On Christmas Eve, New York City Police Department (NYPD) Detective John McClane arrives in Los Angeles, hoping to reconcile with his estranged wife, Holly, at a party held by her employer, the Nakatomi Corporation. He is driven to Nakatomi Plaza by a limo driver, Argyle, who offers to wait for McClane in the garage. While McClane washes himself, the tower is seized by German ex-radical Hans Gruber and his heavily armed team, including Karl and Theo. Everyone in the tower is taken hostage except for McClane, who slips away, and Argyle, who remains oblivious to events. Gruber is posing as a terrorist to steal the $640 million in untraceable bearer bonds in the building's vault. He kills executive Joseph Takagi after failing to extract the access code from him and tasks Theo with breaking into the vault. The terrorists are alerted to McClane's presence, and Karl's brother, Tony, is sent after him. McClane kills Tony and takes his weapon and radio, which he uses to contact the skeptical Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD). Sergeant Al Powell is sent to investigate. Meanwhile, McClane kills more terrorists and recovers their bag of C-4 and detonators. Realizing Powell is about to leave, having found nothing amiss, McClane drops a terrorist's corpse onto his car. After Powell calls for backup, a SWAT team attempts to storm the building but is counterattacked by the terrorists. McClane throws some C-4 down an elevator shaft, causing an explosion that kills some of the terrorists and ends the counterattack. Holly's co-worker Harry Ellis attempts to negotiate on Gruber's behalf but is killed by Gruber when McClane refuses to surrender. While checking the explosives on the roof, Gruber encounters McClane and pretends to be an escaped hostage; McClane gives Gruber a gun. Gruber attempts to shoot McClane but finds the weapon is unloaded, and he is saved only by the intervention of other terrorists. McClane escapes but is injured by shattered glass and loses the detonators. Outside, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents take control. They order the power to be shut off, which, as Gruber had anticipated, disables the final vault lock so his team can collect the bonds. The FBI agrees to Gruber's demand for a helicopter, intending to send helicopter gunships to eliminate the group. McClane realizes Gruber plans to blow the roof to kill the hostages and fake his team's deaths. Karl, enraged by Tony's death, attacks McClane and is seemingly killed. Gruber sees a news report by Richard Thornburg on McClane's children and infers that he is Holly's husband. The hostages are taken to the roof while Gruber keeps Holly with him. McClane drives the hostages from the roof just before Gruber detonates it and destroys the approaching FBI helicopters. Meanwhile, Theo retrieves an escape vehicle from the parking garage but is knocked out by Argyle, who has been following events on the limo's CB radio. A weary and battered McClane finds Holly with Gruber and his remaining henchman. McClane seemingly surrenders to Gruber and is about to be shot but grabs his concealed service pistol taped to his back and uses his last two bullets to wound Gruber and kill his accomplice. Gruber crashes through a window but grabs onto Holly's wristwatch and makes a last-ditch attempt to kill the pair. McClane unclasps the watch, and Gruber falls to his death. Outside, Karl ambushes McClane and Holly, only to be shot dead by Powell. Holly punches Thornburg when he attempts to interview McClane. Argyle crashes through the parking garage door in the limo and drives McClane and Holly away together.

New York prizefighter Terry Malloy's career was cut short when he purposely lost a fight at the request of mob boss Johnny Friendly. Terry now works for Friendly's labor union as a longshoreman while his older, more educated brother Charley is Friendly's right-hand man. Terry is coerced into luring fellow worker Joey Doyle onto a rooftop, where he believes Friendly's henchmen want to talk Joey out of testifying to the Waterfront Crime Commission. When they instead murder Joey by throwing him off the roof, Terry confronts Friendly, but is threatened and bribed into acquiescence. Joey's sister Edie and priest Father Barry try to inspire the dockworkers to stand up to Friendly. Terry attends the meeting as a snitch, but when it is violently broken up by Friendly's men, he helps Edie escape and misses Father Barry convincing one worker to testify. After the testimony, the worker is killed in a staged workplace accident. Terry's unwillingness to testify is softened by his growing feelings for Edie, and her and Father Barry’s pursuit of justice. He confesses his role in Joey's death to both. Shocked by this, Edie distances herself from him. Friendly sends Charley with a job offer to keep Terry quiet. Knowing refusal will get Terry killed, Charley urges him to comply. When Terry expresses regret about throwing his best fight and blames Charley for setting up the fix, Charley hands him a gun and tells him to run. Terry finds Edie and they kiss. After hearing someone in the street, they find Charley murdered. Determined to kill Friendly, Terry is convinced by Father Barry to instead testify in court. Following the hearing, Friendly loses his powerful connections and faces indictment. When he is excluded from the next hiring call at the harbor, Terry confronts Friendly together with the other workers, saying that he is proud of testifying and no longer betraying himself. After seeing Terry get beaten severely by Friendly’s thugs, the longshoremen refuse to work without him and renounce Friendly, wishing to run the union "on the up-and-up". Encouraged by Edie and Father Barry, Terry stumbles to the warehouse. The men follow him inside and the door closes, leaving Friendly outside, ignored by the workers and shippers.

Frenchmen Mario and Jo, German Bimba and Italian Luigi are stuck in the isolated South American town of Las Piedras. Surrounded by desert, the town is linked to the outside world only by an airstrip, but the airfare is beyond the means of the men. There is little opportunity for employment aside from the American corporation that dominates the town, Southern Oil Company (SOC), which operates the nearby oil fields and owns a walled compound within the town. SOC exploits local workers and takes the law into its own hands, but the townspeople depend on it and suffer in silence. Mario is a sarcastic Corsican playboy who treats his devoted lover, Linda, with disdain. Jo is an aging ex- gangster who recently found himself stranded in the town. Bimba is an intense, quiet man whose father was murdered by the Nazis and who had to work as a forced laborer for three years in a salt mine. Luigi, Mario's roommate, is a jovial, hardworking man, who has just learned that he is dying from cement dust in his lungs. Mario befriends Jo due to their common background, having lived in Paris, but a rift develops between Jo and the other cantina regulars due to his combative, arrogant personality. A large fire erupts at one of the SOC oil fields. The only way to extinguish the flames and cap the well is an explosion produced by nitroglycerin. With short notice and lack of proper equipment, it must be transported within jerrycans placed in two large trucks from the SOC headquarters, 500 km (300 miles) away. Due to the poor condition of the roads and the highly volatile nature of nitroglycerin, the job is considered too dangerous for the unionized SOC employees. The company foreman, Bill O'Brien, recruits truck drivers from the local community. Despite the dangers, many of the locals volunteer, lured by the high pay: US$2,000 per driver. This is a fortune to them, perhaps the only way out of their dead-end lives. The pool of applicants is narrowed down to four drivers: Mario, Bimba and Luigi are chosen, along with a German named Smerloff. Smerloff fails to appear on the appointed day, so Jo, who knows O'Brien from his bootlegging days, takes his place. The other drivers suspect that Jo intimidated Smerloff in some way to facilitate his own hiring. Jo and Mario transport the nitroglycerin in one vehicle; Luigi and Bimba are in the other, with thirty minutes separating them in order to limit potential casualties. The drivers are forced to deal with a series of physical and mental obstacles, including a stretch of extremely rough road called "the washboard", a construction barricade that forces them to teeter around a rotten platform above a precipice, and a boulder blocking the road. Jo finds that his nerves are not what they used to be, and the others confront Jo about his increasing cowardice. Finally, Luigi and Bimba's truck explodes without warning, killing them both. Mario and Jo arrive at the scene of the explosion only to find a large crater rapidly filling with oil from a pipeline ruptured in the blast. Jo exits the vehicle to help Mario navigate through the oil-filled crater. The truck, however, is in danger of becoming bogged down and, during their frantic attempts to prevent it from getting stuck, Mario runs over Jo. Although the vehicle is ultimately freed from the muck, Jo is mortally injured. On their arrival at the oil field, Mario and Jo are hailed as heroes, but Jo is dead and Mario collapses from exhaustion. Upon his recovery, he heads home in the same truck. He collects double the wages following his friends' deaths and refuses the chauffeur offered by SOC. Mario jubilantly drives down a mountain road as a party is being held at the cantina back in town, where Mario's friends eagerly await his arrival. He swerves recklessly and intentionally, having cheated death so many times on the same road. Linda, dancing in the cantina, faints. Mario takes a corner too fast and plunges through the guardrail to his death.

On their fifth anniversary, writing teacher Nick Dunne returns home to find that his wife, Amy, is missing. Amy's fame as the inspiration for her parents' Amazing Amy children's books ensures widespread press coverage. The media finds Nick's apathy towards the disappearance suspicious. Before her disappearance, Nick and Amy's marriage deteriorated. Both lost their jobs in the recession and moved from New York to Nick's hometown to support his dying mother. Nick grew distant from Amy and began an affair with his student Andie, while Amy became resentful toward Nick. Detective Rhonda Boney and the forensic team find evidence of a struggle and blood loss in the house. Boney learns of the couple's financial problems, disputes, and Amy's attempt to buy a gun. Medical reports indicate that Amy was pregnant, of which Nick denies knowledge. On each anniversary, Amy sets up elaborate treasure hunts for Nick. This year's clues appear in places where Nick had sex with Andie, revealing Amy's knowledge of his affair. Nick discovers thousands of dollars' worth of items purchased with his credit card, unauthorized and hidden in his sister Margo's woodshed. Amy's clues lead authorities to a diary documenting her growing fear that Nick will kill her. Amy hides in a campground in the Ozarks. After discovering Nick's affair, Amy conceived an elaborate plan to frame him for her murder. She had him increase her life insurance, secretly used his credit card to buy the woodshed items, stole a sample of her pregnant neighbor's urine to fake a pregnancy to elicit media sympathy, wrote increasingly fabricated diary entries and placed incriminating evidence for police to find. On the morning of her disappearance, Amy drained and splattered her own blood across the kitchen. Her original plan was to drown herself after Nick's arrest and have her body found to ensure his death sentence. Nick deduces Amy's scheme, convinces Margo of his innocence, and hires lawyer Tanner Bolt, known for representing husbands suspected of uxoricide. Nick meets two of Amy's ex-boyfriends. Tommy O'Hara claims that she framed him for rape and ruined his life after they broke up. The wealthy Desi Collings, against whom Amy filed a restraining order for stalking, rejects Nick. When Amy's campground neighbors rob her, she calls Desi for help, convincing him that she fled Nick's abuse. Desi agrees to hide her in his lakehouse. Bolt convinces Nick to admit to his affair on a popular talk show, thus seizing the narrative initiative from the media. Andie reveals the affair at a press conference shortly beforehand, but Nick insists on conducting the interview. He affirms his innocence and feigns regret for his shortcomings as a spouse, knowing that Amy is watching. The interview garners widespread sympathy for Nick. However, Boney, having gathered adequate evidence, arrests Nick and Margo. Bolt bails them out, and they brace for the impending trial. After watching Nick's interview, Amy rekindles her attraction to him and begins crafting her escape story. Using surveillance cameras and self-inflicted injuries, she makes it appear that Desi kidnapped and raped her. She seduces Desi, slits his throat during sex, and returns home, clearing Nick of suspicion. Medical examiners lend credence to Amy's story. During questioning, Boney probes her inconsistencies, but Amy accuses Boney of incompetence. The FBI closes the case, but Boney gleans Amy's guilt. At home, Amy tells Nick the truth, but says that she forgives him after seeing him plead for her return on TV. Nick shares this with Boney, Bolt, and Margo. They agree that Amy is guilty, but acknowledge a lack of evidence. Bolt wishes Nick well and returns to New York. A televised interview takes place in their home seven weeks later. Anticipating Nick's intention to leave her and expose her story, Amy reveals her pregnancy minutes before the interview, having inseminated herself with Nick's sperm from a fertility clinic. Nick reacts violently but feels responsible for the child and decides to stay with Amy, to Margo's distress. The couple announces on television that they are expecting a child.

In 1930s Los Angeles, a woman identifying herself as Evelyn Mulwray hires private investigator J. J. "Jake" Gittes to trail her husband, Hollis, the chief engineer at the Department of Water and Power. Gittes photographs Hollis in the company of a young woman and the pictures make their way into the Post-Record, exposing their apparent affair. Gittes is then confronted by the real Evelyn Mulwray, who threatens to sue him. He concludes that the impostor was using him to discredit Hollis. Gittes crosses paths with his former colleague, LAPD Lieutenant Lou Escobar, when Hollis's corpse is found in a reservoir. Investigating further, he discovers that huge quantities of water are being released from the reservoir each night, despite the fact that the city is in the midst of a drought. Water Department Security Chief Claude Mulvihill warns him off, and he has his nose slashed by one of Mulvihill's henchmen. Gittes receives a call from Ida Sessions, the woman who posed as Evelyn. She refuses to say who hired her, but urges Gittes to check the Post-Record ' s obituary section. Now working for Evelyn, Gittes investigates Hollis's death. He learns that Hollis was once the business partner of Evelyn's wealthy father, Noah Cross. Cross offers to double Gittes's fee if he finds Hollis's supposed mistress, who has disappeared. Public records reveal that much of the Northwest Valley has recently changed ownership. Gittes recognizes one of the buyers' names from the obituary section; the obituary indicates that he had been dead for a week when the deal was closed. Gittes and Evelyn bluff their way into the retirement home where the buyer had lived and discover that many of the other residents are " buyers " too, although they have no knowledge of this fact. A suspicious staff member calls Mulvihill, but Gittes and Evelyn escape him and his thugs and hide at her mansion, where they sleep together. Later that night, Gittes follows Evelyn to a house where he sees her comforting the missing girl. When confronted, Evelyn claims the girl is her sister, Katherine. A call from Escobar summons Gittes to Ida's apartment; she has been murdered. Escobar reveals that Hollis had saltwater in his lungs, indicating that he did not drown in the reservoir. He suspects Evelyn is responsible for her husband's murder and tells Gittes to produce her quickly. At the Mulwray residence, Gittes retrieves a pair of bifocals from the saltwater garden pond. Gittes confronts Evelyn about both Katherine, whom she now claims is her daughter, and her husband, whom she denies murdering. Frustrated, he repeatedly slaps Evelyn until she breaks down and reveals that Katherine is both her sister and daughter; the girl's father is Cross, who impregnated Evelyn when she was 15. She tells Gittes that the glasses he found did not belong to Hollis, because he did not wear bifocals. Gittes arranges for the women to flee to Mexico and instructs Evelyn to meet him at her butler's home in Chinatown. He summons Cross to the Mulwray estate, having deduced that Cross dropped his bifocals when he drowned Hollis in the pond. Cross reveals that he is behind both the water shortage and the land grab in the Northwest Valley. Once the land is his, he will get Los Angeles to incorporate the Valley into the city, and obtain a contract from the city to build a reservoir there. He discredited and killed Hollis when the latter came close to uncovering the plan. At gunpoint, Cross and Mulvihill force Gittes to take them to Chinatown, where both Cross's daughter Katherine and the police are waiting. Escobar detains Gittes as Cross attempts to claim Katherine. Evelyn, determined to both protect Katherine from Cross and avoid her learning that Cross is her father, shoots Cross in the arm and tries to escape with Katherine, but the police open fire, killing Evelyn. Cross takes a distraught Katherine away, and Escobar orders Gittes released. As the traumatised Gittes, realizing Cross will get away with everything, is led away by his associates, one tells him, "Forget it, Jake. It's Chinatown."

In 2035, twenty-nine years after a virus killed 99 percent of the global human population, James Cole is a prisoner in a compound underneath the ruins of Philadelphia. He is selected by scientists for a mission to travel to 1996 and collect information on the original strain of the virus so a cure can be developed. Cole experiences recurring dreams of a childhood experience in which he saw a man being shot in an airport terminal. Upon being sent back in time, Cole arrives in Baltimore in 1990, not 1996 as planned. He is arrested and committed to a psychiatric hospital on the diagnosis of Dr. Kathryn Railly. He encounters fellow inmate Jeffrey Goines, an outspoken critic of consumerism. Cole tells the hospital doctors he is searching for the Army of the Twelve Monkeys, the group that unleashed the virus in 1996, which is the past. During an escape attempt aided by Jeffrey, Cole is abruptly returned to the future. The scientists attempt to send Cole back to 1996, but he briefly arrives on a World War I battlefield, where he encounters José, another inmate from the future, before being shot in the leg. In 1996, Railly gives a lecture on the Cassandra Complex where she briefly encounters Dr. Peters, who mentions the destruction of the environment by humanity. She is kidnapped in her car and told to drive to Philadelphia. The kidnapper turns out to be Cole. Railly offers him medical help and extracts the bullet from his leg. His investigation leads them to Jeffrey, which they discover is the leader of the Army of the Twelve Monkeys and the son of renowned virologist Dr. Leland Goines. Cole is abruptly returned to the future. Railly is told by police that the bullet from Cole's leg was from before the 1920s, which prompts her to identify Cole in a battlefield photograph from World War I that she's gathered during her research. She urges Leland to secure his lab against access by his son. Leland shares his intention to improve the lab's security with his assistant, Dr. Peters. Cole arrives in 1996 again and finds Railly. He tells her he believes himself delusional, while she says she's not sure any more. Railly leaves a voicemail on a number Cole says was given to him by the scientists. Cole tells her he has already heard her message, played to him by the scientists in the future. Cole and Railly decide to spend the following days together at the Florida Keys. On their way there, they learn that the Army of the Twelve Monkeys is an animal rights organization led by Jeffrey, and their graffiti "we did it" refers to liberating animals from the Philadelphia Zoo, not releasing the virus. At the airport, Cole records a message on the voicemail number, saying the Army of the Twelve Monkeys is a false lead and that he's not coming back. Railly comes across Dr. Peters at the airport and recognizes him through a newspaper photo alongside Leland. Cole comes across José, who tracked him down after his last message, and hands him a gun. Railly informs Cole of Peters, and Cole attempts to shoot him, but is shot dead by police. As Cole dies in Railly's arms, she makes eye contact with a young boy witnessing the scene. Peters boards his flight and takes a seat beside Jones, one of the scientists who orchestrated Cole's mission. Outside the airport, the young boy who observed the shooting, James, watches the airplane take off.

During his farewell address in 1961, outgoing President Dwight D. Eisenhower warns about the build-up of the military-industrial complex. He is succeeded by John F. Kennedy as president, whose time in office is marked by the Bay of Pigs Invasion and the Cuban Missile Crisis until his assassination in Dealey Plaza, Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963. Ex-Marine and suspected Soviet defector Lee Harvey Oswald is arrested for the murder of police officer J. D. Tippit and arraigned with both murders but is killed by nightclub owner Jack Ruby. New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison and his team investigate potential New Orleans links to the JFK assassination, including private pilot and activist David Ferrie, but their investigation is publicly rebuked by the federal government and Garrison closes the investigation. The investigation is reopened in 1966 after Garrison reads the Warren Report and notices what he believes to be multiple inaccuracies, such as the single bullet theory. Garrison and his staff interrogate people involved with Oswald and Ferrie, learning that the two were involved with the CIA in Operation Mongoose. One witness, Willie O'Keefe, a male prostitute serving five years in prison for solicitation, says that he witnessed Ferrie talking with a man called " Clay Bertrand " about assassinating Kennedy, and that he briefly met Oswald. Garrison and his team theorize Oswald never actually "defected" and was in fact an agent of the CIA who was betrayed and framed for the assassination. In 1967, Garrison and his team talk to several witnesses, including Jean Hill, a teacher who says she witnessed a gunman shooting from the "grassy knoll", a small hill, that Secret Service threatened her into saying three shots came from the Texas School Book Depository from which Oswald was said to have shot Kennedy, and her testimony was altered by the Warren Commission. Garrison's staff also test fire an empty Carcano rifle from the Depository and conclude that Oswald was too poor a marksman to make the shots, and that there was more than one shooter. Garrison comes to believe that "Bertrand" is really New Orleans businessman Clay Shaw. Garrison interviews Shaw, who denies having ever met Ferrie, O'Keefe or Oswald. Some key witnesses become scared and refuse to testify while others, such as Ruby and Ferrie, die in suspicious circumstances. Before his death, Ferrie tells Garrison that there was a conspiracy to kill Kennedy. Garrison meets a high-level figure in Washington D.C. who identifies himself as "X", who claims Kennedy's security in Dallas was deliberately neglected. He also suggests a coup d'état at the highest levels of government, implicating members of the CIA, the Mafia, the military-industrial complex, Secret Service, anti-Castro Cubans, the FBI, and then-Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson as either co-conspirators or as having motives to cover up the truth of the assassination. X suggests that Kennedy was killed because he wanted to pull the United States out of the Vietnam War, halt further actions against Cuba, and dismantle the CIA. X encourages Garrison to keep digging and prosecute Shaw. Soon afterward, Garrison indicts Shaw with conspiring to murder Kennedy. Garrison's marriage is strained when his wife Liz complains that he is spending more time on the case than with his own family. After a sinister phone call is made to their daughter, Liz accuses Garrison of being selfish and attacking Shaw only because of his homosexuality. Some of Garrison's staff begin to doubt his motives and disagree with his methods, and leave the investigation. One of them, Bill Broussard, is later revealed to have been an insider for the FBI for some time, and even plays a peripheral, undisclosed role in what seems to be an attempt to kidnap, murder or otherwise scare Garrison. In addition, Garrison is criticized in the media as wasting taxpayer money to investigate a conspiracy theory. Garrison suspects a connection with the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. and the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy. Shaw's trial takes place in 1969. Garrison presents the court with a dismissal of the single-bullet theory, proposing a scenario involving three assassins firing six shots and framing Oswald for the murders of Kennedy and Tippit, all for the purpose of installing Johnson as president so he could escalate the war in Vietnam and enrich the defense industry. However, the jury acquits Shaw after less than one hour of deliberation. While his prosecution has failed, Garrison wins his wife and children's respect for his determination, and so repairs his relationship with his family.

In 1951, mathematician Alan Turing is questioned by police after an apparent home break-in, and he obliquely refers to his work at Bletchley Park during World War II. In 1928, Turing, constantly bullied at boarding school, befriends Christopher Morcom, who sparks his interest in cryptography. Turing develops romantic feelings, but Christopher dies of bovine tuberculosis before he can confess. When Britain declares war on Germany in 1939, Turing is an established mathematician. He joins the cryptography team of Hugh Alexander, John Cairncross, Peter Hilton, Keith Furman, and Charles Richards in Bletchley Park, directed by Commander Alastair Denniston. Their main employment is analysis of the Enigma machine the Wehrmacht uses to send coded messages. Difficult to work with, and believing his colleagues to be inferior, Turing works alone to design a deciphering machine, which he names "Christopher". When Denniston refuses to fund the £100,000 construction cost, Turing contacts Prime Minister Winston Churchill who appoints him as team leader and provides the funds. Turing then fires Furman and Richards and places a difficult crossword in newspapers as a test to find replacements. Cambridge graduate Joan Clarke passes Turing's test but her family refuses her permission to work with the male cryptographers. Turing arranges for her to live and work with the women who intercept the messages, and shares his plans with her. Clarke helps Turing warm to the others, who begin to respect him. Turing's machine is constructed but cannot determine the Enigma encryption settings quickly enough, as the Germans reset them each day. Denniston orders it destroyed and Turing fired, and the other cryptographers threaten to leave. When Clarke plans to quit because of her parents, Turing proposes, which she accepts. During their engagement party, Turing confirms his homosexuality to Cairncross, who advises him to keep it a secret. Overhearing a clerk talking about messages received from the same German coder, Turing has an epiphany: he can program the machine to decode words he knows exist in certain messages. The theory is proven correct when the German coder consistently opens messages with a standard plaintext German script, which reveals enough of the daily Enigma code to permit decoding of that day's messages. The cryptographers celebrate this breakthrough. Discovering through decoded intercepts that a convoy is in danger of a German attack, Turing fears a sudden response will notify the Germans that Enigma is compromised and change it. The team concludes they cannot act on every decoded message, and they issue no warning about the attack on the convoy, even though Peter, whose brother is serving in the convoy, begs them. Turing creates a statistical model to select which intelligence to act on, to maximize effect on the enemy while minimizing the risk of German suspicion. Turing confronts Cairncross, who he has uncovered as a Soviet spy. Cairncross argues the Soviets are allies working for the same goals, and threatens to retaliate by disclosing Turing's sexuality. When MI6 agent Stewart Menzies appears to threaten Clarke, Turing shares his revelation about Cairncross. Menzies reveals in turn that he already knew, and is using Cairncross to leak misinformation to the Soviets for British benefit. Turing urges Clarke to leave Bletchley Park and admits his sexuality. She admits always being suspicious but insists they would have been happy together anyway. Fearing for her safety, Turing replies he never cared for her, and only used her for her cryptography skills. The heartbroken Clarke stays on, defying her parents and Turing. After the war, Menzies has the cryptographers destroy all traces of the project, as MI6 wants foreign governments to feel secure using their own code machines without fear of British interception. The team is instructed never to meet again or share what they have done. In 1952, Turing is convicted of gross indecency and undergoes chemical castration to be spared from prison so he can continue his work. Clarke visits him, witnesses his physical and mental deterioration, and tries to comfort him. The epilogue shows Turing committed suicide on June 7, 1954, after a year of government-mandated hormonal therapy. In 2013, Queen Elizabeth II granted him a posthumous Royal Pardon. Historians estimate that breaking Enigma shortened the war by over 2 years, saving over 14 million lives. Turing's work is now recognized as an essential step toward the development of modern computers.

The pregnant Bride and her groom rehearse their wedding. Bill — the Bride's former lover, and the leader of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad — arrives unexpectedly and orders the Deadly Vipers to kill everyone at the wedding rehearsal. Bill shoots the Bride in the head, but she survives and swears revenge. Four years later, the Bride, having already assassinated Deadly Vipers O-Ren Ishii and Vernita Green, goes to the trailer of Bill's brother Budd, another Deadly Viper, planning to ambush him. Having been warned by Bill beforehand, he incapacitates her with a non-lethal shotgun blast of rock salt and sedates her. He calls Elle Driver, another former Deadly Viper, and arranges to sell her the Bride's sword for $1 million. He seals the Bride inside a coffin and buries her alive. Years earlier, Bill tells the young Bride of the legendary martial arts master Pai Mei and his Five Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique, a death blow that Pai refuses to teach his students; properly used, the attack is reputed to leave an opponent able to take only five steps before dying. Bill takes the Bride to Pai's temple for training. Pai ridicules and torments her during training, but she eventually gains his respect. In the present, the Bride uses Pai's techniques to escape from the coffin and claw her way to the surface. Elle arrives at Budd's trailer and kills him with a black mamba hidden within the case full of money for the sword. She calls Bill and tells him that the Bride has killed Budd and that she has killed the Bride, using the Bride's real name: Beatrix Kiddo. As Elle exits the trailer, Beatrix ambushes her and they fight. Elle, who was also taught by Pai, taunts Beatrix by revealing that she killed Pai by poisoning his favorite meal in retribution for him plucking out her eye after she called him "a miserable old fool". Enraged, Beatrix plucks out Elle's remaining eye, blinding her, and leaves her screaming and stumbling in the trailer with the black mamba. In Acuña, Mexico, Beatrix meets a retired pimp, Esteban Vellajo, who helps her find Bill. She tracks him to his home, and discovers that their daughter B. B. is still alive, now four years old. Beatrix spends the evening with them. After she puts B. B. to bed, Bill shoots Beatrix with a dart containing truth serum and interrogates her. She explains that she left the Deadly Vipers when she discovered she was pregnant, in order to give B. B. a better life. Bill explains that he assumed she was dead; he ordered her assassination when he discovered she was alive and engaged to a "jerk" he assumed was the father of her child. The two begin to fight, but Beatrix traps Bill's sword in her scabbard and strikes him with the Five Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique. Surprised that Pai taught her the attack, Bill reconciles with her, then falls dead as she walks away. Beatrix leaves with B. B. to start a new life.

Kang In-ho is driving to the fictional city of Mujin, North Jeolla Province to accept a position as the art teacher at Ja-ae Academy, a special needs school for Deaf children. Upon arriving at the academy, In-ho meets with headmaster Lee Gang-seok and his identical twin brother, admin head Lee Gang-bok. He is excited to teach his new students, yet the children are aloof and distant, and avoid running into him as much as possible. In-ho persists in trying to show the kids that he cares. When the students finally open up, In-ho discovers the shocking and ugly truth about the school: the students have been secretly enduring physical and sexual abuse by the teachers and administration. In-ho decides to expose the crimes being committed at the school and collaborates with human rights activist Seo Yoo-jin. However, In-ho and Yoo-jin soon realize the school's headmaster, teachers, staff, and even the police, prosecutors and community combine to cover up the truth. In-ho is fired from his position, but he stays in Mujin to pursue justice for the children. The defense attorney uses " privileges of the former post " and the accused unhesitatingly lie and bribe their way into getting very light sentences. Using their last night of freedom to go out partying, the Lee brothers and Park Bo-hyun (one of the sexually abusive teachers), are laughing with their attorney that the judge was so easy to pay off for a light sentence. As Park leaves the party and walks home, he bumps into Min-su (one of the victims) along the way. Attempting to force the boy to come to his home to be raped once more, Park is shocked when Min-su stabs him in the side with a knife, having fallen into despair from his lost chance to put Park away for good. Park brushes off the stabbing and smacks Min-su to the ground, viciously beating and kicking the boy, proclaiming he will kill him. As he tries to finish Min-su off, Park is overpowered by the boy, who flings both of them onto a nearby railroad track. As an oncoming train barrels toward them, Park screaming in pain, suffering, and despair, losing blood, weakened by the stab wound, is held down by Min-su refusing to let him escape, before they are both killed. Later, at a protest, In-ho and students Yeon-doo and Yoo-ri are seen mourning Min-su's death. A group of protesters and activists fill the street, when police attempt to disperse them. However, since most are deaf-mute, they continue unaware, forcing police use water cannons to disperse them. As the clash plays out, In-ho stands amid the chaos carrying a picture of Min-su, repeatedly chanting, "Everyone! This boy could neither hear nor speak. This child is called Min-su," before he is apprehended by the police. The movie ends with In-ho back in Seoul where he receives an email from Yoo-jin with an update: the appeal to the case was lost but the children's condition has improved.

In 1999, Sierra Leone is ravaged by civil war. The Revolutionary United Front terrorizes the countryside and enslaves many locals to harvest diamonds, which fund their increasingly successful war effort. Solomon Vandy, a Mende fisherman from Shenge, is separated from his family and assigned to a workforce overseen by Captain Poison, a ruthless warlord. While mining a river, Vandy discovers an enormous pink diamond. Captain Poison tries to take the stone, but the area is suddenly raided by government troops. Vandy buries the stone before being captured. Vandy and Poison are incarcerated in Freetown with Danny Archer, a white Rhodesian gunrunner and Angola War veteran jailed for trying to smuggle diamonds into Liberia. The diamonds were intended for Rudolph van de Kaap, a corrupt Afrikaner mining executive from South Africa. Hearing of the pink diamond in prison, Archer arranges for him and Vandy to be freed. He travels to Cape Town to meet his employer: Colonel Coetzee, an Afrikaner formerly with the apartheid -era South African Defence Force (whom Archer also served under in the 32 Battalion), which now commands a private military company. Archer wants the diamond so he can sell it to Van de Kaap and retire, but Coetzee wants it as compensation for Archer's botched smuggling mission. Archer returns to Sierra Leone, locates Vandy, and offers to help him find his family if he will help recover the diamond. The RUF conquers Freetown, while Vandy's son Dia is captured to serve as a child soldier under a liberated Captain Poison. Archer and Vandy narrowly escape to Lungi, where they plan to reach Kono with the help of an American journalist, Maddy Bowen, in exchange for Archer providing evidence of the illicit diamond trade. Maddy helps Vandy locate his remaining family at a refugee camp in Guinea. While they travel, Archer reveals to Maddy that his parents were brutally killed by Black rebels after the fall of Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). As a child, he fled to South Africa, where he eventually joined the military and served in Angola. Eventually, the trio arrive in Kono after a harrowing journey, where Coetzee and his private army—contracted by the Sierra Leone government—prepares to repulse the rebel offensive. While Maddy gets out with her story, the two men set out for Captain Poison's encampment. Dia, stationed with the RUF garrison there, is confronted by Vandy, but having been brainwashed he refuses to acknowledge his father. Archer radios the site's coordinates to Coetzee, who directs a combined air and ground assault on the camp. Vandy finds Captain Poison and beats him to death with a shovel as the mercenaries overwhelm the RUF defenders. Coetzee then forces Vandy to produce the diamond, but is killed by Archer, who realizes Coetzee would eventually kill them both. Dia briefly holds the pair at gunpoint, but Vandy confronts him again and renews their familial bond. Pursued by vengeful mercenaries, Archer discloses he has been mortally wounded and entrusts the stone to Vandy, telling him to take it for his family. Vandy and his son rendezvous with Archer's pilot, who flies them to safety while Archer makes a final phone call to Maddy; they share final farewells as he asks her to assist Vandy, and gives her permission to finish her article. Archer finally takes in the beautiful African landscape before dying. Vandy arrives in London and meets with a van de Kaap representative; he exchanges the pink diamond for a large sum of money and being reunited with his entire family. Maddy takes photographs of the deal to publish in her article on the diamond trade, exposing van de Kaap's criminal actions. Vandy appears as a guest speaker at a conference on " blood diamonds " in Kimberley, and is met with a standing ovation.