After his wife leaves him, taxidermist Esteban Espinosa accepts an invitation to go hunting with his friend Sontag in a remote Patagonian forest. They stay at a cabin owned by Dietrich and run by his much younger wife Diana and her brother Julio. She lends Espinosa a rifle. While hunting, Sontag attempts to shoot a deer, but it is startled and escapes when Espinosa steps on a branch. Sontag realises Espinosa did it on purpose and returns to the cabin. Alone in the woods, Espinosa has an epileptic seizure. He awakens and attempts to shoot the deer himself, but accidentally kills Dietrich instead. Espinosa takes Dietrich's cellphone and returns to the cabin. Dietrich's dog smells him and recognises its owner's scent. At night, two men—Sosa and Montero—appear looking for Dietrich but leave after not finding him. Through Dietrich's cellphone, Espinosa learns from a man named Vega of a heist to a factory. He heads to the factory and witnesses the failed heist. He follows Vega, who has been mortally wounded, and takes the key hanging around his neck after he dies. Espinosa opens Dietrich's hideout in the woods, where he finds plans of a heist that consists of stealing an armoured truck carrying the earnings of a nearby casino. Sosa and Montero return and discover Espinosa has Dietrich's cellphone, so he pretends to be an accomplice of Dietrich's who learned about the heist plans before Dietrich escaped. At Dietrich's hideout, Espinosa finds documents that detail the truck's route and the larger sum of money that it will carry after a long weekend. Espinosa employs his eidetic memory to invent a plan for the heist. They decide to strike at the Eden, a bar–brothel where the guards always make a stop. Espinosa drives Diana to town and asks her about her relationship with Dietrich. She tells him Dietrich she tried leaving him before but he found her. Espinosa meets the criminals finish planning the heist. Before leaving for the robbery, Espinosa assures Diana that Dietrich will never return. Urien, an accomplice inside the casino, tells Espinosa that Vega was supposed to take the place of an extra guard inside the back of the truck—which can only be opened from the inside—due to the larger sum of money. Espinosa tries to warn Sosa, Montero, and Julio—who are robbing the truck—but has a seizure. He awakens and gets to the Eden but fails to warn the team in time. A shooting takes place and Montero is wounded. Sosa kills two guards, while the third guard is locked inside the truck. Espinosa and the criminals drive with the truck to Dietrich's hideout, where there are tools to open the truck's lock. At Montero's command, Sosa kills Julio and tries to kill Espinosa, but runs out of bullets and takes him to the workshop to get more. Espinosa grabs a hidden gun and wounds Sosa, who runs away. Espinosa runs after Sosa through the forest and manages to kill him. Espinosa sees both Montero and the remaining guard locked in the truck have bled to death. He returns for Diana but finds she has left. Espinosa takes the dog with him and returns to his life as a taxidermist.

Dennis Scott, new chief of metallurgy at the Royal Aircraft Establishment at Farnborough, is introduced to Theodore Honey, an eccentric American scientist who is testing his theory that the new Rutland Reindeer aircraft is susceptible to structural failure of the tailplane. Honey is running a fatigue test on the tail assembly of a Reindeer, using a very high vibration rate dynamic shaker in an eight-hour daily test cycle (determined by complaints from neighbours). Eventually, it will fall off. Scott gives Honey a ride home and learns that he is a widower whose wife was killed by a V2 rocket during the war. The perfect embodiment of the absent-minded professor, Honey has educated his brilliant but reserved 12-year-old daughter, Elspeth, at home, without any real understanding of a child's need for play and friends. Honey tells Scott he expects failure to occur after 1440 flight hours. Scott notes that commercial planes are building up miles faster than the experiment, and Honey becomes very upset, declaring that he is a scientist, he cannot be concerned about people. In the company bar, Scott runs into a test pilot, an old friend from WWII, who tells him about the recent crash of a Reindeer in Labrador. The plane had flown 1407 hours. The tail was never found, the pilot was blamed, and Scott suspects Honey's theory is correct. He informs Sir John, the head of RAE, who puts the vibration test on a 24-hour basis. Honey is sent to Labrador to examine the wreckage, but finds himself flying across the Atlantic on a Reindeer airliner. He was told that all Reindeer have only 500 hours in service, but is shocked to learn that this early production aircraft had already logged 1422 hours at takeoff. Despite the fact that his theory is not yet proven, he warns the captain, who contacts London for advice. Honey also shows the safest place to survive a crash to renowned Hollywood actress Monica Teasdale, who meant a great deal to his wife. Teasdale believes Honey and through a night of waiting she grows close to him, as does stewardess Marjorie Corder. The Reindeer lands safely at Gander Airport in Newfoundland, and an inspection clears it to continue on its route. Honey takes drastic action to stop the flight by retracting the landing gear, dropping the aircraft on its belly and wrecking it. Honey is detained, and Corder offers to go to Elspeth when she returns to England. The next day, Teasdale speaks to Honey's superiors on his behalf. Sir John promises to seek the truth. However, there are powerful men who demand that Honey be repudiated to discredit his unproved theory and to save the reputation of British passenger aviation, which is now awash in a sea of bad press. Sir John tells a shaken Honey that he must undergo psychological testing. Honey goes home to find the house in order and Corder spending the night with Elspeth. Teasdale, who has also been helping Elspeth, abruptly leaves for California, deliberately allowing space for any romance between Corder and Honey to develop. Honey returns to his experiment but the 1440th hour soon passes without any structural failure. Corder is angered by his readiness to surrender and his failure to see how Elspeth is suffering. During a board meeting, Sir David questions Honey's sanity. Honey finally objects, refusing to be railroaded. He resigns and threatens to protest at the departure of every Rutland Reindeer—and collapse them, too. He walks out. At home, Corder worries what he will live on and discovers that he has not deposited his salary in the bank for seven months. Laughing and crying, she says he has to have someone to look after him. She is going to marry him. Meanwhile, the Reindeer that Honey disabled is repaired, but the tail falls off after its next landing. The tail spar is found in Labrador, showing metal fatigue. Scott, Sir John and Corder run to tell Honey in his lab and there is a horrific crashing noise as the tail separates, at last. Honey realizes that he failed to account for temperature fluctuations to affect the timing of the Reindeer's tail failures.

Seattle television journalist Lee Carter witnesses the assassination of U.S. senator and presidential aspirant Charles Carroll atop the Space Needle during a campaign stop. The killer, disguised as a waiter, is killed during the pursuit. His presumed accomplice, also disguised as a waiter, escapes. The assassination is officially determined to have been the work of a single man acting alone. Six witnesses die over the next three years. Carter fears she will be next, and goes to ex-boyfriend Joe Frady, an investigative newspaper reporter in Oregon, for protection; he turns her away. Shortly afterwards Carter is found dead; the death is ruled to be suicide from alcohol and barbiturate overdosing. Feeling guilty about disregarding Carter's pleas and suspicious about her death, Frady investigates the drowning death of Judge Arthur Bridges - another witness - in the nearby small town of Salmontail. Wicker, the local sheriff, takes Frady to a place below a dam where Bridges died. Wicker holds Frady at gunpoint as the floodgates open, but it is Wicker who drowns. At Wicker's home, Frady discovers documents from the Parallax Corporation, an organization recruiting "security" operatives. Frady takes a Parallax personality test document from Wicker's home to a local psychology professor, Nelson Schwartzkopf. Schwartzkopf determines the test is used to identify homicidal psychopaths and gives it to a known psychopath to learn the "correct" answers. Frady meets with Austin Tucker, an aide to Carroll and another witness, on Tucker's yacht; Tucker has survived two murder attempts since the assassination. Tucker saw the real assassin and gives Frady an image of the assassin in disguise. A bomb goes off which kills Tucker while Frady is thrown into the water and presumed dead. Frady tells his editor, Bill Rintels, that he will use his official death and a pseudonym to infiltrate Parallax. Frady submits the personality test with the "correct" answers as suggested by Schwartzkopf's analysis to Parallax Corp. His perfect answers attract the attention of Parallax and a few days later, Frady is recruited for training by Parallax official Jack Younger. Frady visits Parallax's Los Angeles headquarters where he is observed for reactions to montages of disturbingly edited and subliminal still photographs and images that juxtapose pro- and anti-American attitudes. Frady spots Carroll's assassin while leaving and follows the assassin, who puts a bomb aboard an airliner in checked baggage at Hollywood Burbank Airport. Frady boards the flight, mistakenly believing the assassin to be on board, and sees another U.S. senator, Gillingham, who is also considering running for president. Frady surreptitiously warns a flight attendant. The jet returns to the airport and is evacuated before it explodes. Younger confronts Frady about the latter's alias. Frady's cover story and a second alias mollifies Younger. Later, at the newspaper office, Rintels listens to a recording of this conversation and stores it with other evidence. That evening, Rintels is killed by poisoned food delivered by the assassin, disguised as a deli delivery boy. The evidence is gone by the time Rintels' body is discovered. Frady goes to Parallax's office in Atlanta, where he has been assigned a security position. There, he follows the assassin to a rehearsal for a political rally for another presidential aspirant, Senator George Hammond. Frady chases the assassin. Hammond is killed by an unseen sniper. Frady finds the rifle on the catwalks and then is spotted by security. Frady flees, realizing he is being framed as a scapegoat, and is killed by a silhouetted figure. Six months later, another official investigation reports that Frady was a paranoid lone gunman who killed Hammond out of a misguided sense of patriotism.

In response to a brief blackout at the FBI Cyber Division headquarters, FBI Deputy Director Miguel Bowman asks local law enforcement to bring in high-level computer hackers nationwide. NYPD Police Detective John McClane is assigned to pick up hacker Matt Farrell in New Jersey. After McClane arrives at Farrell's residence, assassins sent by Thomas Gabriel, a hacker and leader of cyberterrorists, attack them. McClane and Farrell manage to escape. As McClane and Farrell travel to Washington D.C., Farrell tells McClane he had written an algorithm for Mai Linh (Gabriel's girlfriend and co-conspirator) to crack a specific security system; he believed his work was being used for white hat purposes. Meanwhile, Gabriel orders his crew of hackers to take over transportation grids and the stock market while nationally broadcasting a threatening message to the U.S. government. Farrell realizes this is a "fire sale", a cyber attack designed to disable the nation's infrastructure. As McClane and Farrell are driven to DHS headquarters, Linh—posing as a dispatcher—reroutes them into a helicopter ambush. McClane fends off the attackers and destroys the helicopter. McClane asks Farrell what he thinks Gabriel's next move will be. Farrell deduces that Gabriel's next target will be the power grid. The two drive to a utility superstation in West Virginia and find it under the control of a team led by Linh. McClane and Farrell kill Linh's team. After a struggle, Linh and McClane end up in a vehicle that is stuck in an elevator shaft. McClane climbs out of the vehicle and escapes, but the vehicle falls to the bottom of the elevator shaft and explodes, killing Linh. Farrell traces Gabriel and uploads his picture to Bowman, who learns that Gabriel has orchestrated the fire sale. McClane learns that Bowman and Gabriel once worked together for the DOD as chief programmer. Gabriel warned the department about weaknesses that made America's network infrastructure vulnerable to cyberwarfare, but he was ignored and later fired for his unorthodox methods, so he is seeking revenge. Enraged over Linh's death, Gabriel redirects natural gas to the superstation and causes an explosion in another attempt to kill McClane and Farrell. The two barely escape, but the destruction of the facility causes a massive blackout throughout the Eastern Seaboard. McClane and Farrell travel by helicopter to the home of super hacker Frederick "Warlock" Kaludis in Baltimore. Warlock identifies the piece of code Farrell wrote for Linh as a means to access data at a Social Security Administration building at Woodlawn, Maryland. Doing a traceroute, Warlock locates Gabriel; he is at Woodlawn. McClane, Farrel, and Bowman discover that Woodlawn is actually an NSA facility intended to back up the nation's personal and financial records as a failsafe in the event of a cyber attack; it was designed by Gabriel himself. The blackout on the FBI was intended to trigger the download of the financial data to Woodlawn, and Gabriel plans to steal the data. Meanwhile, Gabriel orchestrates the kidnapping of McClane's estranged daughter, Lucy as a bargaining chip to threaten McClane. McClane and Farrell race to Woodlawn. The two are separated during the infiltration; Farrell finds the facility's main server and encrypts the data Gabriel's men downloaded before getting captured; and McClane kills more of Gabriel's men. Gabriel flees the building, taking Farrell and Lucy with him. McClane pursues them, hijacking their semi mobile base. Accessing the communication system of an F-35B Lightning II, Gabriel orders the pilot to attack the truck McClane is driving, but the jet is destroyed by falling debris. McClane survives the attack and sees Gabriel's vehicle pull into a nearby hangar. At the hangar, Gabriel demands that Farrell decrypt the financial data from Woodlawn. When he refuses, Gabriel shoots him in the leg and threatens to kill Lucy. McClane arrives and kills two more of Gabriel's men, but is shot and wounded by Gabriel's last man, Emerson. Gabriel positions himself behind McClane, putting the barrel of the gun in his shoulder wound. McClane then pulls the trigger. The bullet travels through McClane's shoulder and hits Gabriel in the heart, killing him instantly. Farrell then grabs a pistol and kills Emerson as the FBI arrives. Afterward, McClane thanks Farrell for saving Lucy's life.

In 1979, Deputy Sheriff Jack Lamb of Lillian, Ohio and his 14-year-old son Joe mourn the death of wife and mother Elizabeth in a workplace accident. Jack blames Elizabeth's co-worker Louis Dainard for the accident, as Dainard had a hangover, resulting in Elizabeth having to cover his shift. Joe clings to his mom's memory in the form of a locket. Four months later, Joe's friend Charles is making a zombie movie for a Super 8 film competition. He enlists Joe's help along with friends Preston, Martin, and Cary, as well as Dainard's daughter, Alice. Though their fathers are opposed to their friendship, Joe and Alice become close. One night while they film at a train depot, a pickup truck rams an approaching train head-on, derailing it (which they capture on film) and destroying the depot. After being scattered by the fiery chaos, the kids regroup and find crates of strange white cubes amid the wreckage, and discover the truck driver to be their biology teacher Dr. Woodward. Gravely injured, he warns them at gunpoint to forget what they have seen. They flee, as a convoy from the local Air Force base, led by Col. Nelec, arrives. Nelec finds an empty Super 8 film box. In the following days the town experiences strange events: dogs run away, several townspeople go missing, the electrical power fluctuates, and electronic items are stolen. Jack approaches Nelec, but Nelec arrests him. Nelec orders flamethrowers to start a wildfire as an excuse to evacuate the residents to the base. Watching their footage, Joe and Charles notice a large creature escaping the train. In a military hospital, Nelec questions Woodward about the creature. After Woodward rebukes him, Nelec has him killed with a lethal injection. Louis and Alice get into a fight and she attempts to flee on her bike, Louis chases after her in a car but gets into an accident, as Alice is fleeing, the creature abducts her. Louis, while in recovery from his car accident, tells Joe the creature has abducted Alice. Joe, Charles, Martin, and Cary persuade Jen, Charles's older sister, to flirt with Donny so he can get them into town to rescue Alice. Breaking into Dr. Woodward's trailer, they learn of his work as a former government researcher. In 1963, the Air Force captured a crash-landing alien. Its spacecraft, composed of the white cubes, allowed it to shape-shift. While being experimented on, the alien established a psychic connection with Woodward, convincing him to help it escape Earth. His effort was sabotaged by Nelec who discredited, and discharged Woodward. Nelec captures the kids, but the alien kills Nelec and his airmen, allowing them to escape. Jack escapes and agrees with Louis to put aside their differences to save their kids. The military attacks the alien, but their hardware goes haywire in its presence, resulting in significant collateral damage. Joe and Cary find a massive tunnel system under the town. The missing townsfolk, including Alice, are hanging unconscious from the ceiling of a cavern. Here, the alien is creating a device, constructed from the missing electronics, and attached to the base of the water tower. Using firecrackers as a distraction, Joe frees Alice and the others. The alien grabs Joe, who quietly speaks to it, convincing that it could "still live" while bad things happen. Establishing an emotional connection between the two of them, the alien realizes that not all humans are as bad as Nelec and spares him, allowing them to return to the surface. Everyone watches as metal objects from the town are pulled to the top of the tower by an unknown force. The white cubes reassemble to create a spaceship and, as the alien enters it, Elizabeth's locket is drawn toward the tower. Joe lets it go, completing the ship. As the ship rises into space, he takes Alice's hand. The short film the children were making in Super 8 runs at the end of the movie beside the credit roll. In it, Charles's character asks for his short film "The Case" to be picked for a local film festival before being attacked by a zombie played by Alice.

In November 1973, " Control ", head of British intelligence ("The Circus"), sends field agent Jim Prideaux to Budapest to meet a Hungarian general and potential defector, who has offered to identify a mole installed by Soviet spymaster Karla amongst the Circus' senior leadership. Prideaux realises the meeting is a trap, attempts to leave and is shot in the back. Control and his deputy, George Smiley, are forced to retire, and Control dies shortly after. Sir Percy Alleline becomes the new Chief, with Bill Haydon, Roy Bland and Toby Esterhase as his inner circle. Despite Control's and Smiley's suspicions, the four had begun handling a high-level Soviet source ("Operation Witchcraft"), which Alleline believes will give the Circus access to American intelligence. Alleline and Bland meet with Permanent Undersecretary Oliver Lacon, the senior civil servant responsible for the Circus, to discuss the ongoing cost of a secret safe house to meet the Witchcraft source. After the meeting, field agent Ricki Tarr, currently in hiding due to being connected to several deaths in Istanbul, telephones Lacon to inform him of a mole within the Circus. Aware that Control had a similar theory, Lacon asks Smiley to investigate. Smiley recruits Tarr's handler Peter Guillam and retired Special Branch Inspector Mendel to assist him. After setting up a base in the Hotel Islay, Smiley has Guillam steal personnel records and copies of the Circus' slush fund accounts. He discovers several Control loyalists were ousted after Prideaux's shooting, as well as a record of payment made to "Mr. Ellis", one of Prideaux's identities, after the shooting. In Oxford, Smiley interviews former analyst Connie Sachs. Sachs had discovered evidence that Soviet cultural attaché Alexei Polyakov was actually an undercover military officer, and suspected his true role was to run a mole in London; Alleline had scoffed at her findings and sacked her. Back in London, Smiley discovers Tarr in his house. Tarr tells how he was assigned to trail Boris, a Soviet trade delegate in Istanbul who was offering to defect, but who he quickly guessed was actually KGB. After Tarr witnessed Boris assault his wife and fellow agent Irina, he and Irina began an affair. Irina offered to reveal the identity of a top-level mole in exchange for asylum in the West. Hours after Tarr cabled London about the existence of a double agent, the local station chief was murdered and Irina abducted. Smiley sends Guillam to the Circus archive to steal the duty officer's logbook for the month Tarr contacted London. Guillam is warned by Alleline that Tarr is suspected of treachery, but Smiley vouches for him by noting that the log entry for Tarr's cable is missing. That night, Smiley recounts his only meeting with Karla to Guillam. While working under the name "Gerstmann" in 1955, Karla was captured and traded to the Soviet Union by the Americans. Believing he would likely be executed upon his return, Smiley travelled to Delhi to recruit him. However, his constant urging for Karla to think of his wife only revealed Smiley's weakness: his love for his wife, Ann. A chainsmoker, Karla listened silently, stole a lighter given to George by Ann, and returned to the Soviet Union. Smiley contacts another sacked loyalist, former duty officer Jerry Westerby, who tells him of how Prideaux's shooting sent Control into shock. Hoping to find George, Westerby had telephoned Ann; Haydon then arrived and took charge. Guillam wonders how Haydon could have learned of the emergency, to which Smiley informs him that Haydon was having an affair with Ann. Smiley interviews Prideaux, now working at a rural prep school. Prideaux explains that his Budapest mission was to identify the mole and relay one of five code-names to Control drawn from the English children's rhyme " Tinker, Tailor ". Alleline was "Tinker", Haydon "Tailor", Bland "Soldier", Esterhase "Poorman", and Smiley "Beggarman". However, he was captured and tortured by the KGB, during which he witnessed Irina's execution. During his interrogation, Karla personally visited and asked how close Control was to identifying the mole before trading Prideaux back to the Circus. Smiley realises that Witchcraft is actually a KGB ruse. Alleline and his allies believe that Polyakov is giving them invaluable intel from a "high-placed source": Karla. In fact, the intel is largely fake or exaggerated, with just enough to make it appear genuine. Smiley informs Lacon and the Minister that the true object of Witchcraft is to form a partnership between the Circus and the CIA, enabling the mole to leak both British and American intel. To draw out the mole, Smiley instructs Tarr to hold the Paris Station at gunpoint and force them to send a fake cable to the Circus. To ensure his compliance, Smiley agrees to Tarr's request to trade the mole for Irina, despite knowing she is dead. Smiley and Guillam surprise Esterhase as he leaves the Circus and drive him to an airstrip and waiting plane; Esterhase gives them the address to the safe house rather than be deported. Smiley and Guillam wait at the safe house for the mole to alert Polyakov that Tarr is about to blow their cover. The mole is revealed to be Haydon, and Smiley arrests him at gunpoint. The Circus holds Haydon at its training and debriefing facility, Sarratt. Smiley informs him he will be traded for British operatives held in the Soviet Union, and agrees to settle several of Haydon's sexual relationships with both women and men. Haydon informs him that Karla ordered him to seduce Ann to cloud Smiley's judgment. He also confirms that Prideaux, a long-time friend (and, it is hinted, lover), suspected Haydon was the mole and tipped him off before his Hungary mission. Haydon was able to inform Karla and prevent Prideaux from being killed by the KGB. Blaming Haydon for allowing his torture, Prideaux infiltrates Sarratt with a hunting rifle and kills Haydon from a distance, shooting him in the cheek and watching as he collapses. Ann returns home, Alleline is dismissed from the Circus in disgrace and retires, and Smiley is reinstated and takes up his new post as chief.

Set in an unspecified country, a woman is taken from her home in the middle of the night, accused of embedding dissident messages into her book Closet Land. The book is a story about a child who, as a result of bad behavior, has been locked in a closet as punishment. While in there, the child is greeted by a group of childhood ally archetypes who innocently attempt to comfort the scared little girl. The seemingly simple content is questioned by the government, which accuses the author of encouraging and introducing disloyalty among its audience of naïve children. The interrogator is obstinate in his belief that the author is guilty of hidden propaganda. It is revealed that the novel was actually created as a form of escapism, providing a coping mechanism for the author, who endured sexual abuse as a child. Near the end of the film, the interrogator claims that he was the man who had sexually abused the author in her childhood. But one cannot be entirely sure he is telling the truth, as the film suggests he was just using the abuse against her as a way of breaking her down. After subjecting her to lengthy physical and mental torture, and pretending to be several other people (another prisoner, a more brutal interrogator) while the victim is blindfolded and handcuffed, the interrogator tries to get her to sign a confession—to save her life. While he knows now that she is innocent, he implores her to confess to avoid execution. She refuses, and goes to her death.

Al-Qaeda terrorists in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, detonate an explosive at an American oil company housing compound, killing both American and Saudi citizens. Before this, terrorists disguised as Saudi State Police had shot the inhabitants in the compound before they were stopped by Sergeant Haytham of the Saudi State Police; after this, another terrorist commits a suicide bombing. Francis Manner, the Federal Bureau of Investigation 's Legal Attaché in Saudi Arabia, alerts his colleague, Special Agent Ronald Fleury, to the attacks before being killed by the second bomb. At FBI Headquarters in Washington, D.C., Fleury briefs his rapid deployment team on the attack, believing it to have been orchestrated by local Saudi terrorist Abu Hamza. He recruits forensic examiner Janet Mayes, intelligence analyst Adam Leavitt, and bomb technician Grant Sykes to his team. Although the U.S. Justice Department and the U.S. State Department hinder FBI efforts to investigate, Fleury blackmails the Saudi ambassador into allowing his team into Riyadh. On arrival, the team is met by Colonel Faris al-Ghazi, the commander of the Saudi State Police Force providing security at the compound, and General Al Abdulmalik of the Saudi Arabian National Guard. The general's inexperience in criminal investigation hinders Fleury's team. The team is invited to the palace of Saudi Prince Ahmed bin Khaled, where Fleury convinces the Prince that Colonel al-Ghazi is a better fit to lead the investigation. With this change in leadership, the Americans are allowed direct access to the crime scene. This allows Fleury to sympathize with and befriend al-Ghazi. While searching for evidence, Sergeant Haytham and Sykes discover the second bomb was detonated in an ambulance and that the brother of one of the dead terrorists had access to ambulances and police uniforms. Al-Ghazi orders a raid by the Saudi Emergency Force on a terrorist stronghold, killing several of them. Afterward, Fleury's team discovers clues, including photos of the U.S. and other Western embassies in Riyadh. The U.S. Embassy Deputy Chief of Mission Damon Schmidt notifies Fleury and his team that they have been ordered to return to the United States. However, the team's convoy is attacked and Leavitt is kidnapped. Al-Ghazi commandeers a civilian vehicle, and the team chases the car holding Leavitt into the dangerous Al-Suwaidi neighborhood. As they pull up, a gunman fires rocket-propelled grenades at them and a fierce firefight starts. Leavitt is carried into a room inside a complex, where the terrorists prepare to film his execution before Mayes, separated from al-Ghazi and Fleury, saves him just in time. As al-Ghazi and the team start to leave, Fleury notices a trail of blood leading to the back of the apartment, where a family lives. After noticing several clues, al-Ghazi realizes the grandfather is Abu Hamza. Abu Hamza's teenage grandson walks out of the bedroom and shoots al-Ghazi in the neck, then points his gun at Mayes, prompting Fleury to kill him and Haytham to kill Abu Hamza. Al-Ghazi bleeds out in Fleury's arms, while Abu Hamza whispers something to his other grandchild. At Al-Ghazi's house, Fleury and Haytham meet and comfort his family. Fleury and his team return to the US, where they are commended by the FBI Director for their work. Leavitt asks Fleury what he whispered to Mayes, earlier in the film, to get her to stop crying over Manner. Simultaneously, both Fleury and Hamza's grandson responds "We are gonna kill 'em all."

Edward Rodney Fleming (Weaving) is a man living alone after losing his job and wife. One morning, Detective Sergeant John Steele (Martin) and his subordinate, Detective Wayne Prior (Aaron Jeffery), break into Fleming's apartment. They rough Fleming up, ransack his belongings, and take him to the police station in handcuffs. Steele and Prior question Fleming in an interrogation room. The police claim a witness saw Fleming with Andrew Beecroft, the owner of a stolen car. They also claim Fleming's handwriting matches the writing on some forged sales correspondence between Beecroft and a fake buyer, and that the fake buyer's alias matches an alias Fleming used as a teenager to steal a car for a joyride. Fleming denies any knowledge of the theft and only meekly asks for food, as he has not eaten since the previous day. Steele offers false expressions of empathy, while Prior intimidates Fleming when the recorder is off. In between questioning, Detective Inspector Jackson orders Steele to deal with an intrusive reporter, Barry Walls. Steele complains to Walls about how his reckless reporting has previously interfered with police work. Walls shares that he overheard Prior questioning Steele's skills behind his back, to convince Steele he can be useful in return for information. Steele confronts Prior in private, pins him to the wall, and warns him against future disloyalty. As the interrogation proceeds, Steele reveals to Fleming that the car's owner is missing. Fleming correctly guesses he is suspected of murdering the car's owner, and that the police believe the theft is related to other missing persons cases reported in the news. Fleming asks for a lawyer. While Fleming's lawyer advises him to say nothing until he is released in a few hours, Steele convinces Jackson to give him more time with the Fleming. Fleming's demeanour grows in confidence. Despite his lawyer's advice, he expresses his belief that the missing persons were murdered, and mocks the police for chasing some kind of overarching motive. Fleming hints that he might have more to share after eating. When Steele finally provides food, Fleming proudly details how Beecroft picked him up while hitchhiking. He decided to kill Beecroft on a whim. He bludgeoned Beecroft after they drank together, and then he took Beecroft's car and wallet after disposing of the body. Fleming also casually admits to killing five or six other victims starting from a few years ago, claiming he cannot be bothered to remember the details although he always beat them to death after hitchhiking with them. Fleming agrees to provide a video-recorded confession as well. However, during the videotaping, Jackson walks in and asks to speak to Fleming. Fleming immediately recants everything and says he only told Steele and Prior what they wanted to hear because they brutalized him, threatened him, and refused to feed him. Jackson forces Steele and Prior to end the questioning. Later, Steele is informed that the entire day's interrogation was being filmed without his knowledge, due to an investigation by a police ethics committee after too many suspects made formal complaints about his conduct. The officer in charge of the ethics review, Detective Hudson, determines that Steele's entire interview is inadmissible in court due to suggestions, false promises, intimidation, and other questionable techniques by Steele and Prior. Steele blames Jackson for ruining the interview and failing to stand up for him, although Jackson offers to testify that Steele tried to reel in Prior's aggression. Convinced of Fleming's guilt and outraged that he will walk free, Steele arranges to secretly give the entire case info and the audio recording of the confession to Walls. Steele tells Walls he does not care about the consequences since he believes he will be fired anyway. Afterwards, Hudson interviews Steele using another audio recorder. Steele accuses Hudson of a personal grudge, as Hudson led previous ethics investigations against him, too. Hudson turns off the recorder, angrily insults Steele, and tells him he will make sure he is fired. Unbeknownst to Hudson, Steele had his own recorder running and recorded Hudson's abusive comments. Steele is last seen planning how to use his recording of Hudson to defend himself. Fleming leaves the station with an ambiguous grin. In the final scene, he is shown hitchhiking again.

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.

Professional safecracker John Bridger's team has plans to steal $35 million worth of gold bars from a safe in Venice from Italian gangsters who had stolen it weeks earlier. Professional fixer Charlie Croker, computer expert Lyle or " Napster ", wheelman Handsome Rob, explosives expert Left Ear, and inside man Steve comprise the team. Although the heist is successful, Steve double-crosses them as they drive towards Austria with the bullion, with another crew he takes it for himself and kills John. Rob drives the van over the bridge into the water to protect the others, using air tanks from the heist to stay alive. Steve leaves them for dead. A year later in Philadelphia, Charlie finds Steve, under a new identity, laundering the gold through Ukrainian jeweler Yevhen to finance his lavish lifestyle in Los Angeles. Charlie gathers the team, and also recruits John's daughter Stella, a skilled private safe expert, offering her the chance to avenge her father's death. They stake out Steve's mansion, and Stella, disguised as a cable technician, maps out its interior and determines the location of Steve's safe containing the bullion. Unaware of Stella's identity, Steve asks her out on a date. The plan is to blow the safe while Steve is away on his supposed date, using three heavily modified Mini Coopers to transport the gold out of the mansion. Supplier Skinny Pete gets the explosives and mechanic Wrench modifies the cars. On Steve's last visit to Yevhen, Yevhen accidentally reveals that he knows about the Venice heist. To cover his tracks, Steve kills him. Mashkov, the leader of a Ukrainian crime family and Yevhen's cousin, traces the gold back to Skinny Pete via Yevhen's ex-employee Vance. On the night of the planned heist, the crew discovers that Steve's neighbors are having a party so they have to abort, as the explosives would draw attention. Stella still has to meet Steve, but inadvertently gives away her identity by using her dad's catchphrase. The team arrives to protect her, and Steve taunts them as he says he still has the upper hand. Aware that Charlie intends to steal it back, Steve decides to move the gold to Mexico City. His plan, which involves transporting the gold via armored car from his L.A. home to a private plane at LAX, is overheard by Napster using a phone tap. Charlie and his gang make a new plan to steal the gold en route to the airport by hijacking the city's traffic control system, forcing the armored car to a planned spot where they will execute the heist. On the day, they are surprised when three armored trucks leave Steve's mansion, but Napster determines which one carries the bullion and manipulates the traffic accordingly. As Steve is monitoring the transport by helicopter, they maneuver the truck to the target spot and detonate explosives to drop the part of the road with the truck into the subway tunnel below. Opening the truck, they find the gold in a different safe from the one that held it before. Struggling initially, Stella cracks it open and they divide the $27 million in gold among the three Minis. They race from the subway to the Los Angeles River and through the city, pursued by Steve's henchmen on motorcycles, with Napster creating a green wave to evade traffic. Stella, Handsome Rob, and Left Ear head to Union Station, while Charlie lures Steve away in his helicopter. Steve tries to kill him by having his helicopter pilot destroy Charlie's Mini, but the helicopter's tail rotor is damaged, grounding it. Steve carjacks a Ford Bronco to follow Charlie to Union Station, where the cars are loaded onto a train car with the help of Wrench. He tries to bribe Wrench to let him in, but finds Charlie and the others waiting. When Steve pulls a gun, demanding the gold back, Mashkov and his armed men disarm him. Charlie explains that he has offered Mashkov part of the gold and Steve in exchange for helping with security protection (it is implied that Skinny Pete put him in touch). Stella punches Steve in the face as revenge. Mashkov then takes him away, implying he intends to not kill him, but rather torture him for killing Yevhen. The group boards the train as it departs to New Orleans, and celebrate in John's honor. The team uses their share of the gold for their own desired purposes: Handsome Rob purchases an Aston Martin DB7 Volante, getting pulled over by a beautiful policewoman; Left Ear buys a mansion in Andalusia with a room for his shoe collection; Napster buys a powerful stereo capable of blowing a woman's clothes off; and Charlie takes John's advice about finding someone he wants to spend the rest of his life with, and he and Stella travel to Venice together.

An American former Delta Force operator, Steven Younger, makes a videotape. Los Angeles-based FBI Special Agent Helen Brody and her team are summoned to a high school, commandeered by the military as a black site holding Younger (calling himself Yusuf Mohamed). They watch Yusuf's tape, showing three nuclear bombs in separate U.S. cities, timed for synchronous explosions if his demands are not met. A special interrogator, "H", is brought in to force Yusuf to reveal the bombs' locations. H immediately shows his capability, cutting off one of Yusuf's fingers. Horrified, Brody attempts to put a stop to the measures. Her boss, Saunders, makes it clear that the threat of 10 million deaths necessitates the torture. H escalates his methods, with Brody acting as the " good cop ". Yusuf then makes his demands: he wants the President of the United States to announce a cessation of support for puppet governments and dictatorships in Muslim countries and a withdrawal of American troops from there. The group immediately dismisses the possibility of his demands being met, citing the U.S. government's declared policy of not negotiating with terrorists. When Brody accuses a broken Yusuf of faking the bomb threat in order to make a point about the moral character of the United States as a nation, he breaks down and admits that it was all a ruse, giving her an address to prove it. They find a room that matches the scene in the video tape, but no nuclear bomb. A soldier pulls Yusuf's picture down, which triggers a C-4 explosion at a nearby shopping mall, killing 53 people. Angry at the senseless deaths, Brody returns to Yusuf and cuts his chest with a scalpel. Yusuf is unafraid, and justifies the deaths in the shopping mall, stating that the Americans kill that many people every day. Yusuf says he allowed himself to be caught so he could face his oppressors. Yusuf's wife and kids are detained, and H brings her in front of her husband and threatens to mutilate her right there. Brody and the others begin to take her away from the room in disgust, but H slashes her throat, and she bleeds to death in front of Yusuf. Yusuf does not break, so H has Yusuf's two children brought in. Outside of Yusuf's hearing, he assures everyone that he will not harm the children. He tells Yusuf that he will torture his children if the locations of the bombs are not divulged. Yusuf breaks and gives three addresses (in New York, Los Angeles, and Dallas), but H still prepares to torture the children, but the others forcefully stop him. Citing the amount of missing nuclear material Yusuf potentially had at his disposal (some 18 lbs. were reported missing, with about 4½ lbs. needed per device), H insists that Yusuf had not admitted anything about a heretofore-unreferenced fourth bomb. H points out that everything Yusuf has done so far has been planned meticulously; Yusuf knew the torture might break him, and he would have been certain to plant an unexpected fourth bomb, just in case. The purpose of the preceding torture was not to break Yusuf, but rather to make it clear what would happen to his children if he did not cooperate. The government official in charge of the operation – who helped attack H moments earlier, now demands that H torture Yusuf's children for the fourth bomb. H demands that Brody escort the children back, but she says that letting the fourth bomb kill millions is better than torturing two children. H sarcastically unties Yusuf. The official draws his pistol and aims it at H to coerce him into further interrogation. Yusuf grabs the official's gun, asks Brody to take care of his children, and kills himself. Brody walks out of the building with Yusuf's children.