"Ghetto" Pat Calhoun and Perfidia Beverly Hills are lovers and members of a far-left militant revolutionary group, the French 75. While breaking out detained immigrants from Otay Mesa Detention Center, Perfidia sexually humiliates the commanding officer, Steven J. Lockjaw, who becomes obsessed with her sexually. Later, when Lockjaw catches Perfidia planting a bomb, he lets her go after she agrees to his demand to meet him for sex. Soon after, Perfidia becomes pregnant. After Perfidia gives birth to a girl named Charlene, Pat tries to persuade her to settle down, but she instead abandons Pat and Charlene to continue her revolutionary activities. Perfidia is arrested after murdering a security guard during a botched bank robbery. Lockjaw arranges for her to avoid prison in exchange for information on key French 75 members. Perfidia enters witness protection, while Lockjaw uses the information she provided to hunt down and summarily execute her comrades. French 75 member Howard Sommerville gives Pat and Charlene stolen identities as Bob and Willa Ferguson, while Perfidia flees witness protection for Mexico. Sixteen years later, living off-the-grid in the sanctuary city of Baktan Cross, California, Bob has become a paranoid stoner. He is protective of Willa, now a free-spirited and self-reliant teenager who resents Bob's substance abuse, and told her that her mother was a hero who died when she was a baby. Through his anti-immigration efforts, Lockjaw has become a colonel and a prominent figure within the U.S. security agencies. When Lockjaw is invited to become a member of the Christmas Adventurers Club, a white supremacist secret society, he seeks to kill Willa to hide his past interracial relationship with Perfidia. He hires bounty hunter Avanti Q to capture Howard, whose distress signal goes out to the remaining members of the French 75. Using an immigration and drug enforcement operation as cover, Lockjaw sends troops to Baktan Cross. French 75 member Deandra rescues Willa before her school dance is raided and takes her to a convent of revolutionary nuns, where she guesses the truth about her mother's betrayal. While high at home, Bob is warned by the French 75 about Lockjaw, whose men then raid his house. Escaping through a tunnel, Bob is helped by Sergio St. Carlos, Willa's karate sensei and a community leader, who also evacuates immigrants via a hidden passage. After learning about the convent from another French 75 member, Bob flees with Sergio's students across rooftops but falls and is arrested, although not recognized. The Christmas Adventurers find evidence of Lockjaw's relationship with Perfidia, including the possibility that he had a child with her, and send member Tim Smith to kill him and Willa. By tracing her phone, Lockjaw locates Willa at the convent, where Deandra is arrested. Holding Willa hostage, Lockjaw tests their DNA in front of her, confirming she is his biological daughter. Sergio arranges Bob's escape and drives him to the convent, throwing him out of the car when police begin to pursue them. Bob steals a car and reaches the convent, unsuccessfully attempting to kill Lockjaw with Sergio's rifle. Lockjaw hires Avanti to kill Willa, but after refusing over her age, Avanti agrees instead to deliver her to a far-right militia. Tim tracks down Lockjaw while driving and shoots him in the face. While searching for Willa, Bob discovers Lockjaw's body and crash site. Avanti brings Willa to the militia, but after a change of heart, frees her and is killed in a shootout with the militia. Willa escapes with Avanti's car and pistol, only for Tim to begin tailing her as Bob tries to catch up. Willa lures Tim into a crash by exploiting a blind summit, shooting and killing him when he fails to recite the revolutionary countersign. Bob finds Willa and they embrace. Some time later, a severely scarred Lockjaw is seemingly welcomed into the Christmas Adventurers Club, but is fatally gassed and cremated shortly afterward. Returning home with Willa, Bob gives her a letter from Perfidia, in which she apologizes for her actions and vows to someday reunite with her family. Later, Bob gives Willa his blessing as she departs for a protest in Oakland.

A deer is hit by a truck and reanimates after the truck leaves. Seok-woo, a cynical workaholic and divorced father in Seoul, messes up a birthday present for his estranged daughter Su-an, and misses out on her recital of the Hawaiian folk song " Aloha ʻOe ". He agrees with Su-an to take her to see her mother, Na-young, in Busan. The next day, they board the KTX 101 for Busan at Seoul Station, along with blue-collar worker Sang-hwa and his pregnant wife Seong-kyeong, high-ranking executive Yon-suk, a high school baseball team including player Yong-guk and his cheerleader girlfriend Jin-hee, elderly sisters In-gil and Jong-gil, and a traumatized homeless man. Just before departure, a scraped up woman boards the train unnoticed at the last minute. News reports reveal that an outbreak is occurring across the country, and the scraped up lady then turns into a zombie. She bites and infects a train attendant, sparking a rapid outbreak on the train. The survivors flee to other carriages and secure the doors, trapping the horde in the process. The train passes through Cheonan station, and continues onto Daejeon Station, where a group of soldiers were deployed to keep the infection at bay. Seok-woo is notified that his company sent an extraction team to pick him and Su-an up. After stopping at Daejeon, the passengers disembark from the train, but find that the deployed soldiers and those from Seok-woo's company had also fallen to the horde. The passengers flee back to the train, becoming separated into different carriages in the commotion. The conductor cancels all future stops except for Busan, where the army has established a quarantine zone. Seok-woo, Sang-hwa, and Yong-guk arm up, sneak and fight through the zombie horde to reunite with Su-an, Seong-kyeong, In-gil, and the homeless man in another carriage. The remaining passengers, fearing that the survivors are infected, refuse to let them into their carriage and block the door. Seok-woo and the others start to try to get into the safe carriage, however, Sang-hwa is bitten during the process. He tells Seok-woo to look after Seong-kyeong, name their daughter Yoon Su-yun, and sacrifices himself to buy the others time to force open the door, but In-gil is left behind in the process. Yon-suk, train attendant Ki-chul, and the other passengers demand that the new passengers leave their train compartment and isolate themselves in the front vestibule. Jong-gil, disgusted at everyone else's selfishness and paranoia, opens the door to let the zombies in and kill everyone else left onboard. Yon-suk and Ki-chul manages to escape by hiding in a bathroom. Seok-woo learns from a phone call that his company was indirectly responsible for the outbreak. A blocked track at Dongdaegu Station forces the train to stop, and the driver disembarks to search for another train. Yon-suk escapes after pushing Ki-chul into the zombies. A flaming locomotive barrels in and crashes into some of the zombie-filled passenger carriages, trapping Seok-woo, Su-an, Seong-kyeong, and the homeless man beneath a toppled carriage. Yong-guk and Jin-hee got split up from the party and are used as bait by Yon-suk, as he escapes on the new train. The conductor starts up another train on a separate track and tries to help an injured Yon-suk, but is mauled in the process. The homeless man sacrifices himself so Seok-woo, Su-an, and Seong-kyeong find their way out from under the carriage. Seok-woo, Su-an, and Seong-kyeong board the new train, only to find an infected Yon-suk, who desperately begs them for help before turning into a zombie. Seok-woo fights him and manages to throw Yon-suk off the train, but his hand is bitten during the tussle. In his last moments of consciousness, he puts Su-an and Seong-kyeong inside the engine room, tells Seong-kyeong how to drive the train, and says goodbye to Su-an. Seok-woo, before succumbing to the infection, runs to the back of the train and reminisces about Su-an's birth before throwing himself off the train. The surviving pair arrive at a blockade of corpses and barbed wire outside a tunnel near Busan, and both walk through the tunnel, with Su-an singing "Aloha 'Oe" to calm her nerves and pay tribute to her father. Su-an and Seong-kyeong are met by the army, who bring both of them to safety.

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.

David Kim lives in San Jose, California with his daughter, Margot. His wife, Pamela, was diagnosed with lymphoma and died before Margot entered high school. David calls Margot who says she is with a study group and will be there all night. That same night, Margot attempts to call David three times, but he is asleep. The following day, David is unable to contact Margot. Believing she is attending her piano lesson, David calls the instructor, but is told that Margot canceled her lessons six months earlier. He finds a phone for her friend Isaac and finds out from Isaac's mom that he and some friends, including Margot, are on a camping trip in the mountains. Once Isaac reaches out to him he finds out that Margot never made it on the trip with her friends prompting him to call and file a missing person's report. The case is assigned to Detective Rosemary Vick. Through her social media accounts, and after speaking with "friends" of Margot David learns she isn't really close with any of the friends and Margot has become a loner since Pamela's death. He discovers she pocketed and transferred $2,500 to a now-deleted Venmo account. Vick reports Margot made a fake ID and shows traffic camera footage of her car outside the city, suggesting she may have run away. Unconvinced, David discovers Margot had been using a streaming site called YouCast, and befriended a young woman named Hannah. Vick reports Hannah's innocence, having been sighted in Pittsburgh at the time of the disappearance. From Margot's Tumblr account, David notices she frequently visited Barbosa Lake near the highway where she was last seen. He finds her Pokémon keychain there, and the police discover her car in the lake, which contains an envelope with $2,500. A search party is organized, but a storm delays the operation. After David has an altercation with a boy who claims to know Margot's whereabouts, Vick tells him he can no longer participate in the investigation. Undeterred, David visits TMZ, which displays the crime scene photographs, and notices his brother Peter's jacket. He discovers text messages between Margot and Peter that suggest an incestuous relationship. Upon confrontation, Peter explains they were only smoking marijuana and confiding in each other. He chastises David for being negligent towards Margot, who is still grieving Pamela's death. Vick calls David and tells him an ex-convict named Randy Cartoff confessed to raping and killing Margot before committing suicide. An empty-casket funeral is arranged for Margot. As David uploads photos to a funeral streaming site, he notices the website's stock photograph features a picture of Hannah. Discovering she is a stock model, he contacts her, and she reveals that she does not know Margot and that the police never called her. Talking to a police dispatcher, David learns that Vick was not assigned to the case but volunteered. He discovers she knew Cartoff through a volunteer program for ex-convicts. Reporting this to the sheriff, David confronts Vick, who is arrested at the funeral. Vick agrees to confess, in exchange for leniency for her son, Robert. Having a crush on Margot, Robert used the YouCast account under the name Hannah to get close to her. Margot sent money to Robert's Venmo account, believing he was a working-class girl whose mother had cancer. Ashamed for lying, Robert wanted to return the money in person and followed her to Barbosa Lake to reveal himself. He surprised her by getting into her car, and she ran, with him accidentally pushing her off a cliff into a 50-foot-deep ravine. Assuming the accident was fatal and could be perceived as manslaughter or even first-degree murder, Vick decided to cover up the incident, pushing the car into the lake and fabricating the fake ID evidence to make it look like Margot ran away. After David found the car, Vick turned Cartoff into the fall guy and staged his confession. Vick says that Margot is still in the ravine, suggesting that even if she had survived the fall, she could not have lived five days without water. David tells the police to return to the ravine, remembering the storm on the third day of the search, which could have provided her with water. The rescue crew finds Margot severely injured but alive. Two years later, Margot applies for college to major in piano. David tells her Pamela would have been proud of her. Margot changes her desktop picture from one of Pamela and her to the one David sent her of the two of them in the school hallway after the rescue, reflecting a closer relationship between them.

In 1941, up-and-coming Broadway playwright Barton Fink accepts a contract from Capitol Pictures in Hollywood to write film scripts for a thousand dollars per week. Upon moving to Los Angeles, Fink settles into the cheap Hotel Earle. His room's only decoration is a small painting of a woman on the beach, arm raised to block the sun. Fink is assigned to a wrestling film by his new boss Jack Lipnick, but he finds difficulty in writing for the unfamiliar subject. He is distracted by sounds coming from the room next door, and he phones the front desk to alert them of the disturbing sounds. His neighbor, Charlie Meadows, the source of the noise, visits Fink to apologize. During their conversation, Fink proclaims his affection for "the common man", and Meadows describes his life as an insurance salesman. Still unable to proceed beyond the first lines of his script, Fink consults producer Ben Geisler for advice. Irritated, the frenetic Geisler takes him to lunch and orders him to consult another writer for assistance. Fink meets the novelist W. P. Mayhew by chance in the bathroom. They briefly discuss movie-writing and arrange a second meeting later in the day. Fink later learns from Mayhew's secretary, Audrey Taylor, that Mayhew suffers from alcoholism and that Taylor ghostwrote some of his scripts. With one day left before his meeting with Lipnick to discuss the film, Fink phones Taylor and begs her for assistance. Taylor visits him at the Earle and they have sex. Fink awakens the next morning to find that Taylor has been violently murdered. Horrified, he summons Meadows and asks for help. Meadows is repulsed but disposes of the body and orders Fink to avoid contacting the police. After Fink has a meeting with an unusually supportive Lipnick, Meadows announces to Fink that he is going to New York for several days, and asks him to watch over a package he is leaving behind. Soon afterwards, Fink is visited by two police detectives, who inform him that Meadows's real name is Karl "Madman" Mundt. Mundt is a serial killer whose modus operandi is beheading his victims. Stunned, Fink places the box on his desk without opening it and he begins writing feverishly. Fink produces the entire script in one sitting and he goes out for a night of celebratory dancing, returning to find the detectives in his room, who inform him of Mayhew's murder and accuse Fink of complicity with Mundt. As the hotel is suddenly engulfed in flames, Mundt appears and kills the detectives with a shotgun, after which he mentions that he had paid a visit to Fink's parents and uncle in New York. Fink leaves the still-burning hotel, carrying the box and his script. Shortly thereafter he attempts to telephone his family, but there is no answer. In a final meeting with Lipnick, who has been conscripted by the United States Army Reserve to serve as a colonel in the Second World War, Fink's script (which is suggested to be a nearly word-for-word copy of the Broadway play shown in the opening scene) is lambasted as "a fruity movie about suffering", and he is informed that he is to remain in Los Angeles; although Fink will remain under contract, Capitol Pictures will not produce anything he writes until he "grows up a little". Dazed, Fink wanders onto a beach, still carrying the package. He meets a woman who looks just like the one in the picture on his wall at the Earle, and she asks about the box. He tells her he does not know what it contains nor who owns it. He asks her if she has ever been in pictures, and she says no. She then assumes the pose from the picture on the hotel room wall. In the background, a seagull falls into the water and dies.

A political sciences teacher, Rainer Wenger, is forced to teach a class on autocracy, despite being an anarchist and wanting to teach the class on anarchy. When his students, the third generation after the Second World War, do not believe that a dictatorship could be established in modern Germany, he starts an experiment to demonstrate how easily the masses can be manipulated. He begins by demanding that all students address him as "Herr Wenger", as opposed to Rainer, and places students with poor grades beside students with good grades — purportedly so they can learn from one another and become better as a whole. When speaking, they must stand and give short, direct answers. Wenger shows his students the effect of marching together in the same rhythm, motivating them by suggesting that they are superior to the anarchy class, which is below them. Wenger suggests a uniform of a white shirt and jeans, to remove class distinction and further unite the group. A student in the class named Mona argues it will remove individuality, but she is dismissed. Another student in the class named Karo shows up to class without the uniform and is ostracized. The students decide among themselves they need a name, deciding on "Die Welle" (The Wave). Karo suggests another name, but she is the only person in the class who votes for it. The group is shown to grow closer together, and former bullies Sinan and Bomber are shown to reform, protecting Tim, the class outcast, from a pair of anarchists demanding he sell them drugs. Sinan also creates a distinctive logo for the group, while Bomber creates a salute. Tim becomes very attached to the group, having finally become an accepted member of a social group. He burns all of his brand-name clothes, after a discussion about how large corporations do not take responsibility for their actions. Karo and Mona protest the actions of the group, and Mona, disgusted with how her classmates are embracing fascism, leaves the project group. Her other classmates do not see the connection with fascism and continue attending the class. The members of The Wave begin spray-painting their logo around town at night, having parties where only Wave members are allowed to attend, and ostracizing and tormenting anyone not in their group. When Tim and his group of new friends are confronted by a group of angry punks (including those that Tim faced previously), Tim pulls a Walther PP pistol, causing them to back down. Tim explains to his shocked friends that the pistol only fires blanks. Tim later shows up at Wenger's house, offering to be his bodyguard. Although he declines his offer, Wenger still invites Tim in for dinner; this puts further strain on his already tense relationship with his wife, Anke, who thinks his experiment has gone too far. Wenger finally asks Tim to leave his house, only to find the next morning that Tim had slept outside on his doorstep. Anke, upset upon learning this, tells Wenger to stop the experiment immediately. Wenger accuses her of being jealous and insults her dependency on pills. Shocked, Anke leaves him, saying the Wave has made him into a terrible person. Karo continues her opposition to the Wave, earning the anger of many in the group, who asks her boyfriend, Marco, to do something about it. A water polo competition is due to happen later that day, and Wenger asks the Wave to show up in support of the team. Karo and Mona, denied entry to the competition by members of The Wave, sneak in another way in order to distribute anti-Wave fliers. Members of the Wave notice this and scramble to retrieve the papers before anybody reads them. In the chaos, Sinan starts a fight with an opposing team member, with the two almost drowning each other as a result. Members of the Wave in the stands begin to violently shove one another. After the match, Marco confronts Karo and accuses her of causing the fight. She replies that the Wave has brainwashed him completely. He slaps Karo, causing her to get a nosebleed. Unsettled by his own behaviour, Marco approaches Wenger and asks him to stop the project. Wenger seemingly agrees and calls a rally for the Wave members for the following day in the school's auditorium. Once in the rally, Wenger has the doors locked and begins whipping the students into a fervour. When Marco protests, Wenger calls him a traitor and orders the students to bring him to the stage for punishment. However, Wenger turns out to have been acting and was using this meeting to test the students and to see how extreme the Wave has become. Wenger declares that he is disbanding the Wave, but Dennis argues that they should try to salvage the good parts of the movement. Wenger points out there is no way to remove the negative elements of fascism. Seeing the movement falling apart right in front of his very eyes, Tim suffers a mental breakdown and pulls out a gun, refusing to accept the Wave is over as he does not want to lose all that he's gained. When Bomber says the gun only fires blanks and tries to take it, Tim shoots him, revealing it has live rounds. When Tim asks why he shouldn't shoot Wenger too, Wenger says that without him, there would be no one to lead the Wave and it would just die anyway. Utterly consumed by despair, Tim abruptly shoots himself in the head, preferring to commit suicide than go on living without the movement. Horrified, Wenger cradles his corpse and looks on at how his actions have resulted in his whole class being scarred for the rest of their lives. The film ends with Wenger being arrested by the police and driven away, Bomber being taken away to the hospital, and Marco and Karo being re-united; the final shot shows Wenger in the back of a police car, staring blankly into the camera, a look of distress on his face.

William Foster is stuck in Los Angeles traffic on a hot day. After his air conditioning fails, he abandons his car and begins walking, carrying his briefcase. At a convenience store, the Korean owner refuses to give change for a telephone call. Foster becomes agitated over the high prices. The owner grabs a baseball bat and demands that Foster leave. Foster takes the bat and destroys several merchandise displays before paying for a drink and leaving. Later, while resting on a hill, he is harassed by two Mexican gang members, who threaten him with a knife and demand his briefcase. Foster attacks them with the bat and takes their knife. The gang members, now in a car with two associates, find Foster using a payphone. They open fire, killing four bystanders, but not Foster. The driver crashes. Foster picks up a weapon they had, shoots the surviving gang member in the leg, and then leaves with their bag of weapons. Foster encounters a panhandler who harasses him for change. Foster gives him the briefcase, which only contains his lunch. At a fast-food restaurant, Foster attempts to order breakfast, but is told they have switched to the lunch menu. After an argument with the manager, Foster pulls a gun and fires into the ceiling accidentally. After trying to reassure the frightened employees and customers, he orders lunch, but is annoyed when the burger looks nothing like the one pictured. He leaves and tries to place a call from a phone booth, then shoots the booth to pieces after being hassled by someone who was waiting to use the phone. After Foster calls "home" again and states his intention to attend his daughter's birthday party, his ex-wife Beth notifies the police as she has a restraining order against him. Sergeant Martin Prendergast, who is on his last day of duty (having been coaxed into retirement by his wife), insists on investigating the events. Interviews with witnesses lead Prendergast to suspect that the same person is responsible for all of them. Foster's vanity license plate, which read "D-FENS", proves to be an important lead, because Prendergast remembers being in the same traffic jam as Foster. Prendergast and his partner, Detective Sandra Torres, visit Foster's mother, who is surprised to learn that he lost his job. They realize Foster is heading toward his former family's home in Venice and rush to intercept him. Foster passes a bank where a black man is protesting after being rejected for a loan. The man exchanges a glance with Foster and says, "Don't forget me," as police escort him away. Foster stops at a military surplus store to buy boots. The owner, a homophobic Neo-Nazi, diverts Torres when she comes in. After Torres leaves, the owner offers Foster a rocket launcher and congratulates him for the restaurant shooting incident. When Foster expresses distaste for the store owner's bigotry, the man becomes violent and attempts to turn him over to the police, but Foster stabs him then shoots him dead. Foster changes into tactical clothes, takes the rocket launcher, and leaves. Foster encounters a road repair crew who are not working and accuses them of doing unnecessary repairs to justify their budget. He pulls out the rocket launcher but struggles to use it, until a boy explains how it works. Foster accidentally fires the launcher, blowing up the construction site. By the time Foster reaches Beth's house, she has already fled with their daughter. He realizes that they may have gone to the nearby Venice Pier, but Prendergast and Torres arrive before he can pursue them. Foster shoots Torres, injuring her, and flees with Prendergast in pursuit. At the pier, Foster confronts his ex-wife and daughter. Adele is happy to see him, but Beth wants him to leave. Prendergast arrives and distracts Foster long enough for Beth to throw his gun into the ocean. Prendergast aims his gun at Foster and urges him to surrender, acknowledging his complaints about social inequalities but not accepting them as an excuse for his rampage. With nothing left for him, Foster tricks Prendergast into killing him. Having asserted himself, Prendergast decides to hold off retirement.

On November 30, 1962, a month after the Cuban Missile Crisis, George Falconer is a middle-aged English college professor living in Los Angeles. George dreams that he encounters the body of his longtime partner, Jim, at the scene of the car accident that took Jim's life eight months earlier. He bends down to kiss his dead lover. After awakening, George delivers a voiceover discussing the pain and depression he has endured since Jim's death and his intention to end his life that evening. George receives a phone call from his dearest friend, Charley, who projects lightheartedness despite also being miserable. George goes about his day putting his affairs in order and focusing on the beauty of isolated events, believing he is seeing things for the last time. At times, he recalls his sixteen-year-long relationship with Jim. During the school day, George comes into contact with a student, Kenny Potter, who shows interest in George and disregards conventional boundaries of student–professor discussion. George also forms an unexpected connection with a Spanish male prostitute, Carlos. That evening, George meets Charley for dinner. Though they initially reminisce and amuse themselves by dancing, Charley's desire for a deeper relationship with George and her failure to understand his relationship with Jim angers George. George goes to a bar and discovers that Kenny has followed him. They get a round of drinks, go skinny dipping, and then return to George's house and continue drinking. George passes out and wakes up in bed with Kenny asleep in another room. While watching Kenny, George discovers that he has fallen asleep holding George's gun to keep George from killing himself. George locks the gun away, burns his suicide notes and in a voiceover explains that he has rediscovered the ability "to feel, rather than think". As he makes peace with his grief, George suffers a heart attack and dies, while envisioning Jim appearing and kissing him.

In November 2001, Mohamedou Ould Slahi is in Mauritania, two months after the September 11 attacks. A Mauritanian policeman tells Mohamedou that Americans want to have a talk with him. Mohamedou agrees to go with them. In Albuquerque, New Mexico, in February 2005, lawyer Nancy Hollander is told by French lawyer Emmanuel that a lawyer from Mauritania approached his firm in Paris on behalf of Mohamedou's family. They haven't seen Mohamedou since he was arrested three years ago and only just found out in a newspaper that he is being held by the United States at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp and is accused of being one of the organizers of 9/11. Emmanuel asks Nancy to look into it because she has a security clearance from a previous case and can ask questions he can't. Nancy agrees to check. At a Naval Law Conference in New Orleans, Marine Prosecutor Stuart Couch is told by Colonel Bill Seidel about the Mohamedou case which Seidel wants him to prosecute. Seidel says that Mohamedou fought with Al-Qaeda in the '90s and then recruited for them in Germany, and says it was Mohamedou who recruited the terrorist who flew Stu's friend's plane into the tower. Nancy and Teri (her fellow lawyer) fly down to Guantánamo to meet Mohamedou. Mohamedou agrees to hire them as his lawyers. Meanwhile, Stu tells his team to go through all the intel reports they have to corroborate the story against Mohamedou. Nancy finds out something through Mohamedou's letter which she received from him while Stu looks at the MFR (Memorandum for the Record), showing exactly what happened. The letter and reports talk about enhanced interrogation methods (i.e., torture) and other maltreatment including sexual assault upon Mohamedou by the Guantanamo guards as ordered by General Mandel. General Mandel also threatened the arrest and rape of his mother. Thus, to save his mother and to get the torture to stop, Mohamedou gave a false confession about being a terrorist. Stu withdraws from Mohamedou's prosecution in disgust. In December 2009, at trial Mohamedou testified over video link to the court. In March 2010, Mohamedou received a letter informing him that his case was successful, and the judge has ordered him to be released. Text is shown telling us that it would be another 7 years before he actually was released, because the government appealed. His mother died in 2013 so he never saw her again. He was finally released in 2016, having spent 14 years in prison without ever being charged. Finally, footage of the real Mohamedou arriving back in Mauritania is shown. Texts are shown, telling us Mohamedou lives in Mauritania and got married in 2018 to an American lawyer. They have a son, Ahmed, but haven't been able to live together as a family and are hoping a country will grant them protection and citizenship. Nancy and Teri are still lawyers working against injustice, and we see footage of Mohamedou giving them necklaces with their names in Arabic.

The film is set in Pößneck, Thuringia, in the summer of 1979. The Strelzyk and Wetzel families develop a daring plan to flee the GDR to West Germany in a self-made hot air balloon. About to attempt an escape in perfect wind conditions, Günter Wetzel decides it is too dangerous. He thinks the balloon is too small for eight people, and his wife Petra is afraid for their two young children. Therefore, they stop trying to escape for a short time. Doris and Peter Strelzyk now want to dare to escape alone with their two sons. Their teenage son Frank has fallen in love with Klara Baumann, the daughter of his neighbour Erik, who works for the Stasi, and writes her a farewell letter. The same night, the Strelzyk family packs the balloon and other accessories in their trailer, drives into the forest, and takes off. Hidden in the clouds, they cannot be seen by the border guards. However, the balloon goes down with Doris, Peter, and their two sons Frank and Andreas (called "Fitscher") in the gondola shortly before the border because the pipes from the gas bottles to the burner freeze up and become clogged. None of the four are injured, they get back to their car and destroy all evidence. Frank just manages to retrieve the letter to Klara. The Stasi finds the abandoned balloon and discovers the attempted escape, and under the direction of Lieutenant Colonel Seidel, begins a large investigation. He interrogates the border guards who were on duty at the time of the attempt to escape and accuses them of not taking their task seriously enough. The investigators narrow down the radius in which the balloon must have started, and thus also the circle of suspects. For the next few weeks, both families live in constant fear that the Stasi might link them to the attempted escape. Doris in particular is worried because she lost her medication in the forest, which gave the Stasi important information in the form of personalised pills. Peter wants to try again. Before that, however, they travel to East Berlin, where they hope to be able to get out of the country with the help of the East Berlin US Embassy, but this attempt fails. Peter can convince Günter to make another balloon attempt to escape. Since they must be careful in obtaining the materials to avoid raising suspicion, the family members only buy small quantities of suitable fabric in different cities. Günter sits at the sewing machine every night to join the pieces of fabric. Meanwhile, Seidel is fast putting together all the clues tying the family to the escape. He must prevent the GDR from being embarrassed by a successful escape attempt at all costs. Just as Doris feared, the investigators trace their medication back to the local pharmacy, where all recipients of the tablets are now being identified and checked. The Stasi published photos in the press of objects that the Strelzyks had to leave behind at the landing site of their first attempt. Günter has to move the sewing work to the Strelzyks' cellar because his neighbours have become aware of the constant running noise of the sewing machine. When Frank realises that Klara's father Erik has to go to the pharmacy because someone is wanted and that the wind is blowing to the south, the prerequisite for their escape, they want to make the second attempt that same night. When the Stasi employees work out their identities and break into their houses, the families are already on their way to the starting point. The start is not as perfect this time as on their first attempt and when the gas runs out they have to land in a forest after half an hour's flight. At first, it is not clear whether they have successfully crossed the border. Peter and Günter then explore the area and meet a police patrol car. When the police tell them that they are in Upper Franconia, the families react joyfully. Lieutenant Colonel Seidel and his superior must explain themselves to Stasi chief Erich Mielke, and Erik Baumann is interrogated by the Stasi. Ten years later, Doris and Peter Strelzyk watch Hans-Dietrich Genscher 's announcement from the Prague embassy on television that the GDR citizens gathered there are allowed to leave.

On 29 April, Sergeant Neil Howie of the West Highlands Constabulary journeys by seaplane to the remote, verdant Hebridean island of Summerisle to investigate the disappearance of a young girl, Rowan Morrison, about whom he has received an anonymous letter. Howie, a devout Christian, is disturbed to find the islanders paying homage to the pagan Celtic gods of their ancestors, with churches having fallen into disuse. They copulate openly in the fields, include children as part of the May Day celebrations, teach children of the phallic association of the maypole, and one places a toad in a child's mouth to cure a sore throat. The islanders appear to be trying to thwart his investigation by claiming that Rowan never existed. While Howie is staying at the Green Man Inn, the landlord's daughter attempts to seduce him, but he resists, explaining that he is engaged and must reserve sex for marriage. He notices a series of photographs celebrating the annual harvest, each featuring a young girl as the May Queen. The photograph of the most recent celebration is missing and the landlord tells him it was broken. At the local school, Howie asks the students about Rowan, but all deny her existence. He checks the school register and finds Rowan's name. He questions the schoolteacher, who directs him to Rowan's grave. The next day, 30 April, Howie meets the island's leader, Lord Summerisle, grandson of a Victorian agronomist, to get permission to exhume Rowan's body. Summerisle explains that in 1868, his grandfather developed strains of fruit trees that would prosper in Scotland's climate and encouraged the belief that returning to the old gods would bring prosperity to the island among the previously Christian population. Due to the bountiful harvests, the island's other inhabitants gradually embraced paganism, and the Christian ministers fled to the mainland. Exhuming Rowan's grave, Howie finds that the coffin contains only the body of a hare. He also finds the missing harvest photograph, showing Rowan standing amidst empty boxes; the harvest had failed for the first time since the orchards were established. His research reveals that a human sacrifice is offered to the gods in the event of crop failure. He concludes that Rowan is alive and will soon be sacrificed to ensure a successful harvest this season. The following morning, on May Day, Howie seeks assistance from the mainland and returns to his seaplane, only to discover it no longer functions and its radio is damaged; he cannot leave or call for help. Later that day, during the May Day celebration, Howie subdues the innkeeper and steals his costume and mask of Punch (the Fool) to infiltrate the parade, involving a long sword dance. Rowan is eventually revealed. Howie sets her free and flees with her into a cave. Exiting it, they are intercepted by the islanders, to whom Rowan happily returns. Summerisle tells Howie that Rowan was never the intended sacrifice — Howie is. He fits their gods' four requirements: he came of his own free will, he has "the power of a king" by representing the law, he is a virgin, and he is a "fool" by falling for their deception. Howie warns Summerisle and the islanders that the crops are failing due to the unsuitability of the climate, and that the villagers will turn on Summerisle and sacrifice him next summer when the harvest fails again, but his pleas are ignored. The villagers force Howie inside a giant wicker man statue along with various animals, set it ablaze, and surround it, singing the Middle English folk song " Sumer Is Icumen In ". Inside the wicker man, Howie recites Psalm 23 and prays to God. Howie and the animals burn to death as the head of the wicker man collapses in flames, revealing the setting sun.