn, Cassian, and reprogrammed former Imperial droid K-2SO travel to Jedha, where the Empire loots kyber crystals to power the Death Star. In Jedha City, Saw and his partisans are engaged in an armed insurgency against the Empire, and Jyn and Cassian get caught in the crossfire. Aided by blind spiritual warrior Chirrut Îmwe and his mercenary friend Baze Malbus, Jyn makes contact with Saw, who is holding Bodhi. Saw shows her the message in which Galen reveals he has secretly built a vulnerability into the Death Star. The schematics are located in an Imperial data vault on the planet Scarif. Onboard the Death Star, Krennic orders a test-fire, which destroys Jedha City. Jyn and her group take Bodhi and flee the moon, but accidentally leave Galen's message behind. Saw chooses to stay behind and dies in the explosion. Imperial governor Grand Moff Tarkin congratulates Krennic before using Bodhi's defection as a pretext to take control of the Death Star. Bodhi leads the group to Galen's Imperial research facility on the planet Eadu, where Cassian hesitates to kill Galen. Rebel bombers then attack the facility; Galen is wounded and dies in Jyn's arms before she escapes with her group on a stolen Imperial cargo shuttle. Krennic is summoned by Darth Vader to answer for the attack on Jedha City. Krennic seeks his support for an audience with the Emperor, but Vader instead Force -chokes him to ensure no further problems occur. Jyn proposes a mission to steal the Death Star schematics, but the Alliance Council feels there is no chance of victory. Frustrated at their inaction, Jyn's group leads a small squad of volunteers to raid the vault using the stolen Imperial shuttle, which Bodhi dubs "Rogue One." They gain entry through the planet's shield, and Jyn, Cassian, and K-2SO infiltrate the base while the others attack the Imperial garrison as a diversion. The Alliance learns of the raid from intercepted Imperial communications and deploys the fleet in support, engaging in a space battle against the Imperial forces. K-2SO sacrifices himself so Jyn and Cassian can retrieve the data. Chirrut is killed after activating the switch to allow communication with the Rebel fleet, and Baze is killed shortly afterward. Bodhi is killed by a grenade after informing the Rebel fleet that it must deactivate the planetary shield to let the plans be transmitted. Rebel Admiral Raddus uses an Alliance ship to crash two Imperial Star Destroyers into each other; the wreckage destroys the shield generator. Jyn obtains the plans but is ambushed by Krennic, who is shot and wounded by Cassian. Jyn transmits the plans to the Rebel command ship moments before the Death Star arrives above Scarif. Tarkin then orders the Death Star to destroy the citadel; Krennic is vaporized by the demolition beam, while Jyn and Cassian find themselves unable to escape the explosion, and embrace as they are killed in the ensuing shockwave. The Rebel fleet begins to jump to hyperspace; however, many ships are intercepted by Darth Vader's Star Destroyer. Vader boards the Rebel command ship and slaughters many troops in an attempt to reclaim the plans, but a smaller ship escapes with them. Aboard the fleeing ship preparing to enter hyperspace, Princess Leia Organa declares that the plans will bring hope for the Rebellion.

In a dystopian, polluted, hyper- consumerist, overbearing, bureaucratic, totalitarian future based on elements of the 20th century, Sam Lowry is a low-level government employee who frequently dreams of himself as a winged warrior saving a damsel in distress. One day, shortly before Christmas, an insect becomes jammed in a teleprinter, which misprints a copy of an arrest warrant it was receiving. This leads to the arrest and death during interrogation of cobbler Archibald Buttle instead of suspected terrorist Archibald Tuttle. Sam discovers the mistake when he finds that the wrong bank account has been debited for the arrest. He visits Buttle's widow to give her the refund where he catches a glimpse of her upstairs neighbour Jill Layton, a truck driver, and is astonished to discover that she resembles the woman from his dreams. He frantically tries to approach Jill, but she disappears before he can find her. Jill has been trying to help Mrs Buttle establish what happened to her husband, but her efforts have been obstructed by bureaucracy. Unbeknownst to her, she is now considered a terrorist accomplice of Tuttle for attempting to report the wrongful arrest of Buttle. Meanwhile, Sam reports a fault in his apartment's air conditioning. Central Services are uncooperative, but Tuttle unexpectedly comes to his assistance. Tuttle explains that he used to work for Central Services but left because of his dislike of the tedious and repetitive paperwork, and now illegally works as a freelance heating engineer. Tuttle repairs Sam's air conditioning, but when two Central Services workers, Spoor and Dowser, arrive, Sam has to stall to avoid Tuttle's. Sam discovers that Jill's records have been classified and the only way to access them is to be promoted to Information Retrieval. He had previously turned down a promotion arranged by his well-connected mother Ida, who is obsessed with the rejuvenating plastic surgery of cosmetic surgeon Dr Jaffe. Sam retracts his refusal by speaking with Deputy Minister Eugene Helpmann at a party hosted by Ida. After obtaining Jill's records, Sam tracks her down before she can be arrested. Sam clumsily confesses his love to Jill, and they cause mayhem as they escape government agents. They stop at a mall and are frightened by a terrorist bombing (part of a campaign that has been occurring around the city). Following an altercation with the government agents which arrived to the scene of the bombing, he awakens in a prisoner transport vehicle. At work, Sam is chastised by his new boss Mr Warrenn for his lack of productivity. He returns home to find that Spoor and Dowser have repossessed his apartment. Tuttle appears in secret and helps him exact revenge on the two Central Services workers by filling their environment suits with raw sewage. Jill finds him outside his apartment, and the two take refuge in Ida's unoccupied home, where they share their first kiss. He falsifies government records to indicate her death, allowing her to escape pursuit. The two spend the night together, but in the morning are apprehended by the government at gunpoint. Sam learns that Jill was killed during his arrest. Charged with a number of crimes, he is restrained in a chair in a large, empty cylindrical room, to be tortured by his old friend Jack Lint. As Jack is about to start the torture, Tuttle and other members of the resistance break into the Ministry, shooting Jack, rescuing Sam and blowing up the Ministry building. Sam and Tuttle flee together, but Tuttle mysteriously disappears amid a mass of scraps of paperwork from the destroyed building. Sam stumbles into the funeral of Ida's friend, who has died following botched cosmetic surgery. He discovers that his mother now resembles Jill and is too busy being fawned over by young men to care about her son's plight. Government agents disrupt the funeral, and he falls into the open casket. Through a black void, he lands in a street from his daydreams and tries to escape police and monsters by climbing a pile of flex-ducts. Opening a door, he passes through it and is surprised to be in a truck driven by Jill. The two leave the city together. However, this "happy ending" is a delusion: it is revealed that Sam is still strapped to the torture chair. Realising that he has been permanently driven insane, Jack and Mr Helpmann declare him a lost cause and leave the room. He remains in the chair, smiling and humming " Aquarela do Brasil " to himself.

The Space Shuttle Explorer, commanded by veteran astronaut Matt Kowalski, is in Earth orbit to service the Hubble Space Telescope. Dr. Ryan Stone is aboard on her first space mission, to perform hardware upgrades on the telescope. During a spacewalk, Mission Control in Houston warns Explorer ' s crew about a rapidly expanding cloud of space debris caused by the Russians shooting down a defunct spy satellite, and orders the crew to return to Earth immediately. Communication with Mission Control is lost shortly after, as more communication satellites are disabled by debris. Debris strikes Explorer and Hubble, tearing Stone from the shuttle. Kowalski, using a Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU), rescues her and they return to Explorer, discovering that it has suffered catastrophic damage and the rest of the crew are dead. Kowalski decides they should use the MMU to reach the International Space Station (ISS), which is in orbit about 1,450 km (900 mi) away. He estimates that they have 90 minutes before the debris field completes an orbit and threatens them again. On their way to the ISS, the two discuss Stone's home life and her daughter, who died young in an accident. As they approach the station, they see that the ISS's crew has evacuated using one of its two Soyuz spacecraft, with the remaining craft exhibiting damage and unable to return to Earth. Kowalski suggests using it to travel to the nearby Chinese Tiangong space station, 100 km (60 mi) away, to board its similar Shenzhou spacecraft and return to Earth. They try to grab onto the ISS, but only make tenuous connection to the Soyuz's parachute cords, which are not strong enough for them both. Despite Stone's protests, Kowalski detaches himself to save her from drifting away with him. Stone enters the ISS as Kowalski floats away. Unable to establish communication with him, she concludes that she is the mission's sole survivor. Inside the station, a fire breaks out, forcing Stone to rush to the Soyuz. As she maneuvers it away from the ISS, the tangled parachute tethers snag, preventing the spacecraft from leaving. She performs a spacewalk to cut the cables, succeeding just as the debris field returns, destroying the station. Stone angles the Soyuz towards Tiangong but discovers that the engine has no fuel. After an attempt at radio communication with an Inuk on Earth, Stone resigns herself to her fate and shuts off the cabin's oxygen supply to commit suicide. As she begins to lose consciousness, she experiences a hallucination of Kowalski telling her to rig the Soyuz's soft landing rockets to propel the capsule towards Tiangong. Stone regains the will to go on, restoring the spacecraft's oxygen flow and rigging the landing rockets accordingly. Unable to dock with Tiangong, Stone ejects herself from the Soyuz and uses a fire extinguisher as a makeshift thruster to travel to the rapidly deorbiting station. She enters Tiangong ' s Shenzhou capsule just as the station enters the upper atmosphere, and undocks. The Shenzhou capsule re-enters the atmosphere and lands in a lake. Radio communication from Houston informs Stone that she has been tracked on radar and that rescue crews are on their way. Stone opens the hatch and sheds her space suit, allowing her to reach the surface and crawl onto the beach before standing and walking away.

In the "not-too-distant" future, eugenics is common. A genetic registry database uses biometrics to classify those so created as "valids" while those conceived naturally and more susceptible to genetic disorders are known as "in-valids". Genetic discrimination is illegal, but in practice genotype profiling is used to identify valids to qualify for professional employment while in-valids are relegated to menial jobs. Vincent Freeman was conceived naturally, and his genetic profile indicates a high probability of several disorders and an estimated lifespan of 30.2 years. His parents, regretting their decision, use genetic selection in conceiving their second child, Anton Jr. Growing up, the two brothers often play a game of " chicken " by swimming out to sea as far as possible, with the first one returning to shore considered the loser; Vincent always loses. Vincent dreams of a career in space travel, but is always reminded of his genetic inferiority. One day, Vincent challenges Anton to a game of chicken and beats him. Anton starts to drown and is saved by Vincent. Shortly after, Vincent leaves home. Years later, Vincent works cleaning office spaces, including that of spaceflight conglomerate Gattaca Aerospace Corporation. He gets a chance to pose as a valid with a "borrowed ladder", using donated hair, skin, blood, and urine samples from former swimming star Jerome Eugene Morrow, who was paralyzed after being hit by a car. With Jerome's genetic makeup, Vincent gains employment at Gattaca and is assigned as a navigator for an upcoming mission to Saturn's moon Titan. To conceal his identity, Vincent must meticulously groom and scrub his body daily to remove his own genetic material, pass daily DNA scanning and urine tests using Jerome's samples, and hide his heart defect. When a Gattaca administrator is murdered a week before a possible launch, the police find one of Vincent's eyelashes near the crime scene, but can only identify it as from an "unregistered" in-valid, and thus launch an investigation to find who owns the eyelash. During this, Vincent becomes close to a co-worker, Irene Cassini, and falls in love with her. Though a valid, Irene has a higher risk of heart failure that will bar her from any deep space mission. Vincent also learns that Jerome's paralysis is self-inflicted; after placing silver in the Olympics, Jerome threw himself in front of a car. Jerome maintains that he was designed to be the best, yet somehow was not, and is suffering because of this. Vincent repeatedly evades the grasp of the investigation. Finally, it is revealed that Gattaca's mission director Josef killed the administrator because he threatened to cancel the mission. Vincent learns that the detective who closed the case was his brother Anton, who consequently has discovered Vincent's presence. The brothers meet, and Anton warns Vincent about his illegal actions, but Vincent asserts that he has gotten to this position on his own merits. Anton challenges Vincent to a final game of chicken. As the two swim out at night, Vincent's stamina surprises Anton, so Vincent reveals that he won by not saving energy for the swim back. Anton turns back and begins to drown, but Vincent rescues him and swims them back to shore. On the day of the launch, Jerome reveals that he has stored enough DNA samples for Vincent to last two lifetimes upon his return and gives him an envelope to open once in flight. After saying goodbye to Irene, Vincent prepares to board, but discovers there is a final genetic test, and he currently lacks any of Jerome's samples. He is surprised when Dr. Lamar, who oversees background checks, reveals that he knows Vincent has been posing as a valid. Lamar admits that his son looks up to Vincent and wonders whether his son, who is genetically selected, but "not all that they promised", could exceed his potential just as Vincent has. The doctor changes the test results, allowing Vincent to pass. As the rocket launches, Jerome dons his swimming medal and immolates himself in his home's incinerator. Vincent opens the note to find a lock of Jerome's hair.

Thirty years after the Battle of Endor, the First Order has risen from the fallen Galactic Empire and seeks to end the New Republic. The Resistance led by General Leia Organa opposes the First Order. Leia also searches for her lost twin brother Luke Skywalker. On the desert planet Jakku, Resistance pilot Poe Dameron receives a map to Luke's location. First Order stormtroopers commanded by Kylo Ren arrive and capture Poe. His droid, BB-8, escapes with the map and encounters Rey, a lone scavenger. Kylo tortures Poe using the Force and learns of BB-8. Stormtrooper FN-2187, disillusioned with the First Order, saves Poe and they escape in a stolen TIE fighter. Upon learning that FN-2187 has no other name, Poe names him "Finn". As they head to Jakku to retrieve BB-8, a First Order Star Destroyer shoots them, and they crash-land. Finn survives and assumes Poe was killed after finding his jacket in the wreck. Finn encounters Rey and BB-8, but the First Order tracks them and launches an airstrike. Rey, Finn, and BB-8 steal the dilapidated Millennium Falcon and escape Jakku. The Falcon is discovered and boarded by Han Solo and Chewbacca. Gangs seeking to settle debts with Han attack, but the group escapes in the Falcon. At the First Order's Starkiller Base, a planet converted into a superweapon, Supreme Leader Snoke approves General Hux 's request to use the weapon on the New Republic. Snoke questions Kylo's ability to deal with emotions surrounding his father, Han Solo, whom Kylo states means nothing to him. Aboard the Falcon, Han determines that BB-8's map is incomplete. He then explains that Luke attempted to rebuild the Jedi Order but exiled himself when an apprentice turned to the dark side of the Force, destroyed Luke's temple, and slaughtered the other apprentices. The crew travels to the planet Takodana and meets with cantina owner Maz Kanata, who offers help getting BB-8 to the Resistance. The Force draws Rey to a secluded vault, where she finds Anakin Skywalker 's lightsaber. She experiences disturbing visions, including a childhood memory of a ship leaving her on Jakku. Rey denies the lightsaber at Maz's offering and flees into the woods. Maz gives Finn the lightsaber for safekeeping. Starkiller Base destroys the Hosnian star system, including the New Republic capital Hosnian Prime, leaving the Resistance without support. The First Order attacks Takodana in search of BB-8. Han, Chewbacca, and Finn are saved by Resistance X-wing fighters led by Poe, who survived the crash. Leia arrives at Takodana with C-3PO and reunites with Han; it is revealed that she is Kylo's mother. Meanwhile, Kylo captures Rey, realizing she had seen the map and takes her to Starkiller Base, but she resists his mind-reading attempts. Snoke orders Kylo to bring Rey to him. Discovering she can use the Force, Rey escapes using a Jedi mind trick on a stormtrooper guard. At the Resistance base, BB-8 finds R2-D2, who had been in low-power mode since Luke's disappearance. As Starkiller Base prepares to fire again, the Resistance plans to destroy it by attacking its thermal oscillator. Using the Falcon, Han, Chewbacca, and Finn infiltrate the facility, find Rey and plant explosives. Han confronts Kylo, calling him by his birth name, Ben Solo, and implores him to abandon the dark side. Kylo seems to consider this, but ultimately kills Han. A devastated Chewbacca shoots Kylo, injuring him, and sets off the explosives, allowing Poe to attack and destroy the base's thermal oscillator. Kylo pursues Rey and Finn into the woods and incapacitates Rey. Finn uses the lightsaber to duel Kylo but is quickly defeated. Rey awakens, takes the lightsaber, and defeats Kylo in a duel, leaving him with a scar on his face. Snoke orders Hux to leave the base and bring Kylo to him to complete his training. Chewbacca saves Rey and the injured Finn and they escape aboard the Falcon. As the Resistance forces flee, Starkiller Base implodes and erupts into a star. R2-D2 awakens and reveals the rest of the map, which points to the oceanic planet Ahch-To. Leaving Finn to recover from his wounds, Rey, Chewbacca, and R2-D2 travel to Ahch-To on the Falcon. Rey finds Luke atop a cliff on a remote island and presents him with his lightsaber.

Caleb Smith, a programmer at the search engine company Blue Book, wins an office contest for a one-week visit to the luxurious, isolated home of the CEO, Nathan Bateman. Nathan lives there with an unspeaking servant named Kyoko, who, according to Nathan, does not understand English. After Caleb reluctantly signs a non-disclosure agreement, Nathan reveals that he has built a humanoid robot named Ava with artificial intelligence. She has already passed a simple Turing test. He wants Caleb to judge whether she is genuinely capable of thought and consciousness and whether he can relate to Ava despite knowing she is artificial. Ava has a robotic body with the physical form and face of a woman and is confined to her apartment. During their conversations, Caleb grows close to her. She expresses a desire to experience the outside world and a romantic interest in him, which Caleb begins to reciprocate. Ava can trigger power outages that temporarily shut down the surveillance system that Nathan uses to monitor their interactions, thus allowing them to speak privately. The outages also trigger the building's security system, locking all the doors. During one outage, Ava tells Caleb that Nathan is a liar who cannot be trusted. Caleb grows uncomfortable with Nathan's narcissism, excessive drinking, and crude behavior toward Kyoko and Ava. He learns that Nathan intends to upgrade Ava after Caleb's test, wiping her memory circuits and in effect "killing" her existing personality. After encouraging Nathan to drink until he passes out, Caleb steals his security card to access his room and computer. He alters some of Nathan's code and discovers footage of Nathan interacting with previous android women who were also held captive. Kyoko reveals to him that she too is an android by peeling off parts of her skin. Caleb later cuts his own arm to determine if he himself is an android. At their next meeting, Ava cuts the power. Caleb explains what Nathan is going to do to her, and she begs him for help. He informs her of his plan: he will get Nathan drunk again and reprogram the security system. When Ava cuts the power, she and Caleb will leave together, locking Nathan in behind them. She later encounters Kyoko for the first time when Kyoko enters her room. Nathan reveals to Caleb that he observed his and Ava's 'secret' conversations with a battery-powered security camera. He says Ava has only pretended feelings for Caleb, and that Caleb was deliberately selected for his emotional profile so he would try to help Ava escape. Nathan says this was the real test all along, and that, by manipulating Caleb successfully, Ava has demonstrated true consciousness. Moments later, Ava cuts the power. Caleb reveals that he had suspected Nathan was watching them, so when Nathan was unconscious, Caleb already modified the security system to open the doors in a power failure instead of locking them. After seeing Ava on the security cameras leave her confinement and interact with Kyoko, Nathan knocks Caleb out and rushes to stop the two robots from escaping. Ava attacks Nathan but he overpowers her and severs her left forearm. Kyoko then stabs Nathan in the back. Nathan hits Kyoko in the face, disabling her. Ava then removes the knife from Nathan's back and, when he turns around, stabs him once in his chest, killing him. Ava finds Caleb, and asks him to remain where he is while she repairs herself with parts from other androids, using their artificial skin to take on the full appearance of a woman. Instead of returning to Caleb, however, Ava leaves the area using Nathan's ID card to unlock the glass security door, which locks behind her, leaving Caleb trapped inside. Ignoring Caleb's pleas, she glances briefly at the bodies of Nathan and Kyoko before leaving the facility. She then escapes to the outside world in the helicopter meant to take Caleb home. Arriving in a city, she visits a busy intersection – fulfilling the wish to see the outside world that she had mentioned to Caleb – and then blends into a crowd.

Two years after the Battle of New York, Steve Rogers works in Washington, D.C., for the espionage agency S.H.I.E.L.D., while adjusting to contemporary society. While running laps around the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, Rogers meets and befriends Sam Wilson, a VA counselor and former USAF pararescueman. Rogers is then sent with Agent Natasha Romanoff and S.H.I.E.L.D.'s counter-terrorism team S.T.R.I.K.E., led by Agent Brock Rumlow, to free hostages aboard a S.H.I.E.L.D. vessel from pirates led by Georges Batroc. During the mission, Rogers learns that Romanoff has a secret assignment from S.H.I.E.L.D. Director Nick Fury to extract data from the ship's computers. At the Triskelion, S.H.I.E.L.D.'s headquarters, Rogers confronts Fury and is briefed about Project Insight: three Helicarriers linked to spy satellites, designed to preemptively eliminate threats. Unable to decrypt Romanoff's data, Fury becomes suspicious about Insight and asks senior S.H.I.E.L.D. official Alexander Pierce to delay the project. On his way to rendezvous with Agent Maria Hill, Fury is ambushed by assailants led by an assassin called the Winter Soldier. Escaping to Rogers's apartment, Fury warns him that S.H.I.E.L.D. is compromised. He is shot by the Winter Soldier before handing Rogers a flash drive of the ship's data and tells him to trust no one. Fury is later pronounced dead during surgery. Pierce questions Rogers about Fury, but Rogers refuses to answer. He is branded a fugitive, escapes from S.T.R.I.K.E., and is joined by Romanoff. They use the flash drive to find a secret S.H.I.E.L.D. bunker in New Jersey, where they activate a supercomputer containing the preserved consciousness of Arnim Zola. Zola explains that after being captured by Rogers during World War II, he was recruited to S.H.I.E.L.D. and helped to secretly reform Hydra within its ranks. Over the decades, Hydra convinced the world to trade freedom for security and used the Winter Soldier to cover their tracks. Rogers and Romanoff narrowly escape a S.H.I.E.L.D. missile that destroys the bunker, and realize that Pierce is Hydra's leader within S.H.I.E.L.D. Rogers and Romanoff seek refuge at Sam Wilson's home, whom they discover uses a powered " Falcon " wingpack. The trio captures S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Jasper Sitwell, a Hydra mole, and force him to divulge that Zola developed a data mining algorithm that can identify current or future threats to Hydra. The Insight Helicarriers would sweep the globe using satellite-directed guns to eliminate these threats. Sitwell is killed in an ambush by the Winter Soldier, whom Rogers recognizes as his presumed-dead best friend Bucky Barnes. Barnes survived due to Zola's experimentation and has been repeatedly brainwashed and cryogenically frozen to perform Hydra's missions. Hill extracts Rogers, Romanoff, and Wilson to a safehouse where Fury, who faked his death, plans to sabotage the Helicarriers by replacing their control chips. After World Security Council members arrive at the Triskelion for the Insight launch, Rogers broadcasts Hydra's plot to the building. Romanoff, disguised as one of the Council members, disarms Pierce. Fury arrives and forces Pierce to unlock S.H.I.E.L.D.'s database so Romanoff can leak classified information, exposing Hydra to the public. Following a struggle, Fury fatally shoots Pierce. Rogers and Wilson raid two Helicarriers and replace the control chips, but Barnes destroys Wilson's wingpack and fights Rogers on the third. Rogers replaces the final chip, allowing Hill to take control and have the vessels destroy each other. He refuses to fight Barnes, who does not recognize him. As the Helicarriers collide with the Triskelion, Rogers falls into the Potomac River. Rumlow, another Hydra agent, is injured in the destruction. Barnes rescues the unconscious Rogers before disappearing. With S.H.I.E.L.D. in disarray, Romanoff appears before a Senate subcommittee to defend her and Rogers's actions. Fury, under the cover of his apparent death, pursues Hydra's remaining cells. Rogers and Wilson decide to find Barnes. In a mid-credits scene, Baron Wolfgang von Strucker and his scientists at a Hydra lab dismiss the actions of Rogers and Romanoff as they examine an energy-filled scepter and twin test subjects who have been given superhuman abilities: one has superhuman speed, the other has telekinetic powers. In a post-credits scene, Barnes visits his own memorial at the Smithsonian Institution to learn about himself.

In a near-future dystopia, Detroit is on the brink of social and financial collapse. Overwhelmed by crime and dwindling resources, the city grants the mega-corporation Omni Consumer Products (OCP) control of the Detroit Police Department. OCP senior president Dick Jones demonstrates ED-209, a law-enforcement robot designed to supplant the police. ED-209 malfunctions and brutally kills a volunteer, allowing ambitious junior executive Bob Morton to introduce OCP's chairman ("the Old Man") to his own project — RoboCop. Meanwhile, police officer Alex Murphy is transferred to the Metro West precinct. Murphy and his new partner, Anne Lewis, pursue notorious criminal Clarence Boddicker and his gang: Emil Antonowsky, Leon Nash, Joe Cox, and Steve Minh. Lewis is incapacitated while the gang ambushes and tortures Murphy until Boddicker fatally shoots him. Morton has Murphy's corpse converted into RoboCop, a heavily armored cyborg with no memory of his former life. RoboCop is programmed with three prime directives: Serve the public trust, protect the innocent, and uphold the law. A fourth prime directive, Directive 4, is classified. Assigned to Metro West, RoboCop is hailed by the media for his brutally efficient campaign against crime. Lewis suspects that he is Murphy, recognizing the unique way he holsters his gun (a trick Murphy learned to impress his son). After experiencing a nightmare of Murphy's death during maintenance, RoboCop encounters Lewis, who addresses him as Murphy. While on patrol, RoboCop arrests Antonowsky, who recognizes Murphy's mannerisms, furthering RoboCop's recall. RoboCop then uses the police database to identify Antonowsky's associates and review Murphy's police record. He recalls further memories while exploring Murphy's former home, his wife and son having moved away after his death. Elsewhere, Jones gets Boddicker to murder Bob Morton as revenge for Morton's attempt to usurp his position at OCP. RoboCop tracks Boddicker's gang to a cocaine factory. After a shootout in which Minh is killed, RoboCop arrests and brutally interrogates Boddicker until he admits to working for Jones. RoboCop attempts to kill Boddicker for revenge until his programming directs him to uphold the law. RoboCop attempts to arrest Jones at the OCP Tower, but Directive 4 is activated, a fail-safe measure to neutralize RoboCop were he to act against an OCP executive. Jones admits his culpability in Morton's death and releases an ED-209 to destroy RoboCop. Although he escapes, RoboCop is attacked by the police force on OCP's order and is badly damaged. He is rescued by Lewis, who brings him to an abandoned steel mill to repair himself. Angered by OCP's underfunding and short-staffing, the police force goes on strike, causing Detroit to descend into violent chaos. Jones frees Boddicker and his remaining gang, arming them with high-powered weaponry to destroy RoboCop. The gang are quickly eliminated at the steel mill, but Lewis is badly injured in the shootout. RoboCop confronts Jones at the OCP Tower during a board meeting, revealing the truth behind Morton's murder. Jones takes the Old Man hostage, who responds by firing him, nullifying Directive 4. RoboCop shoots Jones, causing him to crash through a window and fall several stories to his death. The Old Man compliments RoboCop's shooting and asks his name. He replies, "Murphy."

In 1914, aliens known as Mondoshawans meet their contact on Earth, a priest of a secret order, at an ancient Egyptian temple. They take the only weapon capable of defeating a great evil that appears every 5,000 years, promising to protect it and return it before the great evil's re-emergence. The weapon consists of the four classical elements, as four engraved stones, plus a sarcophagus containing a "fifth element". In the 23rd century, the great evil appears in deep space as a giant living fireball. It destroys an armed Earth spaceship as it heads to Earth. The Mondoshawans' human contact on Earth, priest Vito Cornelius, informs the president of the Federated Territories of the great evil's history and the weapon that can stop it. On their way to Earth, a Mondoshawan spacecraft carrying the weapon is ambushed and destroyed by a crew of Mangalores, alien mercenaries hired by Earth industrialist Jean-Baptiste Emanuel Zorg, who is working for the great evil. A severed hand in metal armour from the wreckage of the spacecraft is brought to New York City. From this, the government uses biotechnology to recreate the original occupant of the sarcophagus, a humanoid woman named Leeloo, who remembers her previous life. Alarmed by the unfamiliar surroundings and high security, she escapes and jumps off a ledge, crashing into the flying taxicab of Korben Dallas, a former major in Earth's special forces. Dallas delivers Leeloo to Cornelius and his apprentice, David, who recognises her as the fifth element. As Leeloo recuperates, she tells Cornelius that the stones were not on board the Mondoshawan ship. Simultaneously, the Mondoshawans inform Earth's government that the stones were entrusted to an alien opera singer, the diva Plavalaguna. Zorg reneges on his deal with the Mangalores for failing to obtain the stones, and kills some of them. Earth's military sends Dallas to meet Plavalaguna; a rigged radio contest provides a cover, awarding Dallas a luxury vacation aboard a flying hotel on planet Fhloston, accompanied by flamboyant talk-show host Ruby Rhod. It includes a concert by Plavalaguna, and learning that Leeloo shares his mission, Dallas lets her accompany him. Cornelius instructs David to prepare the temple, then stows away on the luxury spaceship. The Mangalore crew, pursuing the stones for themselves, also illegally board the ship. During the concert, the Mangalores attack, and Plavalaguna is killed. Dallas extracts the stones from her body and kills the Mangalore leader, causing the others to surrender. Zorg arrives, shoots Leeloo, and activates a time bomb. He flees with a carrying case which he presumes contains the stones, but returns when he discovers that it is empty. As Zorg's bomb causes the hotel's evacuation, Dallas finds Leeloo traumatised and escapes with her, Cornelius, Rhod, and the stones in Zorg's private spaceship. Zorg deactivates his bomb, but a dying Mangalore sets off his own, destroying the hotel and killing Zorg. As the great evil approaches Earth, the four meet David at the temple. They deploy the stones, but Leeloo, having learned of humanity's history of cruelty, has given up on life. Dallas declares his love for her and kisses her. Leeloo combines the power of the stones, emitting divine light onto the great evil and defeating it. Dallas and Leeloo are hailed as heroes, and as dignitaries wait to greet them, the two passionately embrace in a recovery chamber.

Arthur Hamilton is a middle-aged banking executive in Scarsdale, New York, who, despite his professional success, remains profoundly unfulfilled. His love for his wife, Emily, has dwindled, and he seldom sees his only daughter, who has relocated to the West Coast and started a family. One day, Arthur receives an address placed into his hand by an unknown person who, somehow, knew his name. Later that day he receives a call from his childhood friend, Charlie, whom he believed to be dead. Though Arthur is initially disbelieving, Charlie claims it was he who approached him with the address and then recounts personal anecdotes that only he could know. Charlie informs him that he must go to the address provided; that it is imperative for him to do so because his life is empty of all motivation and choice. After some contemplation, Arthur decides to take up Charlie's proposition, and travels to the address, which he finds to be an apparent meat-packing plant; there, he is given workman's clothing and headgear, then exits the facility by a different door and is seated inside a truck that takes him to another building. There he meets a woman who directs him to an office and provides him with tea. He finds that he has been drugged and tries to leave the complex. He wanders around and disappears into a large area filled with dark, empty hallways and finds himself in a vulnerable woman's bedroom and while trying to become intimate with her, in his intoxication, he seemingly sexually assaults her. After waking, Arthur is informed that the Company's service comes at a cost of $30,000 and is shown a film of the prior staged assault, ostensibly to make his decision easier. Although he recoils at the apparent use of blackmail, Arthur reluctantly accepts on his own terms, after considering the emptiness in his life. The associates inform Arthur that they will fake his death in a hotel fire using an anonymous cadaver, and Arthur proceeds to undergo multiple extensive procedures by Dr. Innes that transform not only his facial features, but his vocal cords, teeth, and even fingerprints. Once healed, he is given the identity of the younger "Antiochus 'Tony' Wilson", an established visual artist. Arthur later discovers this identity has been taken from someone who recently died. Arthur is relocated by the Company into a community in Malibu, California, filled with people like him who are also "reborns". He attempts to assimilate into his new life, in which he is able to live as an artist —a career he had always aspired to— though he soon finds himself growing restless. While visiting the beach one day, Arthur encounters the freewheeling Nora Marcus. The two develop a swift attraction to each other, and Nora recounts how she came to leave her former life behind. One night, Arthur accompanies Nora to a Bacchanalia party in Santa Barbara. There, the revelers dance, sing, and stomp grapes in a large trough and, after some initial discomfort, Arthur lowers his inhibitions and begins to enjoy himself. Later, Arthur and Nora host a cocktail party for neighbors and other guests. Arthur gets drunk over the course of the night, and begins to speak openly to the other guests about his former identity, which is forbidden by the Company. Consequently, Arthur receives a phone call from Charlie, who warns him that he has put himself in danger by violating the Company's rules. Charlie also reveals that Nora is an employee of the Company who covertly oversees new "reborns" to assure they have a smooth transition. Disenchanted by his new contrived life, Arthur defiantly leaves California, and returns to New York. He arranges a meeting with Emily at his former home, claiming —as Tony— that he was once a friend of Arthur's. The two have a conversation in which Emily shares that she felt Arthur was emotionally disconnected from his life, and was in a constant state of longing that she could not understand. After the meeting, a melancholic Arthur is met by associates of the Company, and he requests that they give him a different identity. They agree to do so, but only if he can provide them with another referral to the Company. He tells them he does not know anyone he could proposition, and demands they carry out the transformation anyway. Returning to the headquarters, Arthur is placed in a waiting room with various other men, including his friend Charlie, all of whom have asked to undergo yet another 'rebirth'. An elated Charlie is chosen and is escorted from the waiting room. Frustrated at the unknown amount of time the men have been waiting to be chosen, and being unable to think of anyone that he can refer to the Company, Arthur angrily demands that his procedure is performed without further delay. Later, as Arthur is wheeled into the operating room, he is met by a chaplain who begins to read him his last rites. After being bound, gagged, and sedated, Arthur comes to realize he is about to be killed. Dr. Innes, who performed Arthur's original transformation, coldly laments to Arthur that he is sorry it has to end this way, and that Arthur's transformation into Tony was his "best work". He explains that Arthur's body will be used as the catalyst for another patient's transformation — the staged scene for that patient's faked death will be a car accident. Dr. Innes proceeds to drill into Arthur's skull to inflict a brain hemorrhage consistent with head injuries sustained in a car crash. As Arthur loses consciousness, he stares into the surgical light, and has a memory of seeing a man playing with his infant daughter on the beach; the image distorts and loses resolution as Arthur dies.

Seth Brundle, a brilliant but eccentric scientist, meets Veronica "Ronnie" Quaife, a science journalist, at a press event. He takes her back to his home and laboratory and shows her his invention: a set of "telepods" that allows instantaneous teleportation between them. Seth convinces Ronnie to keep the invention secret in exchange for exclusive rights to the story, and she documents his work. Although the telepods can transport inanimate objects, they mutilate live tissue, as demonstrated when a baboon is turned inside-out during an experiment. Seth and Ronnie begin a romantic relationship. Their first sexual encounter inspires Seth to reprogram the telepod to understand the makeup of living tissue. After he successfully teleports a second baboon, Ronnie hurriedly leaves to confront her editor Stathis Borans about his threat, spurred by his jealousy of Seth, to publish the story without her consent. Embittered and convinced she is rekindling her relationship with Stathis, Seth teleports himself alone, unaware that a housefly has slipped inside the transmitter pod with him. He emerges from the receiving pod seemingly normal. Seth and Ronnie later reconcile. Seth starts to exhibit increased strength, stamina, and sexual potency, which he attributes to the teleportation "purifying" his body. Ronnie grows concerned about Seth's changing personality and the strange, bristly hairs growing from a wound on his back. Seth becomes arrogant and violent, insisting that the teleportation process is beneficial, and tries to force Ronnie to undergo teleportation. When she refuses, he abandons her, goes to a bar and partakes in an arm-wrestling match, where he leaves his opponent with a compound fracture. He brings a woman named Tawny back to his warehouse to have intercourse. When Seth tries to coerce her into teleporting, Ronnie stops him and Seth throws her out as well. When his fingernails begin falling off, Seth realizes something is wrong. He reviews the telepod's computer and discovers that there was a fly in the pod with him. The computer, confused by the presence of two lifeforms, fused him with the fly at the molecular-genetic level. Seth continues to deteriorate, losing body parts and becoming less human in appearance. After several weeks, he reconnects with Ronnie and says he is becoming a hybrid of human and insect he nicknamed "Brundlefly." He has begun vomiting digestive enzymes onto his food to dissolve it and gained the ability to cling to walls and ceilings. He also realizes that he is losing his human reason and compassion, driven by primitive impulses he cannot control. Seth installs a fusion program into the telepod computer, planning to dilute the fly genes in his body with human DNA. Ronnie learns that she is pregnant by Seth, but does not know if the conception occurred before or after Seth's genes were corrupted. She worries that the child will not be human, and has a nightmare of giving birth to a giant maggot. She visits Brundle in order to break the news to him, but he warns her that he will harm her if she continues to visit. Terribly upset, she has Stathis persuade a doctor to perform an abortion in the middle of the night. Having overheard their conversation, Seth abducts Ronnie and begs her to carry the child to term, since it may be the last remnant of his humanity. Stathis breaks into Seth's lab with a shotgun, but Seth incapacitates him with his corrosive vomit. Seth reveals his desperate plan to Ronnie: he will use the telepods to fuse himself and her, together with their unborn child, into one entity. As Seth drags her into one of the telepods, she accidentally rips off his jaw, triggering his final transformation into an insectoid-human "Brundlefly" creature, shedding his decayed human skin. Brundlefly traps Ronnie inside the first telepod and enters the other, planning to use the prototype pod as the receiver of the combination of pods 1 and 2. The wounded Stathis uses his shotgun to sever the cables connecting Ronnie's telepod to the computer, allowing Ronnie to escape. The damage causes telepod 2 to malfunction and Brundlefly attempts to smash his way through the door, only for the pod to activate just as he is stepping out, fusing the creature to a piece of the door and other components. The prototype pod receives the Brundlefly/Telepod fusion successfully; as the door opens, the resulting creature falls out of the door and to the ground. He crawls to Ronnie and silently requests for her to end his misery by aiming Stathis' shotgun barrel, which she had picked up, at his own head. She eventually, and tearfully, shoots and kills him, falling to her knees in despair.