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Bruce Nolan (Jim Carrey) is a television field reporter for Eyewitness News at WKBW-TV in Buffalo, New York, but desires to be the news anchorman. He is in a healthy relationship with his girlfriend Grace Connelly (Jennifer Aniston), but also has a mild crush on his co-worker, Susan Ortega (Catherine Bell), who barely seems to notice him. Bruce, however, suffers from constant bad luck, and reaches breaking point when he is passed over for promotion by his rival, Evan Baxter (Steve Carell), who then steals dialogue from Bruce's segment while accepting the promotion on-air. Furious, Bruce aggressively and profanely criticizes the station during his first live report, and is promptly fired. Following a series of other misfortunes, Bruce takes out his frustration on God (Morgan Freeman), blaming Him and claiming that He is "the one who should be fired." Bruce later receives a message on his pager directing him to an empty warehouse, where he meets God. God offers to give Bruce His powers, to prove that He is doing His job correctly. God gives Bruce two rules that he must follow: firstly, Bruce cannot tell anyone else that he has God's powers; and secondly, Bruce cannot use the powers to interfere with free will. Bruce ignores God and is initially jubilant with the powers, using them for personal gain such as potty-training his dog, exposing a woman by blowing up her dress, transforming his beat-up car into a Saleen S7, and sexually impressing Grace. Bruce also finds ways of using the powers to cause miraculous events to occur at otherwise mundane events that he covers, such as discovering Jimmy Hoffa's body or causing a meteor to harmlessly land near a cook-off, earning him his job back. Bruce then uses his powers to cause Evan to humiliate himself on-air, causing Evan to be fired in favor of Bruce as the new anchor. After taking Grace to a fancy dinner and telling her he made anchor (angering her, as she thought he was going to propose), Bruce begins to hear voices in his head. He re-encounters God, who confronts Bruce about his selfish use of his powers. He explains that the voices are prayers to God, and that Bruce must deal with them. Bruce creates a computerized system to receive the prayers and respond, but finds that the influx is far too great for him to handle — even though God had stated that he is only receiving prayers from the Buffalo area — and sets the program to automatically answer Yes to every prayer. During a party to celebrate Bruce's promotion, Susan seduces and kisses him. When Grace arrives and sees this, she storms out; Bruce follows her, but she is heartbroken and will not listen to him. He tries to use his powers to convince Grace to stay, but cannot influence her free will. As Bruce looks around, he realizes that automatically granting everyone's prayers has plunged the city into chaos. Bruce returns to God, who explains that despite how chaotic things seem, there is always a way to make things right, and that Bruce must figure out a way to solve it himself. Bruce then begins to solve his problems in life practically, such as helping a man whose car has broken down, training his dog normally, and allowing Evan to have his job back. Bruce returns to his computer system, having briefly unplugged it, and goes about answering prayers manually as best he can. As he reads through them, he finds a prayer from Grace, wishing for Bruce's success and well-being. As he reads it, another prayer from Grace arrives, this one wishing not to be in love with Bruce anymore. A despondent Bruce walks alone on a highway, asking God to take back His powers and letting his fate be in His hands. Bruce is suddenly struck by a truck and regains consciousness in a white void. God appears and asks Bruce what he really wants; Bruce admits that he only wants to make sure Grace finds a man that would make her happy. God agrees and Bruce finds himself in the hospital, shortly after being revived — near miraculously — by the doctors. Grace arrives and the two rekindle their relationship, later becoming engaged. After his recovery, Bruce returns to his field reporting but takes more pleasure in the simple stories. Bruce and Grace announce their engagement on live TV. The film ends with the doomsayer Bruce previously ran into on various occasions finally revealing himself to be God.

The novel has a complex plot, common in Collins’ work. In a Prologue, a selfish and ambitious man casts off his wife in order to marry a wealthier and better-connected woman, by taking advantage of a loophole in the marriage laws of Ireland. The initial action takes place in the widowed Lady Lundie's house in Scotland. Geoffrey Delamayn has promised marriage to his lover Anne Silvester (governess to Lady Lundie's stepdaughter Blanche), who has incurred the enmity of her employer. The spendthrift Geoffrey is about to be disinherited, and wishes to escape from his promise and marry a wealthy wife. Nevertheless he is obliged to arrange a rendezvous with Anne, in the character of his wife, at an inn, and documents this in an exchange of notes with her. Subsequently, urgent matters force him to send his friend Arnold Brinkworth, Blanche's fiancé, to Anne in his place. To gain access to her, Arnold must ask for "his wife". Although nothing improper passes between them, they appear to the landlady and to Bishopriggs, a waiter, to be man and wife. Thus both Geoffrey and Arnold might be deemed to be married to Anne, depending on the weight put on the spoken and written evidence. Most of the novel concerns Anne's, Geoffrey's and Arnold's attempts to clarify their marital status: Anne needs to be married to save her reputation Geoffrey wishes to cast off Anne by asserting that she is married to Arnold Arnold wishes to marry Blanche, but fears he has accidentally already married Anne under Scots law. In subsequent chapters Geoffrey, a keen athlete, courts Mrs Glenarm, a wealthy young widow, while Anne consults lawyers who give her conflicting advice about her position, and later tries to explain the situation to Mrs Glenarm, who rebuffs her. Arnold seeks the advice of Lady Lundie’s brother-in-law Sir Patrick Lundie, a retired lawyer. Sir Patrick approaches the problem with energy, but owing to various mishaps, Geoffrey’s determination that his scheme shall succeed, and the unsatisfactory state of the law, is not immediately successful. However he ascertains that the correspondence linking Geoffrey and Anne exists and was stolen at the inn by Bishopriggs, who tries to extort money for it. Anne, who strongly wishes to remove any impediment to Blanche and Arnold’s marriage, comes to the same conclusion and forces Bishopriggs to give her the letter by threatening to reveal its contents, which would make it worthless for blackmail. Eventually Anne offers to reveal her relations with Geoffrey, even at the cost of her reputation – impressing Sir Patrick with her courageous and honourable behaviour. At a meeting of all the parties and their lawyers, she makes her revelations. Geoffrey can no longer avoid honouring his promise to her and acknowledges her as his wife. A sub-plot concerns Geoffrey’s athleticism. While training for an important race, Geoffrey is discovered to have a serious physical ailment rendering him liable to a paralytic stroke. In the race itself, in which Geoffrey represents the South of England against the North, he collapses near the end, leaving his opponent the victor. His “friends” desert him, having lost their bets placed on him. The novel finally becomes a thriller. Geoffrey takes Anne to a secluded cottage in which the cook-housekeeper Hester Dethridge (who also features in the earliest scenes) is mute. Hester inadvertently reveals to Geoffrey that she murdered her brutal and rapacious husband by dismantling part of the wall of his (locked) bedroom in an almost-invisible way, leaning through and smothering him. Geoffrey forces Hester to show him how to do the same to Anne. By various stratagems he gets Anne to sleep in a suitably-placed bed. However he suffers a stroke when about to smother her, and while unconscious is throttled by Hester, who belatedly recognises the enormity of what she has been abetting. Sir Patrick, knowing the danger in which Anne is placed, has kept watch outside the house and, when Anne gives the alarm, duly rescues her. In the final scene, Lady Lundie awaits a visit from Sir Patrick and his new bride. She is chagrined to discover that the lady in question, who takes precedence over her in the family, is her enemy Anne.

Slate and Co. Senior Executive Cliff Vandercave and secretary Miss Sharon Stone discuss their plan to swindle the company of its vast fortune and flee, and that they need one of their employees to be responsible for it. Fred Flintstone loans his best friend and neighbor Barney Rubble money so that he and his wife Betty can adopt a child named Bamm-Bamm, who can only pronounce his own name. Although the child is initially difficult to control due to being raised by Mastadons, as well as having super strength, he eventually warms up to his new family. Barney vows to repay his friend, but Fred is visited by his mother-in-law, Pearl Slaghoople, who objects to his decision. However, Fred's wife Wilma remains supportive of his decision. Cliff holds an aptitude test, where the worker with the highest mark will become the new Vice President of the company. Barney gets the highest score, but remembers his promise and switches his paper with Fred, who he knows will fail miserably. Fred receives the promotion, but his first order is to dismiss Barney, since Barney now effectively has the lowest score. Fred accepts, but does his best to help Barney support his family, even inviting the Rubbles to live with them so that they can rent out their home. However, the perks of Fred's new job put a strain on relationships, as Wilma catches him in an intimate moment with Miss Stone, and the Rubbles are annoyed by Fred and Wilma's increasingly snobbish behavior. Cliff eventually tricks Fred into sacking the workers, over the objections of his office Dictabird. At a local restaurant Barney confronts Fred after seeing worker riots on the news revealing that he switched tests with Fred, and the Rubbles move out, despite having nowhere to live. Wilma and Pebbles also move out to her mother's house, leaving Fred behind. Fred goes to the quarry and realizes his mistake and Cliff's plot, but also finds out that Cliff has tricked Fred into thinking that he embezzled the money, Fred attempts to get Mr. Slate to fire Cliff, but Cliff calls the police. A manhunt for Fred ensues by the police and the workers. Wilma and Betty see this on the news, and break into Slate and Co. to get the Dictabird, the only witness who can clear Fred. They are, however, unaware that Cliff saw them from his office window. As Fred attempts to infiltrate a cave where the workers are seeking refuge, they see through his disguise and attempt to hang him. Barney shows up, now working as a snow cone vendor, and is almost hanged as well after he admits his part. Fred and Barney reconcile, but before they can be hanged, Wilma and Betty arrive with the Dictabird. The workers release Fred and Barney after learning from the Dictabird that Cliff had fired them to frame Fred. However, Cliff kidnaps Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm, leaving behind a ransom note demanding the Dictabird in exchange for the children's safe return. Fred and Barney encounter Cliff at the quarry, where Cliff has tied Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm to a huge machine. Though they hand him the Dictabird, Cliff activates the machine. Barney rescues the children while Fred destroys the machine. The Dictabird escapes from Cliff and lures him back to the quarry, where Miss Stone knocks him out, having had a change of heart after learning that Cliff planned to betray her. The police arrive with Wilma and Betty and Cliff attempts to flee, but a falling substance petrifies him. With the Dictabird's help, all charges against Fred are dropped, while Miss Stone is arrested as Cliff's accomplice, though Fred is confident she will be granted leniency for helping them stop Cliff. Mr. Slate shows up, impressed with the substance that Fred inadvertently created by destroying the machine, dubs the substance "concrete" and makes plans to produce it with Fred as President of its division, thus ending the Stone Age, but Fred declines. Barney protests that this is a great position for Fred and not like the problems of before, but Fred explains to Mr. Slate that wealth and status changed him for the worse, and simply asks that all the workers be rehired and given the job benefits he originally set out to achieve, which is granted. As the Flintstones and Rubbles have finally made amends, Fred and Barney get into a humorous quarrel when Fred once again asks Barney for a small amount of money for breakfast. As they argue and leave, Mr. Slate remarks to himself "There goes the best executive I ever had."

Tom and his father are arguing about Tom's latest idea, a photo telephone. Mr. Swift is adamant that the idea will not work, but Tom has some ideas in mind, and refuses to back down. Tom read about a recent news event where a photograph was transmitted over telegraph lines, and there is no functional difference between the wires used for a telephone to those used in telegraphs. In the meantime, some shady occurrences are happening in the neighborhood. Tom and Ned are almost run over by a speeding motor boat, operated by a con-artist known as Shallock Peters. The feud between Mr. Peters and Tom begins when Mr. Peters refuses to acknowledge the accident. The animosity between the two only grows deeper as Mr. Peters tries to buy Tom out of some of his inventions, under the guise of making a profit. Tom refuses to allow anyone other than himself permissions to his patents, and this infuriates Mr. Peters. Later, Tom learns that his good friend, Mr. Damon, is having serious financial troubles. As the plot gets thicker and thicker, one of Tom's airships is stolen, and then Mr. Damon unexpectedly disappears. All this while Tom is desperately trying to get his latest invention working.

The story portrays a crew of three male astronauts launched in the near future on a circumsolar mission in the spaceship Sunbird. A large solar flare damages their craft and leaves them drifting and lost in space. They make repeated attempts to contact NASA in Houston, to no avail. Soon, however, they begin to pick up strange radio communications. They are puzzled that almost all of the voices are female, usually with a strong Australian accent. They overhear conversations about personal matters (including the birth of a cow) as well as unknown slang terms. Various theories are discussed by the perplexed astronauts: hallucinations? A hoax? A hostile power trying to trick them? They record and play back the conversations over and over, trying to figure out what is going on. Soon, they realize that these unknown people are aware of them and are offering to help. At first, the Sunbird's commander refuses to communicate with them, suspicious of their motives. As they continue to plead with the astronauts to accept their rescue offer, the men are chilled to hear their mission referred to in historical terms. They come to realize that they were not only thrown off-course in space, but in time as well, and that their flight was lost centuries ago. They are given bare details of the current Earth: an undefined cataclysm has reduced the human population to a mere few million. Eventually, the Sunbird agrees to rendezvous with the spaceship Gloria to allow the astronauts to spacewalk to safety. The Gloria is an enigma to them. Besides having an almost all-female crew, the ship is haphazard and cluttered with plants and animals on board. None of the technology seems very advanced and some of the ship's functions are powered by stationary bikes. Their culture shock is compounded by the cryptic and incomplete answers they are given concerning the Earth. Little by little, the three gather clues from both observations and slips of the tongue. While crew members often refer to their "sisters," there is no mention of husbands, boyfriends, or families. There are twins on board (both named Judy), yet one seems older than the other. The one male, a teen named Andy, seems strangely feminine. Technology, and science and culture in general, seems to be relatively unadvanced considering the centuries that passed. Eventually, they learn the truth. A plague wiped out most human life, including all males. Only about 11,000 people survived, mostly concentrated in Australasia and a few other areas. They reproduce by cloning, and all living humans are clones of the original 11,000 genotypes. Babies are raised communally in crèches, and all members of each genotype are encouraged to add their story to a book that is passed on for the inspiration and education of future "sisters." Certain genotypes are given early androgen treatments (hence, the pseudo-male crew member) to increase bulk and strength for physical tasks. The resulting almost communal maleless society has settled into a peaceful pattern—without major conflict, seemingly happy, but with little advancement. The Sunbird's crew react to these revelations in different ways. The commander considers this to be a great tragedy, and believes he was chosen by God to lead these females back, with men as family leaders. Another drools at the prospect of millions of women who have not known a man's touch, and fancies himself the object of desire for them all when he returns. It is then uncovered by the third crew member that his crewmates have been given a drug—one that causes them to show their "true selves". He realizes that they are most certainly not headed home, and the crew of the Gloria do not intend for them to survive. They are perfectly happy living without men, and the astronauts are merely being studied, pressed for any useful information, and (in the case of the over-amorous astronaut) used to obtain sperm samples, presumably to introduce fresh genetic material and create new genotypes.

Married to Margaret Brandt, Gerard sets off to Rome from Holland in order to escape the persecution of a vicious burgomaster as well as to earn money for the support of his family. Margaret awaits his return in Holland and in the meantime gives birth to his son. As Gerard is the favourite with his parents, his two lazy and jealous brothers decide to divert him from Holland and receive a larger share of fortune after their parents' death. They compose and dispatch a letter to Gerard informing him falsely that Margaret has died. Gerard believes the news and, stricken by grief, gives himself to a dissolute life and even attempts a suicide. After being saved from death by chance, he takes vows and becomes a Dominican friar. Later Gerard preaches throughout Europe and, while in Holland, discovers that Margaret is alive. He is afraid of temptation and in order to shun Margaret becomes a hermit. Margaret discovers Gerard's hiding place and convinces him to come back to normal life in which he becomes a vicar of a small town. Gerard and Margaret no longer live as a man and wife, but nevertheless see each other several times a week. A few years pass, Gerard's son grows up and is sent to a private school. Later, having heard that plague breaks out at the school, Margaret rushes to rescue her son, but contracts the disease herself and dies shortly afterwards. Gerard takes her demise painfully, renounces his vicarship and dies in a few weeks. The author of The Cloister and the Hearth, at the end of this story, reveals that Margaret's and Gerard's son, also named Gerard, became the great Catholic scholar and Humanist, Erasmus of Rotterdam, a major historical figure. Indeed, little is actually known about Erasmus' actual parentage (apparently illegitimate), though his parents were in reality named Margaret Roger and Gerard. Reade was apparently using his imagination to fill in some historical gaps in Erasmus' background. The Cloister and the Hearth can easily be read as anti-Catholic, as it presents Catholic discipline regarding the celibate priesthood as an unsympathetic obstacle preventing Margaret's and Gerard's love from continuing to be consummated.

The film is divided into two separate, unequal stories. In the shorter of the two, Holmes is approached by a famous Russian ballerina, Madame Petrova (Tamara Toumanova), who proposes that they conceive a child together, one who she hopes will inherit her physique and his intellect. Holmes manages to extricate himself by claiming that Watson is his lover, much to the doctor's embarrassment. In the main plot, a Belgian woman, Gabrielle Valladon (Geneviève Page), is fished out of the River Thames and brought to Baker Street. She begs Holmes to find her missing engineer husband. The resulting investigation leads to a castle in Scotland. Along the way, they encounter a group of monks and some midgets, and Watson apparently sights the Loch Ness monster. It turns out that Sherlock's brother Mycroft (Christopher Lee) is involved in building a pre-World War I submarine for the British Navy, with the assistance of Monsieur Valladon. When taken out for testing, it was disguised as a sea monster. The midgets were recruited as crewmen because they took up less space and needed less air. When they meet, Mycroft informs Sherlock that his client is actually a top German spy, Ilse von Hoffmanstal, sent to steal the submersible. The "monks" are German sailors. Queen Victoria (Mollie Maureen) arrives for an inspection of the new weapon, but objects to its unsportsmanlike nature. She orders the exasperated Mycroft to destroy it, so he conveniently leaves it unguarded for the monks to take (rigging it to sink when it is submerged). Fräulein von Hoffmanstal is arrested, to be exchanged for her British counterpart. In the final scene some months later, Sherlock receives a message from his brother, telling him that von Hoffmanstal had been arrested as a spy in Japan, and subsequently executed by firing squad. Heartbroken, the detective retreats to his room to seek solace in drugs and his violin.

Allan Quatermain, an adventurer and white hunter based in Durban, in what is now South Africa, is approached by aristocrat Sir Henry Curtis and his friend Captain Good, seeking his help finding Sir Henry's brother, who was last seen travelling north into the unexplored interior on a quest for the fabled King Solomon's Mines. Quatermain has a mysterious map purporting to lead to the mines, but had never taken it seriously. However, he agrees to lead an expedition in return for a share of the treasure, or a stipend for his son if he is killed along the way. He has little hope they will return alive, but reasons that he has already outlived most people in his profession, so dying in this manner at least ensures that his son will be provided for. They also take along a mysterious native, Umbopa, who seems more regal, handsome and well-spoken than most porters of his class, but who is very anxious to join the party. Travelling by oxcart, they reach the edge of a desert, but not before a hunt in which a wounded elephant claims the life of a servant. They continue on foot across the desert, almost dying of thirst before finding the oasis shown halfway across on the map. Reaching a mountain range called Suliman Berg, they climb a peak (one of "Sheba's Breasts") and enter a cave where they find the frozen corpse of José Silvestre (also spelt Silvestra), the 16th-century Portuguese explorer who drew the map in his own blood. That night, a second servant dies from the cold, so they leave his body next to Silvestra's, to "give him a companion". They cross the mountains into a raised valley, lush and green, known as Kukuanaland. The inhabitants have a well-organised army and society and speak an ancient dialect of IsiZulu. Kukuanaland's capital is Loo, the destination of a magnificent road from ancient times. The city is dominated by a central royal kraal. They soon meet a party of Kukuana warriors who are about to kill them when Captain Good nervously fidgets with his false teeth, making the Kukuanas recoil in fear. Thereafter, to protect themselves, they style themselves "white men from the stars"—sorcerer-gods—and are required to give regular proof of their divinity, considerably straining both their nerves and their ingenuity. They are brought before King Twala, who rules over his people with ruthless violence. He came to power years before when he murdered his brother, the previous king, and drove his brother's wife and infant son, Ignosi, out into the desert to die. Twala's rule is unchallenged. An evil, impossibly ancient hag named Gagool is his chief advisor. She roots out any potential opposition by ordering regular witch hunts and murdering without trial all those identified as traitors. When she singles out Umbopa for this fate, it takes all Quatermain's skill to save his life. Gagool, it appears, has already sensed what Umbopa soon after reveals: he is Ignosi, the rightful king of the Kukuanas. A rebellion breaks out, the Englishmen gaining support for Ignosi by taking advantage of their foreknowledge of a lunar eclipse to claim that they will black out the moon as proof of Ignosi's claim. The Englishmen join Ignosi's army in a furious battle. Although outnumbered, the rebels overthrow Twala, and Sir Henry lops off his head in a duel. The Englishmen also capture Gagool, who reluctantly leads them to King Solomon's Mines. She shows them a treasure room inside a mountain, carved deep within the living rock and full of gold, diamonds and ivory. She then treacherously sneaks out while they are admiring the hoard and triggers a secret mechanism that closes the mine's vast stone door. Unfortunately for Gagool, a brief scuffle with a beautiful native named Foulata—who had become attached to Good after nursing him through his injuries sustained in the battle—causes her to be crushed under the stone door, though not before fatally stabbing Foulata. Their scant store of food and water rapidly dwindling, the trapped men prepare to die also. After a few despairing days sealed in the dark chamber, they find an escape route, bringing with them a few pocketfuls of diamonds from the immense trove, enough to make them rich. The Englishmen bid farewell to a sorrowful Ignosi and return to the desert, assuring him that they value his friendship but must return to be with their own people, Ignosi in return promising them that they will be venerated and honoured among his people forever. Taking a different route, they find Sir Henry's brother stranded in an oasis by a broken leg, unable to go forward or back. They return to Durban and eventually to England, wealthy enough to live comfortable lives.

Challenger sends telegrams asking his three companions from The Lost World — Edward Malone, Lord John Roxton, and Professor Summerlee – to join him at his home outside London, and instructs each of them to 'bring oxygen'. On arrival they are ushered into a sealed room, along with Challenger and his wife. In the course of his researches into various phenomena, Challenger has predicted that the Earth is moving into a belt of poisonous ether which, based on its effect on the people of Sumatra earlier in the day, he expects to stifle humanity. Challenger seals them in the room with cylinders of oxygen, which he (correctly) believes will counter the effect of the ether. The five wait out the Earth's passage through the poison belt as they watch the world outside die and machines run amok. (According to Victorian values – or to Doyle's understanding of them – Challenger's servants are left outside the sealed room, and they continue to perform their duties until the ether overtakes them.) Finally, the last of the oxygen cylinders is emptied, and they open a window, ready to face death. To their surprise, they do not die, and conclude the Earth has now passed through the poison belt. They journey through the dead countryside in Challenger's car, finally arriving in London. They encounter only one survivor, an elderly, bed-ridden woman prescribed oxygen for her health. After returning to Challenger's house, they discover that the effect of the ether is temporary, and the world reawakens with no knowledge that they have lost any time at all. Eventually Challenger and his companions manage to convince the world what happened – a task made easier by the tremendous amount of death and destruction caused by runaway machines and fires that took place while the world was asleep – and humanity is shocked into placing a higher value on life.

In 1944, with the help of Russian mystic Grigori Rasputin, the Nazis build a dimensional portal off the coast of Scotland and intend to free the Ogdru Jahad—monstrous entities imprisoned in deep space—to aid them in defeating the Allies. Rasputin opens the portal with the aid of his disciples, Ilsa von Haupstein and Obersturmbannführer Karl Ruprecht Kroenen, member of the Thule Society and Adolf Hitler's top assassin. An Allied team is sent to destroy the portal, guided by a young Trevor Broom, who is well-versed in the occult. The German team is killed and the portal is destroyed—in the process absorbing Rasputin—while Haupstein and Kroenen escape. The Allied team discovers that an infant demon with a right hand of stone came through the portal; they dub him "Hellboy" and Bruttenholm adopts him. Sixty years later, FBI agent John Myers is transferred to the Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense (BPRD) at the request of Broom and he meets the adult Hellboy and a psychic, amphibious humanoid named Abe Sapien. He learns that a third BPRD member, Liz Sherman, has recently checked into a mental hospital to protect others from her volatile pyrokinetic abilities. Despite regular visits and coaxing from Hellboy, she is determined not to return. Kroenen and Haupstein resurrect Rasputin in the mountains of Moldova and the three unleash a hellhound known as Sammael. Rasputin imbues Sammael with the power to reincarnate and split his essence, causing two of the creature's eggs to hatch and mature each time one dies. Rasputin visits Liz as she sleeps, activating her powers and almost destroying the hospital. Myers convinces her to return to the Bureau. Sammael's ability to multiply becomes a problem, as Hellboy repeatedly kills it, dozens are born. Concluding the eggs are in the sewer, Hellboy, Abe and several FBI agents go down the sewer to destroy them. Abe is injured while looking for the eggs, Kroenen kills most of the agents. Kroenen, whose mutilated body is run by mechanical parts, shuts himself down, pretending to be defeated. Kroenen's body is brought to the bureau. FBI Director Tom Manning is angered by Hellboy's recklessness. Myers takes Liz out for coffee and to talk. Hellboy, jealous, covertly follows them, leaving the bureau unguarded. Kroenen reanimates himself and Rasputin appears at the bureau, confronting Professor Broom. Rasputin offers him a vision of the future, showing Hellboy is the agent that will destroy the world. Broom is stabbed in the neck by Kroenen and dies clutching a rosary. Manning takes over the B.P.R.D. and locates Rasputin's mausoleum in an old cemetery outside Moscow, Russia. A team led by Manning and Hellboy enter the mausoleum, but swiftly become separated. Hellboy and Manning find their way to Kroenen's lair and defeat him. Hellboy reunites with Liz and Myers at Sammael's new nest, but the creatures overwhelm them. Liz uses her pyrokinetic powers to incinerate the Sammaels and their eggs. Hellboy, Liz and Myers lose consciousness and are captured by Rasputin and Haupstein. Rasputin sucks Liz's soul out of her body, then tells Hellboy to release the Ogdru Jahad in return for her soul. Hellboy awakens his true power as Anung un Rama, causing his horns to regrow, and begins to release the Ogdru Jahad. Myers breaks out of his restrain, subdues Haupstein, and reminds Hellboy that he can defy his destiny. Remembering his true self and what Bruttenholm brought him up to be, Hellboy breaks his horns, reseals the Ogdru Jahad and stabs Rasputin with one of his broken horns. Rasputin has been possessed by a creature from the Ogdru Jahad. The tentacled Behemoth bursts out of his body and grows to immense size, killing him and Haupstein. Hellboy allows himself to be swallowed by the beast, then detonates a belt of hand grenades and destroys it from the inside. He whispered something in Liz's ear and she is revived. When she asks how her soul was returned, Hellboy replies that he threatened to come to "the other side" to claim it back. Liz and Hellboy share a kiss.

The story opens with Buck, a large and powerful St. Bernard-Scotch Shepherd, living happily in California's Santa Clara Valley as the pet of Judge Miller. He is stolen by the gardener's assistant, however, sold to fund the latter's gambling addiction, and shipped to Seattle. Put in a crate, he is starved and ill-treated. When released, he attacks the "man in the red sweater" but is badly beaten and taught to respect the "law of the club". Buck is then sold to a pair of French-Canadian dispatchers from the Canadian government, François and Perrault, who take him with them to the Klondike region of Canada. There, they train him as a sled dog. From his teammates, he quickly learns to survive cold winter nights and the pack society. A rivalry develops between Buck and the vicious, quarrelsome lead dog, Spitz. Buck eventually beats Spitz in a fight "to the death". Spitz is killed by the pack after his defeat by Buck, and Buck eventually becomes the leader of the team. The team is then sold to a "Scottish half-breed" man working the mail service. The dogs must carry heavy loads to the mining areas, and the journeys they made were tiresome and long. One of the team, a morose husky named Dave, becomes sick and eventually has to be shot to end his misery. Buck's next owners are a trio of stampeders (Hal, Charles, and a woman named Mercedes from the United States), who are inexperienced at surviving in the Northern wilderness. They struggle to control the sled and ignore warnings that the spring melt poses dangers. They overfeed the dogs and then starve them when the food runs out. On their journey they meet John Thornton, an experienced outdoorsman, who notices the dogs have been poorly treated and are in a weakened condition. He warns the trio against crossing the river, but they ignore his advice and order Buck to move on. Exhausted, starving, and sensing the danger ahead, Buck refuses and continues to lie unmoving in the snow. After Buck is beaten by Hal, Thornton recognizes him to be a remarkable dog. Disgusted by the driver's treatment of Buck, Thornton hits Hal with the butt of his axe, cuts Buck free from his traces, and tells the trio he is keeping him, much to Hal's displeasure. After some argument, the trio leaves and tries to cross the river, but as Thornton warned, the ice breaks, and the three fall into the river and drown, along with the sled and neglected dogs. Buck comes to love and grow devoted to Thornton as he nurses him back to health. He saves Thornton when the man falls into a river. After Thornton takes him on trips to pan for gold, a bonanza king (someone who hit it rich in a certain area) wagers Thornton on the dog's strength and devotion. Buck wins by breaking a half-ton (1,000-pound (450 kg)) sled free of the frozen ground, pulling it 100 yards (91 m) and winning US$1,600 in gold dust. A king of the Skookum Benches offers a large sum to buy Buck, but Thornton has grown fond of him and declines. While Thornton and his friends continue their search for gold, Buck explores the wilderness and socializes with a timber wolf from a local pack. One night, he returns from a long hunt to find that his beloved master and the others in the camp have been killed by a group of Yeehat natives. Buck eventually kills the natives to avenge Thornton, and he then is attacked by an entire pack of wolves. Buck wins the fight, then finds that the same timber wolf he had socialized with is in the pack he fought. Buck then follows the wolf and its pack into the forest, and answers the call of the wild. At the end of the story, Buck returns each year as the Ghost Dog of the Northland Legend, to mourn at the site of Thornton's death.

Jackie and Luke Harrison are a divorced New York City couple struggling to help their children Anna and Ben be happy. Luke, an attorney, is living with his new girlfriend, Isabel Kelly, a successful fashion photographer several years his junior. Isabel tries hard to make Anna and Ben feel comfortable and happy with her, but Anna rejects her overtures while Ben, who loves Isabel, adds extra complication with his mischievous nature. Isabel behaves with contempt tempered by caution around Jackie, believing she overcompensates for her divorce by spoiling her children. Jackie, a former publisher turned stay-at-home mom, gives Isabel a cold reception, seeing her as an overly ambitious career woman. She also continues to harbor malice towards Luke. After a long string of arguments, Luke proposes to Isabel, making her Anna and Ben's soon-to-be stepmother, which causes more friction. Jackie is diagnosed with cancer, which is discovered to be terminal. She experiences a range of negative emotions, angry at the woman who she feels was responsible for breaking up her family, and angry that after all of the sacrifices she made for her family, she will never see her children grow up. Isabel and Anna continue to disagree. Isabel gets the children a golden retriever puppy and Anna says she is allergic to dogs. Isabel apologizes and says that her father didn't tell her that. Anna takes the dog inside, indicating she lied about her allergy. Isabel and Anna begin to bond over painting. Jackie asks Isabel to pick them up from school. Isabel agrees, then asks if she could take Anna to see a rock band that she likes. Jackie declines, saying she is too young to go to a rock concert on a school night. A few weeks later, Jackie surprises Anna with tickets to the same concert and Anna is thrilled. Jackie thanks Isabel for the idea and Isabel tells her to have a good time. Luke and Jackie tell the kids about the engagement and Anna is furious. Jackie tells Luke and the children about her illness, resulting in Anna storming out. That night Jackie shows that she can be fun by dancing and singing with the kids. Jackie and Isabel clash repeatedly, largely over Isabel's parenting. Ben goes missing on Isabel's watch and Jackie claims that she has never lost him, which she later admits to be untrue. They establish a shaky truce, as they come to terms that Isabel will soon step into the role of surrogate mother. The two women bond when Isabel reveals her admiration of Jackie's maternal instincts, while Jackie in turn praises Isabel's hipness as a means to connect with Anna. Isabel finally lets her guard down when she tells Jackie her biggest fear is that on Anna's wedding day, all Anna will wish for is her mother's presence. Jackie says her own fear is that Anna will forget her. Jackie explains to Isabel that, while Jackie will always have their past, Isabel will have their future. The film ends with the family celebrating Christmas, when a bedridden Jackie is visited in her room by Ben and Anna. Individually, Jackie tells her children that though she will die, she will remain with them as long as they remember her. Later that day, Isabel is taking a family portrait of Luke and Jackie with the children. Jackie demonstrates her acceptance of Isabel by inviting her to join them and she does. The women are shown happily in a photo side by side.

At an awards dinner, Eve Harrington (Anne Baxter)—the newest and brightest star on Broadway—is being presented the Sarah Siddons Award for her breakout performance as Cora in Footsteps on the Ceiling. Theatre critic Addison DeWitt (George Sanders) observes the proceedings and, in a sardonic voiceover, recalls how Eve's star rose as quickly as it did. The film flashes back a year. Margo Channing (Bette Davis) is one of the biggest stars on Broadway, but despite her success she is bemoaning her age, having just turned forty and knowing what that will mean for her career. After a performance one night, Margo's close friend Karen Richards (Celeste Holm), wife of the play's author Lloyd Richards (Hugh Marlowe), meets besotted fan Eve Harrington in the cold alley outside the stage door. Recognizing her from having passed her many times in the alley (as Eve claims to have seen every performance of Margo's current play, Aged in Wood), Karen takes her backstage to meet Margo. Eve tells the group gathered in Margo's dressing room—Karen and Lloyd, Margo's boyfriend Bill Sampson (Gary Merrill), a director who is eight years her junior, and Margo's maid Birdie (Thelma Ritter)—that she followed Margo's last theatrical tour to New York after seeing her in a play in San Francisco. She tells a moving story of growing up poor and losing her young husband in the recent war. Moved, Margo quickly befriends Eve, takes her into her home, and hires her as her assistant, leaving Birdie, who instinctively dislikes Eve, feeling put out. Eve is gradually shown to be working to supplant Margo, scheming to become her understudy behind her back, driving wedges between her and Lloyd and Bill, and conspiring with an unsuspecting Karen to cause Margo to miss a performance. Eve, knowing in advance that she will be the one appearing that night, invites the city's theatre critics to attend that evening's performance, which is a triumph for her. Eve tries to seduce Bill, but he rejects her. Following a scathing newspaper column by Addison, Margo and Bill reconcile, dine with the Richardses, and decide to marry. That same night at the restaurant, Eve blackmails Karen into telling Lloyd to give her the part of Cora, by threatening to tell Margo of Karen's role in Margo's missed performance. Before Karen can talk with Lloyd, Margo announces to everyone's surprise that she does not wish to play Cora and would prefer to continue in Aged in Wood. Eve secures the role and attempts to climb higher by using Addison, who is beginning to doubt her. Just before the premiere of her play at the Shubert in New Haven, Eve presents Addison with her next plan: to marry Lloyd, who, she claims, has come to her professing his love and his eagerness to leave his wife for her. Now, Eve exults, Lloyd will write brilliant plays showcasing her. Unseen but mentioned in dialogue, Karen has begun to suspect Eve as a threat to her own marriage to Lloyd, and so she and Addison meet for lunch and help each other put the pieces about Eve together. Addison is infuriated that Eve has attempted to use him and reveals that he knows that her back story is all lies. Her real name is Gertrude Slojinski, she was never married, and she had been paid to leave her hometown over an affair with her boss, a brewer in Wisconsin. Addison blackmails Eve, informing her that she will not be marrying Lloyd or anyone else; in exchange for Addison's silence, she now "belongs" to him. The film returns to the opening scene in which Eve, now a shining Broadway star headed for Hollywood, is presented with her award. In her speech, she thanks Margo, Bill, Lloyd and Karen with characteristic effusion, while all four stare back at her coldly. After the awards ceremony, Eve hands her award to Addison, skips a party in her honor, and returns home alone, where she encounters a young fan (Barbara Bates)—a high-school girl—who has slipped into her apartment and fallen asleep. The young girl professes her adoration and begins at once to insinuate herself into Eve's life, offering to pack Eve's trunk for Hollywood and being accepted. "Phoebe", as she calls herself, answers the door to find Addison returning with Eve's award. In a revealing moment, the young girl flirts daringly with the older man. Addison hands over the award to Phoebe and leaves without entering. Phoebe then lies to Eve, telling her it was only a cab driver who dropped off the award. While Eve rests in the other room, Phoebe dons Eve's elegant costume robe and poses in front of a multi-paned mirror, holding the award as if it were a crown. The mirrors transform Phoebe into multiple images of herself, and she bows regally, as if accepting the award to thunderous applause, while triumphant music plays.

The novel is largely set in and near the town of Dillsborough, in the fictional Rufford County. The two principal subplots centre on the courtship behaviour of two young women. The heroine, Mary Masters, is the daughter of an attorney, and has been raised as a gentlewoman. Her stepmother is from a lower social order; believing it best for Mary, she pressures her strongly to accept a proposal from Lawrence Twentyman, a prosperous young yeoman farmer with aspirations to gentility. While Mary respects Twentyman for his excellent qualities, she feels that she cannot love him as a wife should a husband. She admires Reginald Morton, whose cousin is the squire of Bragton and thus one of the two major landowners of Rufford County. Reginald admires Mary as well; but for most of the novel, each is ignorant of the other's feelings: Mary, as a gentlewoman, cannot take the initiative in such a matter; and Reginald, misinformed that Mary loves another, is unwilling to make an offer and have it rejected. The anti-heroine of the novel is Arabella Trefoil. Her father is cousin to the Duke of Mayfair; her mother was a banker's daughter. Her parents are unofficially separated, and living in straitened circumstances. Arabella and her mother, Lady Augustus Trefoil, have no fixed abode; they wander from place to place, visiting people who cannot refuse them without creating social awkwardness. At Lady Augustus's direction, Arabella has spent many years struggling to secure a rich husband who will give her and her mother high social standing, an assured income, and a house of their own. She has lately become provisionally engaged to John Morton, the squire of Bragton and a rising figure in the Foreign Office. He would be an adequate but not outstanding husband by her standards; and when the opportunity presents itself, she attempts to entrap the wealthy and titled young Lord Rufford, concealing these attempts from Morton so that she can accept his proposal should they fail. John Morton falls ill and dies. Arabella, who is not altogether wicked, visits him at his deathbed despite the fact that this will assist Lord Rufford in escaping her toils. After Morton's death, she accepts an offer of marriage from Mounser Green, a Foreign Office clerk who is taking Morton's place as ambassador-designate to Patagonia. Like Morton, Green is not a brilliant match for her, but an acceptable one. John Morton's death makes Reginald Morton the squire of Bragton; at this point, when Mary Masters fears that he has moved too far above her in status, he confesses his love to her. A proposal ensues and is eagerly accepted. The American senator of the title is Elias Gotobed, who sits in the US Senate for the fictional state of Mikewa. The guest of John Morton, Senator Gotobed is trying to learn about England and the English. Through his often-tactless remarks in conversation, through his letters to a friend in America, and through a lecture in London titled "The Irrationality of Englishmen", he comments on British justice and government, the Church of England, the custom of primogeniture, and other aspects of English life.

During the Great Depression, Longfellow Deeds (Gary Cooper), the co-owner of a tallow works, part-time greeting card poet, and tuba-playing inhabitant of the (fictional) hamlet of Mandrake Falls, Vermont, inherits 20 million dollars from his late uncle, Martin Semple. Semple's scheming attorney, John Cedar (Douglass Dumbrille), locates Deeds and takes him to New York City. Cedar gives his cynical troubleshooter, ex-newspaperman Cornelius Cobb (Lionel Stander), the task of keeping reporters away from Deeds. Cobb is outfoxed, however, by star reporter Louise "Babe" Bennett (Jean Arthur), who appeals to Deeds' romantic fantasy of rescuing a damsel in distress by masquerading as a poor worker named Mary Dawson. She pretends to faint from exhaustion after "walking all day to find a job" and worms her way into his confidence. Bennett proceeds to write a series of enormously popular articles mocking Longfellow's hick ways and odd behavior, giving him the nickname "Cinderella Man". Cedar tries to get Deeds' power of attorney in order to keep his own financial misdeeds secret. Deeds, however, proves to be a shrewd judge of character, easily fending off Cedar and other greedy opportunists. He wins Cobb's wholehearted respect and eventually Babe's love. She quits her job in shame, but before she can tell Deeds the truth about herself, Cobb finds it out and tells Deeds. He had been in love with her, and is left heartbroken. In disgust, he decides to return to Mandrake Falls. Before he leaves, a dispossessed farmer (John Wray) stomps into his mansion and threatens him with a gun. He expresses his scorn for the seemingly heartless, ultra-rich man, who will not lift a finger to help the multitudes of desperate poor. After the intruder comes to his senses, Deeds realizes what he can do with his troublesome fortune. He decides to provide fully equipped 10-acre farms free to thousands of homeless families if they will work the land for three years. Alarmed at the prospect of losing control of the fortune, Cedar joins forces with Deeds' only other relative (and the man's grasping, domineering wife) in seeking to have Deeds declared mentally incompetent. Along with Babe's betrayal, this finally breaks Deeds' spirit and he sinks into a deep depression. A sanity hearing is scheduled to determine who should control the Deeds' fortune. During the hearing. Cedar calls an expert who diagnoses manic depression based on Babe's articles and Deeds' current behavior; he gets Deeds' Mandrake Falls tenants, eccentric elderly sisters Jane and Amy Faulkner (Margaret Seddon and Margaret McWade), to testify that Deeds is "pixilated". Deeds is too depressed to defend himself and the situation looks bleak when Babe finally speaks up passionately on his behalf, castigating herself for what she did to him. When he realizes that she truly loves him, he begins speaking, systematically punching holes in Cedar's case—when he asks the Faulkners who else is pixilated, they reply, "Why everyone, but us"—before actually punching Cedar in the face. In the end the judge declares him to be "the sanest man who ever walked into this courtroom."

Mr. Vane, the protagonist of Lilith, owns a library that seems to be haunted by the former librarian, who looks much like a raven from the brief glimpses he catches of the wraith. After finally encountering the supposed ghost, the mysterious Mr. Raven, Vane learns that Raven had known his father; indeed, Vane's father had visited the strange parallel universe from which Raven comes and goes and now resides therein. Vane follows Raven into the world through a mirror (this symbolistic realm is described as "the region of the seven dimensions", a term taken from Jacob Boehme). Inside the world, Vane learns of a house of beds where the dreamers sleep until the end of the world in death: a good death, in which life is found. Vane's grandfather refused to sleep there and is, instead, forced to do battle with skeletons in a haunted wood. After a treacherous journey through a valley (where the moon is the only thing to keep him safe), Mr. Vane meets the Little Ones, children who never grow up, remaining pure children or becoming selfish and getting bigger and dumber, turning into "bags" or bad giants. After conversing with Lona, the eldest of the children, Mr. Vane decides to help them, and sets off to gather more information, although the Raven (who is also Adam) has warned Mr. Vane that he needs to sleep along with the dreamers before he can really help them. While on his journey, he meets Lilith, Adam's first wife and the princess of Bulika. Vane, although nearly blinded by Lilith's beauty and charms, eventually leads the Little Ones in a battle against Bulika. Lona, Vane's love, turns out to be Lilith's daughter, and is killed by her own mother. Lilith, however, is captured and brought to Adam and Eve at the house of death, where they struggle to make her open her hand, fused shut, in which she holds the water the Little Ones need to grow. Only when she gives it up can Lilith join the sleepers in blissful dreams, free of sin. After a long struggle, Lilith bids Adam cut her hand from her body; it is done, Lilith sleeps, and Vane is sent to bury the hand; water flows from the hole and washes the land over. Vane is then allowed to join the Little Ones, already asleep, in their dreaming. He takes his bed, next to Lona's, and finds true life in death.

In the distant future, the known universe is ruled by Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV. The most important substance in the empire is the drug known as melange or "the spice". It has many special properties, such as extending life and expanding consciousness. The most profitable and important of its properties is its ability to assist the Spacing Guild with folding space, which allows safe, instantaneous interstellar travel. Sensing a potential threat to spice production, the Spacing Guild sends an emissary to demand an explanation from the Emperor, who confidentially shares his plans to destroy House Atreides. The popularity of Duke Leto Atreides has grown though the empire, and he is suspected to be amassing a secret army equipped with sonic-based weapons, which Emperor Shaddam sees a potential threat to his rule. Shaddam's plan is to give House Atreides control of the planet Arrakis (also known as Dune), the only source of spice. Once installed on Arrakis, he intends to have them ambushed by their longtime archenemies, the Harkonnens, with assistance from the Emperor's elite troops, the Sardaukar. The Guild Navigator also commands the Emperor to kill Duke Leto's son, Paul Atreides, a young man who dreams prophetic visions of his purpose. The execution order draws the attention of the Bene Gesserit sisterhood, as Paul is tied its centuries-long Bene Gesserit breeding program which seeks to produce the universe's superbeing, the Kwisatz Haderach. Before he leaves for Arrakis, Paul is tested by the Bene Gesserit Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam by being forced to place his hand in a box which induces excruciating pain. To her suprise, he passes the test to Mohiam's satisfaction. Meanwhile, on the industrial world of Giedi Prime, the sadistic Baron Vladimir Harkonnen tells his nephews Glossu Rabban and Feyd-Rautha about his plan to eliminate the Atreides by manipulating someone in House Atreides into betraying the Duke. The Atreides leave their homeworld Caladan for Arrakis, a barren desert planet populated by gigantic sandworms. The native people of Arrakis are called the Fremen, a mysterious people that have long held a prophecy that a messiah would come to lead them to freedom. Upon arrival on Arrakis, Leto is informed by one of his right-hand men, Duncan Idaho, that the Fremen have been underestimated, as they exist in vast numbers and could prove to be powerful allies. Leto begins to gain the trust of the Fremen, but before the Duke can establish an alliance, the Harkonnens launch their attack. While they had anticipated a trap, Harkonnen's traitor within House Atreides, Dr. Wellington Yueh, Duke Leto's personal physician, has disabled critical shields and has destroyed their sonic weapons, leaving them nearly defenseless. In the attack, Idaho is killed, Leto is captured, and nearly all of House Atreides is wiped out. While captured, Leto dies in a failed attempt to assassinate the Baron Harkonnen using a poison gas capsule planted in his tooth by Dr. Yueh, who is double-crossed by Baron Harkonnnen and executed by Rabban. However, Leto's concubine Lady Jessica and his son Paul survive the attack and are able to escape into the deep desert, where they discover a siectch of Fremen, led by Stilgar. Paul and Jessica are taken in by the Fremen; Jessica becomes their Reverend Mother, and Paul falls in love with Chani, a Fremen warrior he'd previously seen in one of his visions. Paul takes on the Fremen name Muad'Dib, and emerges as the leader for whom the Fremen have been waiting. He teaches the Fremen to build and use the sonic weapons developed by House Atreides and begins to target spice mining production, which is back in control of the Harkonnen, overseen by Rabban. Over the next two years, spice production is effectively halted, a fact Rabban tries to keep hidden from the empire. The Spacing Guild return to the Emperor to warn him of the deteriorating situation on Arrakis. They also fear that Paul will consume the Water of Life, a powerful poison used by the Bene Gessseit to help induce their abilities. The meeting is revealed to Paul in a prophetic dream, but then, the dreams suddenly stop. Shaken by the absence of his visions, he goes out into the desert and drinks the Water of Life and enters into a trance. Upon awakening, he is transformed, obtaining powerful psychic abilities and the ability to control the sandworms. Paul has also regained his ability to see into space and the future, and learns the Emperor is amassing a huge invasion fleet above Arrakis to wipe out the Fremen and to regain absolute control of the planet. Upon the Emperor's arrival at Arrakis, he executes Rabban for failing to remedy the spice situation, calling in Baron Harkonnen to demand an explanation. At the same time, Paul launches a final attack against the Harkonnens and the Emperor's Sardaukar at the capital city of Arrakeen. His Fremen warriors, riding in on sandworms and brandishing their sonic weapons, easily defeat the Emperor's legions, while Paul's sister Alia kills Baron Harkonnen. Once in Arrakeen, Paul faces the Emperor and engages Feyd-Rautha in a duel to the death; Paul kills Feyd and relieves Emperor Shaddam of power. Paul then demonstrates his newfound powers and fulfills the Fremen prophecy that he is the promised messiah by causing rain to fall on Arrakis for the first time ever, as Alia declares him to be the Kwisatz Haderach.

Kale Brecht (Shia LaBeouf) and his father Daniel (Matt Craven) are enjoying a fishing trip. On their return home, their vehicle evades another and ends up in a multi-car accident. Kale is injured in the crash but Daniel is killed. One year later, near the end of the school year, Kale is still traumatized by his father's death. He is reprimanded about his school work by his Spanish teacher, Se単or Gutierrez (Rene Rivera); and when Gutierrez mentions Kale's father, Kale attacks him. For the assault, he is sentenced by a sympathetic judge to three months under house arrest with an ankle monitor and a proximity sensor. Detective Parker (Viola Davis) explains the do's and don'ts of the system to Kale and his mother Julie (Carrie-Ann Moss). The officer (Jose Pablo Cantillo) joyfully monitoring him follows suit by informing him that he is his teacher's cousin. Initially, he satiates his boredom by playing video games but, shortly thereafter, Julie logs out his subscriptions to the iTunes Music Store and Xbox Live and cuts the power cord of his television to get him to learn a lesson. Kale's boredom leads him to watch the neighborhood, including the two neighbor boys who play pranks on him, his next-door neighbor Robert Turner (David Morse), and Ashley Carlson (Sarah Roemer), the new girl in town. One night, Kale becomes suspicious of Robert Turner, who returns home in a 1967 Ford Mustang with a dented fender that matches the description given on a news report of an errant serial killer. Kale's best friend Ronnie (Aaron Yoo) visits to spy on Ashley and, when they accidentally alert her to their hijinks, she joins them in spying on Turner. Kale observes a young woman Turner had picked up from a nightclub as she escapes the house in a panic, but later appears to leave the home in her car. Ashley throws a party and teases Kale, knowing he is watching. He plays music loudly, and when Ashley comes over, Kale admits that he has not only watched but has learned fine details about her by doing so. The two make out, distracting each other, while blood is shown splattering on Turner's windows. Later, as Kale and Ashley watch, Turner is seen dragging a heavy bag to his garage, which Ashley claims to have noticed blood. Kale insists that Ronnie assist him in spying on Turner, eventually leading to Ronnie's breaking into Turner's garage with a camera. Though he confirms the bag has blood and hair in it, the garage door closes; and Ronnie flees into the house. Kale leaves to rescue him but alerts the police when he leaves his property; the police search the garage and show Kale the bag contains a roadkilled deer. Julie then goes across the street to talk to Turner, while Ronnie is in her kitchen, and Kale is watching the tape of Ronnie's running through Turner's house. Kale notices a dead body in plastic in a vent on the tape, as Turner knocks out Julie next door and then enters Kale's house, attacking Ronnie and Kale, binding and gagging Kale with duct tape. Turner reveals his plan to frame Kale for the murders before committing suicide. As Turner has Kale writing a suicide letter to Ashley, she enters the home, and the two fight off Turner and flee the house. Kale trips the bracelet to alert the police, then enters Turner's home; Ashley goes to the police in person. In a hidden room, Kale finds evidence of Turner's previous murders, including their credentials, and a room with surgical tools and freezers of ice. Officer Gutierrez arrives at the scene, but he is killed when Turner breaks his neck. Proceeding to the basement of the house, Kale falls through the floor and finds his mother bound and gagged underneath the foundation. Turner suddenly appears from behind Julie and, in the ensuing confrontation, Kale fatally stabs Turner with a pair of gardening shears. In the aftermath, Kale is shown having his ankle bracelet removed by the authorities for good behavior, getting back at the two boys from earlier pranks and making out with Ashley on his sofa, unaware that Ronnie is video taping them.

Chris Hughes (Davis), an adopted and geeky Ohio high school senior, discovers that his recently deceased birth parents are the proprietors of a vast pornography empire and he is the inherited heir. Dropped into a bitter power struggle, his new flock of beautiful co-workers come to his aid. Chris Hughes was an outsider and geek in Ohio. He is in the middle of his senior year at high school and he is 18 years old. Chris earns extra money working on a paper route riding a moped. Right now, he would do anything to get out of here. Mostly Chris is raised by his religious parents, Carl Hughes (Dave Thomas) and Beverly Hughes (Colleen Camp). They own a grocery store, they are very strict on no drinking, smoking and no sex until you are married. They also don't tolerate porn or porno magazines, that Chris hides under his bed. His little adopted brother Danny Hughes is popular and has a better chance with a girl than Chris. Danny usually gets away with murder by his parents, mostly Chris always ends up getting in trouble. Chris is a reporter in the school newspaper, but he is a good writer. But he is always late on deadlines or dedication. He has a crush on the most popular girl Brittany Van Horn (Marnette Patterson), who is the mean girl of their school. She dreams about getting out of this town and becoming a famous actress or model. She has an entourage, too, and mostly she is dating Hudson Reed (Ryan Bittle) off and on. Hudson is the popular jock, handsome and able to get any girl he wants. Chris always wished he could be like him sometimes, he even fantasizes a lot of times, he wishes he could hook up with Brittany. It is never going to happen, as she doesn't know Chris even exists, she only dates good looking hot guys. Chris and his friends, who are nerdy perverts like Adam Torey (Charlie Talbert), Scooter (Martin Starr), Murphy (Robert Ri'chard) and Steven Chambers, are labeled as the outsiders and geeks of their high school. For once, they want to do something cool to earn a ticket to the popularity train. Chris had an idea, to throw a huge cool party at his house, while his parents out of town. They need the booze to attract the popular crowd, especially Brittany and her entourage.

Star basketball player Barney Livingston and the beautiful and brilliant Laura Castellano are neighbors in Brooklyn who are as close as siblings. After graduating from Midwood High School in 1954 Livingston attends Columbia University and Castellano Radcliffe College, and both enter Harvard Medical School in 1958; he wants to become a psychiatrist, and she is drawn to pediatrics. Others include Rhodes Scholar Bennett Landsmann, the wealthy black adoptee of Jewish parents; former Jesuit Hank Dwyer; former Miss Oregon Grete Anderson; and top students Peter Wyman and Seth Lazarus. They survive the immense stress that drives some to suicide, and after graduation leave for internships and residencies. Livingston becomes an author and finds at the New York State Psychiatric Institute that psychiatrists can be as disturbed as their patients; Castellano's unhappy marriage to an Army officer causes both to have affairs; Wyman aggressively seeks fame as a researcher at Harvard; Landsmann at Yale–New Haven Hospital finds that some during the Civil Rights era dislike his two heritages; Anderson's beauty attracts men that she has difficulty forming relationships with; and Lazarus in Chicago begins to commit mercy killings of patients in great pain who want to die. By their late 30s Livingston and Castellano, after many other relationships for both, marry and become first-time parents in New York City; Wyman is at a Silicon Valley biotechnology company; Anderson is a transplant surgeon in Houston; Dwyer opens a successful IVF clinic in Hawaii; and Landsmann, a lawyer after a spinal injury ends his surgical career, defends Lazarus in a trial for murder.

Lara Brennan (Elizabeth Banks) is convicted of murdering her boss and is sentenced to life in prison. The evidence seems impossible to dispute: many colleagues saw her having a quarrel with the victim, their cars are parked right next to each other, she is seen leaving the crime scene seconds before the body is discovered, the murder weapon (a fire extinguisher) has her fingerprints on it and she has the victim's blood on the back of her overcoat. Following the failure of her appeal, her son Luke ceases to acknowledge her during prison visits. One day, Lara attempts suicide, unwilling to spend the rest of her life in prison. Her husband John Brennan (Russell Crowe), a professor at a community college, becomes obsessed with the idea of breaking her out of jail. John consults Damon Pennington (Liam Neeson), a former convict who escaped prison seven times. Damon gives John advice, along with a warning that the initial escape will be easy compared to evading the police after that. Following Damon's advice, John begins his preparation. He obtains a handgun and fake IDs, and studies the map of Pittsburgh for escape routes. To get money, he sells their house's furniture and personal belongings. John attempts to break Lara out from the prison in which she is held but abandons the plan when he is almost caught testing a self-made "bump key" on an elevator. When John is told that Lara will be transferred in 72 hours to another prison facility, he is forced to come up with an emergency plan. Unable to get the money from his house in time, he considers robbing a bank, but hesitates at the last minute. Instead, John tails a local drug dealer to a drug lord, then robs him. Following clues left behind at the drug lord's house, the police track down John's car, get to his empty house and conclude that he is planning to break his wife out. John tears down the big map filled with notes and photos of his escape plan, and scatter the pieces. He leaves Luke at his classmate's birthday party, then plants falsified blood work indicating that Lara is in a state of hyperglycaemia. Lara is transferred to a nearby hospital, where John convinces her to escape with him. John and Lara leave the hospital, narrowly escaping the police and leave the city center. They then find out that Luke is at the zoo for the birthday party. John drives there to retrieve him, by which point the police have already established roadblocks on all interstate routes. Anticipating that police are looking for "a couple and a child", John improvises by picking up an elderly couple. They drive through the checkpoint without incident and proceed to Buffalo, New York, where John drops off the couple. The Brennans cross the border into Canada and head to an airport. Meanwhile, John's parents refuse to cooperate with the police. The police examine the escape plan fragments to figure out his destination, but are misled by the photos and delay the wrong flight. A detective returns to the crime scene where Lara's boss was killed. He remembers Lara saying a button popped off as the mugger bumped into her, and deduces that it must have fallen in the storm drain. He searches the storm drain but is unable to find the button. It turns out the button was there, buried under grime, and the detective just missed it. While the police haven't the evidence to exonerate Lara Brennan, the audience does, because a flashback reveals how her boss died at the hands of a mugger, and how Lara came to have the victim's blood on her coat, and her fingerprints on the murder weapon. At the end of the film, the family arrives at a hotel in Caracas, Venezuela. As Lara lies down next to him, Luke kisses his mother and falls asleep. John takes a picture of their sleeping faces as the movie ends.

After the wedding of Belle and the Beast, they establish the United States of Auradon from the surrounding kingdoms, creating a prosperous new nation, and are elected King and Queen. The kingdom's villains are imprisoned on the Isle of the Lost, a slum where magic is suspended and surrounded by a barrier. Twenty years later, Prince Ben is to ascend the Auradon throne and informs his parents that his first proclamation is give the Isle of the Lost's children the chance to live in Auradon, away from the influence of their villainous parents. The first four children he has chosen are Carlos, son of Cruella de Vil; Jay, son of Jafar; Evie, daughter of Evil Queen; and Mal, daughter of Maleficent. On the island, Maleficent instructs the four chosen children to use the opportunity and steal the Fairy Godmother's magic wand to release the villains. Traveling to Auradon Prep, the four meet Ben and his self-proclaimed girlfriend Audrey, daughter of Princess Aurora. They also meet the Fairy Godmother who is the school's headmistress. Evie uses her mother's pocket-sized magic mirror to locate the wand that's in a nearby museum, and Mal uses her mother's spinning wheel (an artifact in the museum) to put the guard to sleep, but they fail to steal it. Learning the Fairy Godmother will use the wand at Ben's coronation, the four wait it out by attending classes but start to fit in with the students. Jay is recruited into the school's "tourney" team (a hockey-like sport), while Carlos surpasses his cynophobia by befriending the school's mutt Dude. Evie, though intelligent, acts vain to impress Chad, son of Cinderella, but ends up doing his homework for him. Dopey's son Doug encourages her to not pander to others and be herself. Mal becomes popular, using Maleficent's spell book to improve the looks of Jane, daughter of Fairy Godmother, and Lonnie, daughter of Mulan. Learning also Ben's girlfriend will be seated close to the wand during the coronation, Mal bakes a cookie laced with a love potion and gives it to Ben, who falls madly in love with her, much to the shock of his friends. On a date with Ben, Mal becomes conflicted with her inner goodness and desire to please her mother, unsure how to react to Ben's feelings towards her. During the school's family day, the villains' children are ostracized after an encounter with Audrey's grandmother Queen Leah. Though Ben, Lonnie and Doug remain friendly towards them, they are forced to distance themselves from the quartet. On the day of the coronation, Mal gives Ben a brownie containing the love spell's antidote, believing it is unnecessary to keep Ben under the spell, but he reveals he was already freed of the spell since their date when he went swimming in the Enchanted Lake and believing that Mal only did it because she really liked him. During Ben's crowning, a disillusioned Jane grabs the wand from her mother, accidentally destroying the Isle's barrier. Mal takes the wand from Jane, but torn over what to do, is encouraged by Ben to make her own choice rather than follow Maleficent's path. Mal recognizes that she and her friends found happiness in Auradon, and they decide to be good. Maleficent crashes the ceremony, freezing everyone in time except herself and the four children. When they defy her, Maleficent transforms into a dragon. Together with Mal use a counter spell turning Maleficent into a tiny lizard based on the amount of love in her heart. Mal returns the Fairy Godmother her wand and tells her not to be hard on Jane. The Fairy Godmother then unfreezes everyone. While the villains watch the celebration from afar, Auradon Prep's students party through the night, with Mal and her friends finding happiness.

Harry Sandwith, a sixteen-year-old English boy, is sent to live in France with the Marquis de St. Caux, a friend of a French nobleman Harry’s father once served. The marquis is impressed with the English system of schooling and believes that his two sons, Ernest and Jules, will benefit from the influence and friendship of an independent and manly English boy. Harry, who is an undistinguished student at Westminster School, is eager for the opportunity to live in France, which he believes will create greater opportunities for him when he joins the British army. Harry sets off for Paris in 1790 with the intention of living with the St. Caux family for the next two to three years. Harry is escorted to the marquis’s chateau near Dijon. He meets the marquis and his wife, along with their sons and three daughters, Marie, Jeanne, and Virginie. The marquis is impressed by Harry’s confidence and self-possession in such an unfamiliar environment, but the rest of the family remains unconvinced and mocks his strange mannerisms and rough appearance. Their attitude changes, however, after Harry succeeds in killing a rabid dog that attacks Jeanne and Virginie. They begin to accept Harry as a member of the family, and Harry and Ernest become close friends, hunting and adventuring together and even managing to kill the Demon Wolf that long terrorized the communities surrounding the chateau. During the years of Harry’s life at the chateau, the French Revolution continues to progress throughout the country. As a member of the French nobility, the marquis and his family are loyal to King Louis XVI and are deeply troubled by the growing violence and unrest in Paris and the countryside. After the royal family unsuccessfully attempts to flee Paris, the marquis decides to move the St. Caux family to Paris to support the king and to avoid the growing unrest of the peasants living in the countryside. The situation in Paris continues to deteriorate and soon an arrest order is made for all the members of noble families. The marquis and marquise submit to the arrest but tell their children to escape, sending Ernest and Jules out of Paris to make for England and hiding the girls with the marquise’s former nurse, Louise Moulin. Harry is free to return to England, but chooses to stay in Paris to look after the girls and help them flee to England should the need arise. Harry attempts to find a way to free the marquis and marquise, but he is too late. On the day of the September Massacres the prisoners throughout Paris are brought out for mock trials and systematically executed, including the Marquis and Marquise de St. Caux. Victor de Gisons, Marie’s fiancé who stayed in Paris to watch out for her, sees his father brought out for trial and flies into a rage. Harry succeeds in knocking him out and carrying him away, aided by a sympathetic Parisian who brings Victor back to his home. Leaving a grief-stricken and insensate Victor with his rescuers, Jacques and Elise Medart, Harry informs the girls of their parents’ deaths. He soon discovers that Ernest and Jules were both killed on their way to England, but decides to tell the girls only when, or if, they reach England safely. Soon after, Marie is caught in the marketplace by Lebat, the son of the mayor of Dijon, who arrests her as a noble in hiding. Harry despairs of finding a way to rescue Marie. He manages to get a letter to her, but thinks it unlikely that he will be able to free her from the prison. She writes back and tells him that Lebat has offered to free her on the condition that she marries him, which she refuses. One evening, Harry rescues a man being beaten in the street. The man turns out to be Maximilien de Robespierre, a radical leader of the Revolution, who vows to repay Harry’s brave service. Seeing this as an opportunity to use Robespierre to free Marie, Harry agrees to be his secretary. After several months he discovers that Marie is soon to be tried and executed, and that Louise and the girls are under suspicion. He asks Robespierre to free Marie as repayment of his debt, but Robespierre refuses. Soon after, Lebat asks Robespierre to free Marie, as she has agreed to marry him and he knows that she is a friend of the Revolution. Robespierre consents, and that night Harry seizes the opportunity to kill Lebat and rescue Marie with the letter of release from Robespierre. Harry travels to Nantes with Louise and the girls while Marie stays in Paris with Victor, who is slowly recovering. Upon their arrival in Nantes, Harry struggles to find a ship that will carry them to England. Louise, weakened by the long and trying journey, soon falls ill and dies. Jeanne finds passage to England with a fisherman named Adolphe, the husband of a woman whose child Jeanne helped nurse back to health. Before they can make the arrangements, however, Jeanne and Virginie are arrested. Harry narrowly rescues them from being drowned in the river with the other prisoners, and they find a trustworthy captain to take them to England. They arrive safely in England and Harry is reunited with his family, who thought him long dead in the violence of the Revolution. Several years later, Harry marries Jeanne after he passes his medical exams and joins his father’s practice. Virginie marries one of Harry’s brothers, Tom, and the girls and their husbands later travel back to France for a short time to stay with Marie and Victor, who, after fighting in the French army under Napoleon, purchases the chateau that once belonged to the Marquis de St. Caux.

In 2005, elderly Daisy Fuller is on her deathbed in a New Orleans hospital as Hurricane Katrina approaches; she asks her daughter, Caroline, to read aloud from the diary of Benjamin Button. From the reading, it is revealed that on the evening of November 11, 1918, a boy was born with the appearance and physical maladies of an elderly man. The baby's mother died after giving birth, and the father, Thomas Button, abandons the infant on the porch of a nursing home. Queenie and Mr. "Tizzy" Weathers, workers at the nursing home, find the baby, and Queenie decides to care for him as her own. Benjamin learns to walk in 1925; he declares it a miracle, after which he uses crutches in place of a wheelchair. On Thanksgiving 1930, Benjamin meets seven-year-old Daisy, whose grandmother lives in the nursing home. He and Daisy become good friends. Later, he accepts work on a tugboat captained by Mike Clark. Benjamin also meets Thomas Button, who does not reveal that he is Benjamin's father. In Autumn 1936, Benjamin leaves New Orleans for a long-term work engagement with the tugboat crew; Daisy later is accepted into a dance company in New York City under choreographer George Balanchine. In 1941, Benjamin is in Murmansk, where he begins having an affair with Elizabeth Abbott, wife of the British Trade Minister. That December, Japan attacks Pearl Harbor, thrusting the United States into World War II. Mike volunteers the boat for the U.S. Navy; the crew is assigned to salvage duties. During a patrol, the tugboat finds a sunken U.S. transport and the bodies of many American troops. A German submarine surfaces; Mike steers the tugboat full speed towards it while a German gunner fires on the tugboat, killing most of the crew, including Mike. The tugboat rams the submarine, causing it to explode, sinking both vessels. Benjamin and another crewman are rescued by U.S. Navy ships the next day. In May 1945, Benjamin returns to New Orleans and reunites with Queenie. A few weeks later, he reunites with Daisy; they go out for dinner. Upon failing to seduce him afterward, she departs. Benjamin later reunites with Thomas Button, who, terminally ill, reveals he is Benjamin's father and wills Benjamin his button company and his estate. In 1947, Benjamin visits Daisy in New York unannounced but departs upon seeing that she has fallen in love with someone else. In 1954, Daisy's dancing career ends when her leg is crushed in an automobile accident in Paris. When Benjamin visits her, Daisy is amazed by his youthful appearance, but, frustrated by her injuries, she tells him to stay out of her life. In spring 1962, Daisy returns to New Orleans and reunites with Benjamin. Now of comparable physical age, they fall in love and go sailing together. They return to learn that Queenie has died, then move in together. In 1967, Daisy, who has opened a ballet studio, tells Benjamin that she is pregnant; she gives birth to a girl, Caroline, in the spring of 1968. Believing he can not be a proper father to his daughter due to his reverse aging, Benjamin departs after selling his belongings, leaving a bank account book holding the proceeds behind for Daisy and Caroline; he travels alone during the 1970s. Benjamin returns to Daisy in 1980. Now married, Daisy introduces him, as a family friend, to her husband and daughter. Daisy admits that he was right to leave; she could not have coped otherwise. She later visits Benjamin at his hotel, where they again share their passion for each other, then part once more. In 1990, widowed Daisy is contacted by social workers who have found Benjamin窶馬ow physically a pre-teen. When she arrives, they explain that he was living in a condemned building and was taken to the hospital in poor physical condition, and that they found her name in his diary. The bewildered social workers also say he is displaying early signs of dementia. Daisy moves into the nursing home in 1997 and cares for Benjamin for the rest of his life. In the spring of 2003, Benjamin dies in Daisy's arms, physically an infant but chronologically 84 years of age. Having finally revealed the story of Caroline's father to her, Daisy dies as Hurricane Katrina approaches.

War and the Future is divided into four parts. In the first part, entitled "The Passing of the Effigy", Wells argues that "the great man of this war is the common man", and sketches a portrait of General Joffre as "a single figure to stand for the finest quality of the Allies' war", on account of his "leadership without vulgar ambition...He is as it were the ordinary commonsense of men, incarnate." In an account of a visit with the King of Italy, "the first king I had ever met", Wells is struck by the monarch's lack of pomp and, indeed, regality. The second part, titled "The War in Italy" (August 1916), describes the city of Udine and the mountain warfare of the Isonzo front as well as visits to Verona, Venice, and Milan. The third part, "The Western War" (September 1916), describes visits to the Western Front near Arras and Soissons in France. Wells expresses confidence that methods of aerial dominance, combined with photography, have permitted the Allies to develop tactics that are sure ultimately to defeat Germany. Wells praises British soldiers but criticises the officer corps for its mental rigidity. He emphasises that new technologies have transformed the art of war in ways that military professionals are all too slow to grasp. In particular, fighting in disciplined formations and cavalry are no longer of any military importance, while "[a]rtillery is now the most essential instrument of the war." Wells describes a tour of a munitions factory given by AndrĂŠ CitroĂŤn. He devotes a chapter to tanks as "a beginning in a new phase of warfare" noting that in 1903 he had described a tank in a short story ("The Land Ironclads"). War and the Future's final part is entitled "How People Think about the War" and addresses a miscellany of subjects: (1) the failure of contemporaries to grasp the nature and causes of the war; (2) the psychology of what he calls "the Yielding Pacifist" (willing to accept any sort of peace), whose origins he finds in "the Resentful EmployĂŠ," and of "the Conscientious Objector," pages he later deeply regretted; (3) the effect of the war on religious thought; (4) French and Italian doubts about the British; (5) the effect of the war on future labour relations; (6) the prospects for ending the war. On the last subject, Wells saw a possibility of victory in 1917, but allowed that "the war, universally detested, may go on into 1918 or 1919." Wells said that "America should ultimately undertake the responsibility of a world peace settlement."

The film depicts two days in the lives of four real estate salesmen who are supplied with names and phone numbers of leads. They use underhanded and dubious tactics to make sales. Many of the leads rationed out by the office manager lack either the money or the desire to actually invest in land. Blake (Baldwin) is sent by Mitch and Murray, the owners of Premier Properties, to motivate the salesmen. Blake unleashes a torrent of verbal abuse on the men and announces that only the top two sellers will be allowed access to the more promising Glengarry leads and the rest of them will be fired. Shelley "The Machine" Levene (Lemmon), a once-successful salesman now in a long-running slump and with a chronically ill daughter in the hospital with an unknown medical condition, knows that he will lose his job soon if he cannot generate sales. He tries to convince office manager John Williamson (Spacey) to give him some of the Glengarry leads, but Williamson refuses. Levene tries first to charm Williamson, then to threaten him, and finally to bribe him. Williamson is willing to sell some of the prime leads, but demands cash in advance. Levene cannot come up with the cash and leaves without any good leads. Meanwhile, Dave Moss (Harris) and George Aaronow (Arkin) complain about Mitch and Murray, and Moss proposes that they strike back at the two by stealing all the Glengarry leads and selling them to a competing real estate agency. Moss's plan requires Aaronow to break into the office, stage a burglary and steal all of the prime leads. Aaronow wants no part of the plan, but Moss tries to coerce him, saying that Aaronow is already an accessory before the fact simply because he knows about the proposed burglary. At a nearby bar, Ricky Roma (Pacino), the office's top "closer," delivers a long, disjointed but compelling monologue to a meek, middle-aged man named James Lingk (Pryce). Roma does not broach the subject of a Glengarry Farms real estate deal until he has completely won Lingk over with his speech. Framing it as an opportunity rather than a purchase, Roma plays upon Lingk's feelings of insecurity. The film then skips to the next day when the salesmen come into the office to find that there has been a burglary and the Glengarry leads have been stolen. Williamson and the police question each of the salesmen in private. After his interrogation, Moss leaves in disgust, only after having one last shouting match with Roma. During the cycle of interrogations, Lingk arrives to tell Roma that his wife has told him to cancel the deal. Scrambling to salvage the deal, Roma tries to deceive Lingk by telling him that the check he wrote the night before has yet to be cashed, and that accordingly he has time to reason with his wife and reconsider. Levene abets Roma by pretending to be a wealthy investor who just happens to be on his way to the airport. Williamson, unaware of Roma and Levene's stalling tactic, lies to Lingk, claiming that he already deposited his check in the bank. Upset, Lingk rushes out of the office, and Roma berates Williamson for what he has done. Roma then enters Williamson's office to take his turn being interrogated by the police. Levene, proud of a massive sale he made that morning, takes the opportunity to mock Williamson in private. In his zeal to get back at Williamson, Levene accidentally reveals that he knows Williamson lied to Roma minutes earlier about depositing Lingk's check and had left the check on his desk and had not made the bank run the previous night — something only a man who broke into the office would know. Williamson catches Levene's slip of the tongue and compels Levene to admit that he broke into the office. Levene finally caves in and admits that he and Moss conspired to steal the leads. Levene attempts to bribe Williamson to keep quiet about the burglary. Williamson scoffs at the suggestion and tells Levene that the buyers to whom he had made his sale earlier that day are in fact bankrupt and delusional and just enjoy talking to salesmen. Levene, crushed by this revelation, asks Williamson why he seeks to ruin him. Williamson coldly responds, "Because I don't like you." Levene makes a last-ditch attempt at gaining sympathy from Williamson by mentioning his daughter's health, but Williamson cruelly rebuffs him and leaves to inform the detective about Levene's part in the burglary. Roma walks out of the room as Williamson enters. Unaware of Levene's guilt, Roma talks to Levene about forming a business partnership before the detective starts calling for Levene. Levene walks, defeated, into Williamson's office. Roma then leaves the office to go out for lunch, while Aaronow returns back to his desk to make his sales calls as usual.

Penguin Island is written in the style of a sprawling 18th- and 19th-century history book, concerned with grand metanarratives, mythologizing heroes, hagiography and romantic nationalism. It is about a fictitious island, inhabited by great auks, that existed off the northern coast of Europe. The history begins when a wayward Christian missionary monk lands on the island and perceives the upright, unafraid auks as a sort of pre-Christian society of noble pagans. Mostly blind and somewhat deaf, having mistaken the animals for humans, he baptizes them. This causes a problem for The Lord, who normally only allows humans to be baptized. After consulting with saints and theologians in Heaven, He resolves the dilemma by converting the baptized birds to humans with only a few physical traces of their ornithological origin, and giving them each a soul. Thus begins the history of Penguinia, and from there forward the history mirrors that of France (and more generally of Western Europe, including German-speaking areas and the British Isles). The narrative spans from the Migration Period ("Dark Ages"), when the Germanic tribes fought incessantly among themselves for territory; to the heroic Early Middle Ages with the rise of Charlemagne ("Draco the Great") and conflicts with Viking raiders ("porpoises"); through the Renaissance (Erasmus); and up to the modern era with motor cars; and even into a future time in which a thriving high-tech civilization is destroyed by a campaign of terrorist bombings, and everything begins again in an endless cycle. The longest-running plot thread, and probably the best known, satirizes the Dreyfus affair — though both brief and complex satires of European history, politics, philosophy and theology are present throughout the novel. At various points, real historical figures such as Columba and Saint Augustine are part of the story, as well as fictionalized characters who represent historical people. Penguin Island is a satire on society and human nature in which morals, customs, and the origin of religion and laws are lampooned. For example, the origin of private property is presented as starting with the brutal and shameless murder of a farmer, and the seizure of his land, by a physically larger and stronger neighbour.

The story follows the exploits of Chichikov, a middle-aged gentleman of middling social class and means. Chichikov arrives in a small town and turns on the charm to woo key local officials and landowners. He reveals little about his past, or his purpose, as he sets about carrying out his bizarre and mysterious plan to acquire "dead souls." The government would tax the landowners based on how many serfs (or "souls") the landowner owned, determined by the census. Censuses in this period were infrequent, so landowners would often be paying taxes on serfs that were no longer living, thus the "dead souls." It is these dead souls, existing on paper only, that Chichikov seeks to purchase from the landlords in the villages he visits; he merely tells the prospective sellers that he has a use for them, and that the sellers would be better off anyway, since selling them would relieve the present owners of a needless tax burden. Although the townspeople Chichikov comes across are gross caricatures, they are not flat stereotypes by any means. Instead, each is neurotically individual, combining the official failings that Gogol typically satirizes (greed, corruption, paranoia) with a curious set of personal quirks. Setting off for the surrounding estates, Chichikov at first assumes that the ignorant provincials will be more than eager to give their dead souls up in exchange for a token payment. The task of collecting the rights to dead people proves difficult, however, due to the persistent greed, suspicion, and general distrust of the landowners. He still manages to acquire some 400 souls, swears the sellers to secrecy, and returns to the town to have the transactions recorded legally. Back in the town, Chichikov continues to be treated like a prince amongst the petty officials, and a celebration is thrown in honour of his purchases. Very suddenly, however, rumours flare up that the serfs he bought are all dead, and that he was planning to elope with the Governor's daughter. In the confusion that ensues, the backwardness of the irrational, gossip-hungry townspeople is most delicately conveyed. Absurd suggestions come to light, such as the possibility that Chichikov is Napoleon in disguise or the notorious vigilante 'Captain Kopeikin'. The now disgraced traveller is immediately ostracized from the company he had been enjoying and has no choice but to flee the town in disgrace. Chichikov is revealed by the author to be a former mid-level government official fired for corruption and narrowly avoiding jail. His macabre mission to acquire "dead souls" is actually just another one of his "get rich quick" schemes. Once he acquires enough dead souls, he will take out an enormous loan against them, and pocket the money. In the novel's second section, Chichikov flees to another part of Russia and attempts to continue his venture. He tries to help the idle landowner Tentetnikov gain favor with General Betrishchev so that Tentetnikov may marry the general's daughter, Ulinka. To do this, Chichikov agrees to visit many of Betrishchev's relatives, beginning with Colonel Koshkaryov. From there Chichikov begins again to go from estate to estate, encountering eccentric and absurd characters all along the way. Eventually he purchases an estate from the destitute Khlobuyev but is arrested when he attempts to forge the will of Khlobuyev's rich aunt. He is pardoned thanks to the intervention of the kindly Mourazov but is forced to flee the village. The novel ends mid-sentence with the prince who arranged Chichikov's arrest giving a grand speech that rails against corruption in the Russian government.

Little Eyolf tells the story of the Allmer family. At the outset of the play, the father, Alfred, has just returned from a trip to the mountains. While there, he resolved to focus foremost on raising his son Eyolf, rather than continue work on his book, Human Responsibility. Eyolf, though described as having "beautiful, intelligent eyes," is paralyzed in one of his legs, and thus his life is a sheltered one. He craves more than anything else to live the life of a normal boy, but his father knows that this is not possible. As such, Alfred wants to turn Eyolf towards loftier, intellectual pursuits. The Allmer household is soon visited by the Rat-Wife, a woman capable of enchanting rodents into following her into the sea, where they drown. She leaves when informed that her services are unnecessary, and Eyolf follows her, unnoticed by Alfred, his wife Rita, and Alfred's sister Asta. Once Eyolf is gone, Alfred details his plan for being a better father to Eyolf and allowing him to attain happiness. In the course of his description, they are visited by Borghejm, an engineer, who is interested in Asta. While Asta and Borghejm walk outside, Rita's possessiveness of Alfred is revealed, during which she even wishes that Eyolf had never been born, as he diverts Alfred's attention from herself. Rita and Alfred's conversation is interrupted by the return of Asta and Borghejm, and then followed by sounds of shouts down by the sea, which reveal that Eyolf has drowned after following the Rat-Wife into the sea. Down by the sea, Alfred mourns and is comforted by Asta. Rita and Borghejm follow, and once again Borghejm removes Asta from the action allowing for confrontation between Rita and Alfred. In the course of their conversation, Rita talks more about needing Alfred wholly while Alfred reveals that he married Rita in order to be able to better Asta's life. They also each blame each other for Eyolf's injury (as a baby, he fell off a table while they were making love), with Alfred accusing Rita of "luring me in to you," distracting him from his duty to watch over Eyolf. Borghejm and Asta return, and Borghejm is once again unsuccessful at convincing Asta to marry him. However, when asked by Alfred and Rita to stay with them and take Eyolf's place, somehow allowing them to ease their guilt and avoid the problems in their relationship, Asta decides to marry Borghejm and follow him north. With Alfred indicating a continued unwillingness to be the husband Rita desires, she shares her new plan to try to better the lives of the poorer children who live down by the sea. In this, Alfred sees something positive again in Rita, and Alfred decides to remain, so that together they can atone for their mistakes.

In Desperate Remedies a young woman, Cytherea Graye, is forced by poverty to accept a post as lady's maid to the eccentric Miss Aldclyffe, the woman whom her father had loved but had been unable to marry. Cytherea loves a young architect, Edward Springrove, but Miss Adclyffe's machinations, the discovery that Edward is already engaged to a woman whom he does not love, and the urgent need to support a sick brother drive Cytherea to accept the hand of Aeneas Manston, Miss Adclyffe's illegitimate son, whose first wife is believed to have perished in a fire; however, their marriage is almost immediately nullified when it emerges that his first wife had left the inn before it caught fire. Manston's wife, apparently, returns to live with him, but Cytherea, her brother, the local rector, and Edward come to suspect that the woman claiming to be Mrs. Manston is an impostor. It emerges that Manston killed his wife in an argument after she left the inn, and had brought in the impostor to prevent his being prosecuted for murder, as the argument had been heard (but not seen) by a poacher, who suspected Manston of murder and had planned to go to the police if his wife did not turn up alive. In the novel's climax, Manston attempts to kidnap Cytherea and flee, but is stopped by Edward; he later commits suicide in his cell, and Cytherea and Edward marry.

Marcus Yallow is a 17-year-old hacker/techno whiz from San Francisco. One day at his high school named after Cesar Chavez, Marcus is accused of hacking into the school by vice principal Frederick Benson. Marcus and Benson do not get along and Marcus believes that Benson is perpetually trying to get rid of him. Marcus is let go due to a lack of evidence and he returns to class. Later that day, Marcus and his best friend Darryl escape school to play a massive augmented reality role game that partially involves a scavenger hunt around town. They meet up with fellow group members and game players Vanessa and Jolu. While searching for a part for the game, a series of explosions go off in the city. This sets off sirens and alarms which sends everybody running for the shelters. The group initially tries to go to the shelter but then they decide to leave. While leaving, Darryl is stabbed in the crowd. They finally escape the crowd and flag down a vehicle because Darryl needs immediate medical attention. Three men get out of the vehicle and put bags over each group members' head and then shove them into the vehicle. Marcus and his friends arrive at an unknown location and are put into a trailer where they are separated and are amongst many other people. They find out that they are being held by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to be interrogated for suspicions of being connected to the terrorist attack. After a series of interrogations that take place over a period of six days, Marcus, Jolu, and Vanessa are finally released. Darryl's whereabouts are unknown. The DHS tells Marcus that they will be monitoring his actions and moves because he is still a suspect. Marcus is "infuriated at how his civil rights [are] ignored." Marcus revolts by setting up technological attacks on the DHS in order "to [thwart] further efforts to restrict personal liberty". Marcus also sets up a network primarily composed of teenage members using a game console so they can communicate freely while fighting "the surveillance state." This causes a war between the rebelling youth and the Department of Homeland Security. When a former prisoner who was held by the DHS tells Marcus that Darryl is still alive, Marcus tells a reporter and his family about his actions taken against the DHS. The report from the reporter is then published and the DHS takes Marcus into custody again. During a waterboarding interrogation, highway patrol troopers raid the DHS compound because of an order from the governor and arrest the DHS agents. Darryl is subsequently freed and Marcus returns to his life the way it was before the terrorist attacks.

Dr. Bill Capa (Willis), a New York City psychologist, falls into a deep depression after an unstable patient commits suicide in front of him by jumping from his office window. The sight of the bloody body of his patient clad in a bright green dress causes Capa to suffer from psychosomatic color blindness, taking away his ability to see the color red. To restart his life, Capa travels to Los Angeles to stay with a friend, fellow therapist and best-selling author Dr. Bob Moore (Bakula), who invites him to sit in on a group therapy session. But one night Moore is violently murdered in the office and Capa is plunged into the mystery of his friend's death. Moore would gather his patients every Monday for a discussion of their problems. Police detective Lt. Hector Martinez (Blades) considers them, and possibly Capa, suspects in the murder. Capa continues to live in Moore's house and begins an affair with Rose (March), a mysterious girl who comes and goes. He takes over Moore's therapy group and learns of their pasts and obsessions: Clark (Brad Dourif) suffers from severe obsessive compulsive disorder and insists on cleanliness and counting things. He also has a violent temper, and months earlier beat up his wife. Sondra (Lesley Ann Warren) is a nymphomaniac and kleptomaniac. She stabbed her father with a knife and fork and her husband died of unnatural causes. Buck (Lance Henriksen) is a suicidal ex-cop. The murder of his wife and daughter remains unsolved. Casey (Kevin J. O'Connor), the arrogant son of a wealthy man, paints sado-masochist works of art. He once burned down his father's house. Richie is a transgender 16-year-old who wishes to transition to female. Richie also has social anxiety disorder, a stutter and a history of drug use. One of these patients is violently murdered. Capa also becomes the target of several attempts on his life. He discovers that all but one of his patients have been romantically involved with Rose. This leads to a twist ending: "Richie" is really Rose, and the murders have been committed by her deranged brother Dale (Andrew Lowery). They once had an actual brother named Richie who was molested by a child psychiatrist named Niedelmeyer. Richie committed suicide and, unable to cope with the loss, Dale forced Rose to play the part of their brother. Dale — who was also one of Niedelmeyer's victims — began abusing Rose until she actually became "Richie". When "Richie" was arrested for drug possession, "he" was forced into therapy. Rose soon started to re-emerge and, under another personality, "Bonnie", started relationships with other members of the group. Dale proceeded to kill them, fearing that they would soon link Rose to "Richie". Capa confronts them and is overpowered by Dale, who is about to kill him with a nail gun but is instead killed by Rose. Deeply traumatized, she then tries to commit suicide. Capa is able to stop her, bookending the story with two suicide attempts — one at the beginning, resulting in Capa's loss of color vision, and one at the end, thwarted and resulting in his regaining it.

Investigative reporter Amy Klein (Kari Wuhrer) is sent to Bucharest at the behest of Charles (Simon Kunz), her boss, to investigate the origins of a video tape depicting the ritualistic murder—and subsequent resurrection—of a member of a cult calling themselves "The Deaders". In Bucharest, Amy tracks down the return address of the VHS and discovers the corpse of a girl, named Marla, who had sent the tape holding a puzzle box, the Lament Configuration. Amy returns to her hotel and opens the box which summons Pinhead (Doug Bradley), although this is apparently all a dream. She visits some of the Bucharest subculture on a train where she meets Joey, who warns her about her the Deaders and notices that Amy has a 'self destructive thing'. Amy pursues leads, ultimately tracking down Winter LeMarchand (Paul Rhys), the leader of the cult. Winter is the descendant of the toymaker who designed the puzzle box, which can open a portal to a realm populated by the Cenobites, hedonistic entities that experiment in forms of extreme sadomasochism. Winter believes that as the heir to the LeMarchand name, it is his birthright to access the realm of the Cenobites and become their master. However, Winter has been unable to open the box himself. Believing that it takes an individual whose life circumstances have brought them to a nihilistic point beyond life-or-death, Winter founded the Deaders, attracting emotionally vulnerable individuals, murdering them, and resurrecting them with necromancy in the hopes of creating someone who can open the box. Winter kills and resurrects Amy, resulting in her experiencing an extended waking dream including a bloody bathroom scene and going to see Joey once again on the train. Amy also relives physical and sexual abuses from her childhood by her drunken, abusive father and young Amy eventually murdered him by stabbing him in the stomach with a large kitchen knife. Coming back to reality in the Deaders' compound, Amy successfully opens the box and summons the Cenobites. Their leader, Pinhead, expresses disdain for Winter and his family and denies that any mortal could ever control the Cenobites. Pinhead and the Cenobites then slaughter all of the Deaders before indicating to Amy that she is now indebted to them by opening the box. Pinhead tells Amy her father has been waiting for her in the Cenobite realm. Rather than be taken back to the Cenobite realm, Amy kills herself by stabbing herself in the stomach with a large kitchen knife. After that, the box starts to close and an electrical charge surges out from the box, sending the Cenobites back to hell, and causing the house to explode. Charles is watching a news report on the incident. Unaware of Amy's whereabouts, Charlie's secretary brings in a new female journalist and Charles talks about showing her a tape that might interest her. The film ends with the reporter holding up the Lament Configuration, which has been recovered from the collapsed building.

In 1967, British spy Austin Powers (Mike Myers) thwarts an assassination attempt by his nemesis Dr. Evil (also played by Mike Myers) in a London nightclub. Dr. Evil escapes in a space rocket disguised as a Big Boy statue, and cryogenically freezes himself. Powers volunteers to be placed into cryostasis in case Dr. Evil returns in the future. Thirty years later, in 1997, Dr. Evil returns to discover his henchman Number 2 (Robert Wagner) has developed Virtucon, the legitimate front of Evil's empire, into a multibillion-dollar enterprise. Uninterested by genuine business, Dr. Evil conspires to steal nuclear weapons and hold the world hostage for $100 billion. Evil also learns that during his absence his associates have artificially created his son, Scott Evil (Seth Green), using his frozen semen. Now a Generation X teenager, Scott is resentful of his father’s absence, and resists Dr. Evil's attempts to get closer to him. Having learned of Dr. Evil's return, the British Ministry of Defence unfreezes Powers, acclimatizing him to the 1990s with the help of agent Vanessa Kensington (Elizabeth Hurley), the daughter of his sidekick in the 1960s, Mrs. Kensington (Mimi Rogers). Posing as a married couple, Powers and Kensington track Number 2 to Las Vegas and meet his Italian secretary, Alotta Fagina (Fabiana Udenio). Later, Powers infiltrates Fagina's penthouse suite for reconnaissance and discovers plans for Dr. Evil's "Project Vulcan", which involves drilling a nuclear warhead into the Earth's molten core and triggering volcanic eruptions worldwide. Fagina discovers Powers in her suite and seduces him into revealing his true identity. Learning that Powers is back, Dr. Evil and his entourage conspire to defeat the spy by creating a series of fembots; beautiful female androids equipped with automatic guns concealed in their breasts. Powers and Kensington attempt to infiltrate the Virtucon headquarters, but are soon apprehended by Dr. Evil's henchman, Random Task (Joe Son). Meanwhile, the United Nations concede to the demands of Dr. Evil, who decides to proceed with Project Vulcan regardless. Powers and Kensington are placed in a death trap by Dr. Evil, but the pair easily escape and Kensington is sent for help. While searching for Dr. Evil, Powers is confronted by the fembots, who he defeats by performing a striptease. Led by Kensington, British forces raid the underground lair, while Powers finds the doomsday device and deactivates it. Powers confronts Dr. Evil, but Fagina arrives holding Kensington hostage. They are interrupted by Number 2, who attempts to betray Dr. Evil by making a deal with Powers. Dr. Evil uses a trap door to eliminate Number 2, then activates the base’s self-destruct mechanism and escapes. Powers and Kensington escape just as the lair is destroyed in a nuclear explosion. Powers and Kensington are later married, and during their honeymoon Powers is attacked by Random Task. Powers subdues the assassin using a penis pump, allowing Kensington to knock him out using a bottle of champagne. Afterwards, the couple adjourn to their balcony. Among the stars, Powers spots the cryogenic chamber of Dr. Evil, who vows revenge on Powers.

The Vicar - Dr Charles Primrose - lives an idyllic life in a country parish with his wife Deborah, son George, daughters Olivia and Sophia, and three other children. He is wealthy due to investing an inheritance he received from a deceased relative, and he donates the ÂŁ34 that his job pays annually to local orphans and war veterans. On the evening of George's wedding to wealthy Arabella Wilmot, the Vicar loses all his money through the bankruptcy of his merchant investor who has left town abruptly. The wedding is called off by Arabella's father, who is known for his prudence with money. George, who was educated at Oxford and is old enough to be considered an adult, is sent away to town. The rest of the family move to a new and more humble parish on the land of Squire Thornhill, who is known to be a womanizer. On the way, they hear about the dubious reputation of their new landlord. Also, references are made to the squire's uncle Sir William Thornhill, who is known throughout the country for his worthiness and generosity. A poor and eccentric friend, Mr. Burchell, whom they meet at an inn, rescues Sophia from drowning. She is instantly attracted to him, but her ambitious mother does not encourage her feelings. Then follows a period of happy family life, interrupted only by regular visits of the dashing Squire Thornhill and Mr. Burchell. Olivia is captivated by Thornhill's hollow charm, but he also encourages the social ambitions of Mrs. Primrose and her daughters to a ludicrous degree. Finally, Olivia is reported to have fled. First Burchell is suspected, but after a long pursuit Dr. Primrose finds his daughter, who was in reality deceived by Squire Thornhill. He planned to marry her in a mock ceremony and leave her then shortly after, as he had done with several women before. When Olivia and her father return home, they find their house in flames. Although the family has lost almost all their belongings, the evil Squire Thornhill insists on the payment of the rent. As the vicar cannot pay, he is brought to prison. Afterwards is a chain of dreadful occurrences. The vicar's daughter, Olivia, is reported dead, Sophia is abducted, and George too is sent to prison in chains and covered with blood, as he had challenged Thornhill to a duel when he had heard about his wickedness. But then Mr. Burchell arrives and solves all problems. He rescues Sophia, Olivia is not dead, and it emerges that Mr. Burchell is in reality the worthy Sir William Thornhill, who travels through the country in disguise. In the end, there is a double wedding: George marries Arabella, as he originally intended, and Sir William Thornhill marries Sophia. Squire Thornhill's servant turns out to have tricked him, and thus the sham marriage of the Squire and Olivia is real. Finally, even the wealth of the vicar is restored, as the bankrupt merchant is reported to be found.

Act One Serapion describes foreboding omens (of storms, whirlwinds, and the flooding of the Nile) of Egypt's impending doom. Alexas, Cleopatra's eunuch, dismisses Serapion's claims and is more concerned with Cleopatra's relationship with Antony. He sees that Cleopatra dotes on Antony and worries that Antony will not continue seeing Cleopatra. Thus, Serapion hosts a festival to celebrate Antony's honour. Ventidius, a Roman general, comes to aide Antony in Alexandria. Ventidius disagrees with Antony's relationship with Cleopatra and offers to give Antony troops if he leaves her. Although Antony is insulted by Ventidius's opinions regarding Cleopatra (and refuses to hear anything negative about her), Antony agrees. Act Two Cleopatra mourns about her situation without Antony. Charmion, Cleopatra's lady in waiting, attempts to set up a meeting between Cleopatra and Antony, but she is unsuccessful. Cleopatra thus sends Alexas to try to win back Antony using gifts (jewels including a bracelet). Alexas suggests that Cleopatra should tie the bracelet onto Antony's wrist. In the subsequent meeting between Cleopatra and Antony, Ventidius appears and tries to proclaim how Cleopatra is not Antony's rightful partner and would betray him for her own safety. However, Cleopatra wins this argument by demonstrating a letter showing that she refused Egypt and Syria from Octavius. Antony is overjoyed by Cleopatra's decision and proclaims his love for her. Act Three Antony is returning from battle and is overwhelmed with love for Cleopatra. Ventidius comes to speak with Antony, who attempts to flee unsuccessfully. Antony does not want to go back to war but doesn't know how to stop it. He believes Dolabella can help him and Ventidius brings Dolabella out. Dolabella, Antony's friend, appears after Antony's success in battle. Dolabella was banished for his love for Cleopatra, but he returns to a warm welcome from Antony. Dolabella offers a gift that will bring peace between Antony and Caesar. The gift is Octavia, Antony's true wife and Caesar's sister, and Antony's two daughters. Octavia tells Antony the war will stop when he returns to his rightful place, by her side. Antony and Octavia reunite, and Alexas's attempts to meddle for the sake of Cleopatra are dismissed. Cleopatra appears informed of her defeat. Alexas tells her to avoid Octavia but Cleopatra chooses to face her as a rival. Cleopatra and Octavia have an argument, it seems clear that Octavia is whom Antony rightfully belongs to, even if it is not she whom he loves most. Act Four Antony has been convinced by Octavia that his rightful place is by her side, in Rome, with his children. Antony plans to leave but does not have the strength to tell Cleopatra himself. Antony asks Dolabella to tell Cleopatra he is leaving so that Antony will not be persuaded to stay. Ventidius overhears that Dolabella will be going to Cleopatra to bid her farewell. He also sees her divising a plan with Alexas to inspire jealousy in Antony by way of Dolabella. Ventidius and Octavia see Dolabella taking Cleopatra's hand, but when the time comes to make a move romantically, both of them fall apart from the guilt of their betrayal. Ventidius tells Antony that Cleopatra and Dollabella have become lovers and Octavia also bears witness. Ventidius then asks Alexas to testify to the same story, which Alexas believes to be. Antony is infuriated by this information, but is still looking for some loophole that would confirm Cleopatra's innocence. Antony's belief in Cleopatra's innocence hurts Octavia and she leaves permanently. When Dolabella and Cleopatra try to explain themselves Antony refuses to believe them. Act Five Antony takes Cleopatra's naval fleet and sails to Caesar where he is greeted like an old friend. They then sail back to Alexandria. When Cleopatra hears of this Alexas tells her to flee and that he will attempt to make amends with Caesar. Cleopatra tells him this would make him a traitor and that he cannot go to Caesar. Cleopatra flees and Alexas is left behind. Antony and Ventidius meet up and prepare to fight. Alexas, Cleopatra's messenger, comes and informs Antony that Cleopatra is dead. Antony then tells Ventidus to end his life, but Ventidius refuses and kills himself. With Ventidius dead, Antony then tried and failed to commit suicide. Cleopatra then comes in and sees Antony, still living, but on the verge of death. Antony dies. Cleopatra then kills herself. Serapion delivers their eulogy.

Skylark Three (1948) is the second book in the Skylark series and is set a year after the events of The Skylark of Space, during which year antagonist Marc "Blackie" DuQuesne has used the wealth obtained in the previous book to buy a controlling interest in the story's 'World Steel Corporation', a large company known for its ruthless attitude. When the story begins DuQuesne announces a long absence from Earth, to find another species more knowledgeable than the Osnomians allied with protagonist Richard Seaton. Shortly thereafter, DuQuesne and a henchman disappear from Earth. DuQuesne, by now aware of the 'Object Compass' trained on him, travels far enough to break the connection, then turns toward the 'Green System' of which Osnome is a part. Seaton discovers this, but is distracted by attempts to master a "zone of force": essentially a spherical, immaterial shield, with whose present form Seaton is dissatisfied for its opacity and impenetrability even by the user. Seaton is then requested by his allies Dunark and Sitar, the crown prince and prince's consort of Osnome, to repel invasion by the natives of planet 'Urvan', Osnome's neighbor; whereupon Seaton and his millionaire sponsor, Martin Crane, accompanied by their wives and Crane's valet Shiro embark in the spaceship Skylark II to obtain the necessary minerals. Near the Green System, they are attacked by the hitherto-unseen natives of the planet 'Fenachrone', whose weaponry surpasses any known to Seaton or the Osnomians. Having used the 'zone of force' at first to conceal himself, and then to destroy the Fenachrone battleship, Seaton captures a leading crew-member, who reveals (upon interrogation) that the Fenachrone intend conquest of the entire Milky Way Galaxy, and eventually of the Universe, and that a message is already in progress toward the Fenachrone capital to summon aid. Discovering that Dunark and Sitar survived the destruction of their spaceship, the Skylark II tows the remnants of both vehicles to Osnome, where Seaton forces a peace treaty between Osnome and Urvan. Meanwhile, DuQuesne and his aide have also interrogated a Fenachrone and plan to capture an entire Fenachrone battleship for personal use. Hoping to master the "zone of force", Seaton, Crane, and their wives travel from planet to planet of the 'Green System', in search of those already skilled in its use. Initially they encounter the Dasorians, an amphibious species of humanoid, who direct them to the Norlaminians, who possess full control of both matter and energy. A much larger successor ship, the Skylark Three, is built and equipped on planet Norlamin, where Seaton at first explores the Fenachrone's world, then orders the Fenachrone to abandon their conquest. Upon their refusal, Seaton destroys their reconnaissance spaceships, and then their home planet, killing all the Fenachrone except a colony led by one of their leading scientists. Equipped with a Fenachrone spaceship, DuQuesne also survives, but leads Seaton and the Fenachrone to presume his death. Increasing his technology still further, Seaton pursues and destroys the Fenachrone colony; but does not discover DuQuesne.

Hazel Grace Lancaster (Shailene Woodley) is an intelligent and witty teenager living in Indianapolis, who has terminal thyroid cancer that has since spread to her lungs. Believing she is depressed, Hazel's mother Frannie (Laura Dern) urges her to attend a weekly cancer patient support group to help her make friends who are going through the same thing. One week, Hazel meets Augustus Waters (Ansel Elgort), a charming teenager who lost a leg from bone cancer years earlier but has since been cancer-free. He invites Hazel to his house and she accepts, where they bond over their hobbies and agree to read each other's favorite book. Hazel recommends An Imperial Affliction, a novel about a cancer-stricken girl named Anna that parallels Hazel's experience, and Augustus gives Hazel Counter Insurgence. They keep in touch via text over the weeks that follow and grow closer. After Augustus finishes the book, he expresses frustration with its abrupt ending (it ends in the middle of a sentence). Hazel explains that the novel's mysterious author, Peter Van Houten (Willem Dafoe), retreated to Amsterdam following the novel's publication and has not been heard from since. Weeks later, Augustus tells Hazel that he has traced Van Houten's assistant, Lidewij (Lotte Verbeek), and has corresponded with Van Houten by email. Hazel then writes to him to find out more about the novel's ambiguous ending and Van Houten replies that he is only willing to answer her questions in person. Overwhelmed and excited, Hazel asks her mother if she can travel to Amsterdam to visit him, but Frannie rejects it because of financial and medical constraints. Augustus suggests that she use her "cancer wish" since children and young adults with life-threatening illnesses receive one arranged experience of their choice, but Hazel explains that she already used hers to visit Disney World when she was younger. Augustus and Hazel go on a picnic date and soon begin to fall in love. Augustus also surprises Hazel with tickets to Amsterdam after using his wish on her. However, days before the trip, Hazel suffers from pleural effusion and is sent to an intensive care unit (ICU). Although initially concerned, her doctors eventually agree to allow the trip, since they expect that she will soon become incapable of doing anything at all. Hazel and Augustus arrive in Amsterdam and are presented with reservations at an expensive restaurant, pre-paid for by Van Houten. During the meal, Augustus confesses his love for Hazel. The following afternoon, they get the bus into the city and head to Van Houten's house, but are soon shocked to find he is a mean-spirited alcoholic; Lidewij arranged the meeting and their dinner on his behalf without him knowing anything about it. Angered by his assistant's actions, he taunts Hazel for seeking serious answers to a piece of fiction and belittles her medical condition. She leaves, utterly distraught. On their way back to the hotel, Lidewij invites them to go sightseeing to make up for their ruined experience. The three visit the Anne Frank House, where Hazel struggles to climb the house's many stairs. At the end of the tour, Augustus and Hazel kiss to the applause of many fellow tourists. They spend that night together in their hotel and have sex for the first time. The next day while out in the city, Augustus tells Hazel that his cancer has relapsed, has spread throughout his body and is terminal. Hazel is heartbroken, expressing how unfair life can be. After their return to Indianapolis, Augustus' health worsens each week. Hazel receives a desperate call from him late at night after he tries to get a new pack of cigarettes at the gas station. He is taken to the ICU for a few days and realizes he is close to death. Augustus invites his blind best friend Isaac (Nat Wolff) and Hazel to his pre-funeral, where they deliver eulogies that they have both prepared. Hazel tells him she would not trade their short time together for anything, since he "gave me a forever within the numbered days." Augustus dies eight days later. At his funeral, Hazel is astonished to find Van Houten in attendance. He tells her he maintained correspondence with Augustus after Amsterdam and that Augustus had demanded he attend his funeral to make up for the spoiled trip. He then tells Hazel that his novel is based on the experiences of his daughter Anna, who died from leukemia at a young age. Van Houten tries to tell Hazel about the fate of Anna's mother; he gives Hazel a piece of paper. Hazel, still upset with his behavior in Amsterdam, crumples up the paper and asks him to leave. Later, talking with Isaac, Hazel learns that Augustus had asked Van Houten to help him write a eulogy for her. She retrieves the crumpled paper and reads Augustus' words, which state his acceptance of death and his love for Hazel. Hazel lies on her back on her lawn looking up at the stars, smiling as she remembers Augustus and says "Okay."

On 11 February 1990, Nelson Mandela is released from Victor Verster Prison after having spent 27 years in jail. Four years later, Mandela is elected the first black President of South Africa. His presidency faces enormous challenges in the post-Apartheid era, including rampant poverty and crime, and Mandela is particularly concerned about racial divisions between black and white South Africans, which could lead to violence. The ill will which both groups hold towards each other is seen even in his own security detail where relations between the established white officers, who had guarded Mandela's predecessors, and the black ANC additions to the security detail, are frosty and marked by mutual distrust. While attending a game between the Springboks, the country's rugby union team, and England, Mandela recognises that the blacks in the stadium are cheering for England, as the mostly-white Springboks represent prejudice and apartheid in their minds; he remarks that he did the same while imprisoned on Robben Island. Knowing that South Africa is set to host the 1995 Rugby World Cup in one year's time, Mandela persuades a meeting of the newly black-dominated South African Sports Committee to support the Springboks. He then meets with the captain of the Springboks rugby team, François Pienaar, and implies that a Springboks victory in the World Cup will unite and inspire the nation. Mandela also shares with François a British poem, "Invictus", that had inspired him during his time in prison. François and his teammates train. Many South Africans, both black and white, doubt that rugby will unite a nation torn apart by nearly 50 years of racial tensions, as for many blacks, especially the radicals, the Springboks symbolise white supremacy. Both Mandela and Pienaar, however, stand firmly behind their theory that the game can successfully unite the South African country. Things begin to change as the players interact with the fans and begin a friendship with them. During the opening games, support for the Springboks begins to grow among the black population. By the second game, the whole country comes together to support the Springboks and Mandela's efforts. Mandela's security team also grows closer as the various officers come to respect their comrades' professionalism and dedication. As Mandela watches, the Springboks defeat one of their archrivals - Australia, the defending champions and known as the Wallabies - in their opening match. They then continue to defy all expectations and, as Mandela conducts trade negotiations with Japan, defeat France in heavy rain in Durban to advance to the final against their other arch-rival: New Zealand, known as the All Blacks. New Zealand and South Africa were universally regarded as the two greatest rugby nations, with the Springboks being the only side to have a winning record against the All Blacks up to this point. The first Test series between the two countries in 1921 was the beginning of an intense rivalry, with emotions running high whenever the two nations met on the rugby field. Before the game, the Springbok team visits Robben Island, where Mandela spent the first 18 of his 27 years in jail. There Pienaar is inspired by Mandela's will and his idea of self-mastery in Invictus. François mentions his amazement that Mandela "could spend thirty years in a tiny cell, and come out ready to forgive the people who put [him] there". Supported by a large home crowd of all races at Ellis Park Stadium in Johannesburg, Pienaar motivates his teammates for the final. Mandela's security detail receives a scare when, just before the match, a South African Airways Boeing 747 jetliner flies in low over the stadium. It is not an assassination attempt though, but a demonstration of patriotism, with the message "Good Luck, Bokke" — the Springboks' Afrikaans nickname — painted on the undersides of the plane's wings. Mandela also famously arrives onto the field before the match wearing a Springbok cap and a long-sleeved replica of Pienaar's #6 shirt. The Springboks complete their run by beating the All Blacks 15-12 in extra time thanks to a drop goal from fly-half Joel Stransky. Mandela and Pienaar meet on the field together to celebrate the improbable and unexpected victory, and Mandela hands Pienaar the William Webb Ellis Cup, signaling that the Springboks are indeed rugby union's world champions. Mandela's car then drives away in the traffic-jammed streets leaving the stadium. As Mandela watches the South Africans celebrating together from the car, his voice is heard reciting Invictus again.

The Maid of Sker is set at the end of the 18th century, and the story is told by Davy Llewellyn, an old fisherman. The story concerns a two-year-old girl who drifts in a boat onto a beach in Glamorganshire in the calm before a storm. The little girl calls herself Bardie. Llewellyn is tempted to keep the girl, but decides to give her up and keeps the boat for himself. He quarters the pretty child in a simple, but well-to-do, household in his neighbourhood. As she grows up he dotes upon her so far as he can. He watches anxiously over her fortunes, partly or principally because he thinks his own may be bound up with them. It is clear from the refinement of the girl's manners, and from the fineness of her clothes she was washed ashore in, that she is no common child. Davy joins the crew of a ketch trading between Barnstaple and Porthcawl. Whilst in Devon, he encounters several characters who hold the key to solving the mystery of the maid of Sker. These include Sir Philip Bampfylde who spends most of his time looking for his two grandchildren who have mysteriously disappeared; Parson Chowne, a parson of demoniac wickedness and craft who works his will for many years in the north of Devon, defying God, man, and the law; and Captain Drake Bamfylde who is under suspicion of having made away with the children of his elder brother, and heirs to the family property. Old Davy gradually unravels the mystery and sets matters right, although many distractions delay him including an extended period at sea in which Blackmore gives a graphic account of the Battle of the Nile.

The film begins with Cassius Clay, Jr. before his championship debut against then heavyweight champion Sonny Liston. In the pre-fight weigh-in Clay heavily taunts Liston (such as calling Liston a "big ugly bear"). In the fight Clay is able to dominate the early rounds of the match, but halfway through he complains of a burning feeling in his eyes (implying that Liston has tried to cheat) and says he is unable to continue. However, his trainer/manager Angelo Dundee gets him to keep fighting. Once Clay is able to see again he easily dominates the fight and right before round seven Liston quits, making Clay the second youngest heavyweight champion at the time after Floyd Patterson. Clay spends valued time with Malcolm X and the two decide to take a trip to Africa. Clay is then invited to the home of Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad where he is granted the name Muhammad Ali due to his status of World Heavyweight Champion. His father, Cassius Clay Sr. disapproves of this. Ali marries Sonji Roi, an ex-Playboy Bunny, despite her not being Muslim and not abiding by sex segregation. While at home with his wife and children, Malcolm X is called by the Nation of Islam and is informed that his suspension has been extended and Ali will not go to Africa. However, Ali takes the trip to Africa where he finds Malcolm X, but later refuses to speak to him, honoring the wishes of Elijah Muhammad. He is extremely distraught when Malcolm is later assassinated. Upon returning to America, Ali goes against Sonny Liston a second time and knocks him out in the first round. He and Sonji divorce after she continually objects to certain obligations Muslim women have, notably wearing a hijab. After being officially called to fight in the Vietnam War with the U.S. Army, Ali refuses, and is subsequently stripped of his boxing license, passport and title, additionally facing five years in prison. Ali marries 17-year-old Belinda Boyd. After a three-year hiatus, his conviction is later overturned and in his first fight in his comeback, he fights Jerry Quarry and wins by technical knockout in three rounds when Quarry gets a cut in his eye. Ali attempts to regain the Heavyweight Championship against Joe Frazier. Dubbed the Fight of the Century, Frazier has the upper hand against Ali for most of the rounds. In the fifteenth round, he defeats Ali by decision, giving Ali the first loss of his career. When Frazier loses the championship to George Foreman, Ali makes a decision to fight Foreman and become the first boxer to win his title a second time. Foreman and Ali go to Kinshasa, Zaire for the Rumble in the Jungle fight. While there, Ali meets a woman named Veronica PorchĂŠ, and has an affair with her. After reading rumors of his infidelity through newspapers, his wife Belinda travels to Zaire to confront him about this. Ali says he is unsure as to whether he really loves Veronica or not, and just wants to focus on his upcoming title shot. For a good portion of the fight against Foreman, Ali leans back against the ropes and covers up, letting Foreman wildly throw punches at him. During the fight, Ali realizes that he has to react sooner or else he will be knocked out or possibly die in the ring. As the rounds go on, Foreman tires himself out and Ali takes advantage. He quickly knocks out the tired Foreman, and the film ends with Ali regaining the Heavyweight Championship of which he was previously stripped.

While Dorothy Gale is at home in Kansas one day, she and her pet dog Toto, meet the Shaggy Man who comes walking past the Gale farm. He is a friendly, yet slightly senile hobo with an optimistic, care free mentality. He politely asks Dorothy for directions to Butterfield, which is the nearest town on the prairie. The girl agrees to show him the way, bringing her dog with her. Further on, the road splits into seven paths. They take the seventh one and soon find themselves lost in what appears to be another dimension. The trio meets Button-Bright, a cute and wealthy little boy in a sailor's outfit who is always getting lost. Later, the companions encounter Polychrome, the beautiful and ethereal Daughter of the Rainbow who is stranded on earth. Polychrome explains that she accidentally fell off her father's bow while dancing on it. The bow ascended into the atmosphere and back into the clouds before she was able to climb her way back on it, thus being left behind. Dorothy, Toto, the Shaggy Man, Button-Bright, and Polychrome eventually come to the peculiar town of Foxville, where anthropomorphic foxes live. With prompting from King Dox of Foxville, Dorothy deduces that she and Toto are obviously on another "fairy adventure" that will ultimately lead them to magical Land of Oz, just in time for Princess Ozma's royal birthday party, (which is now acknowledged as August 21 by Oz fans, even though the book only refers to the 21st of the month). Dorothy having mentioned that the current month is August in another passage. The king takes a particular liking to Button Bright, whom he considers astute and clever due to his tabula rasa-like mind. Believing that the human face does not suit one so clever, Dox gives him a fox's head. A similar event subsequently happens to the Shaggy Man, when King Kik-a-Bray of Dunkiton confers a donkey's head upon him—also in reward for cleverness, even though it's implied that Foxville and Dunkiton exist at odds with one another. After meeting the Musicker, who produces music from his breath, and fighting off the Scoodlers, who fight by removing their own heads and throwing them at the travellers, Dorothy and her companions reach the edge of the fatal Deadly Desert completely surrounding Oz. There, the Shaggy Man's friend Johnny Dooit builds a "sand-boat" by which they may cross. This is necessary, because physical contact with the desert's sands, as of this book and Ozma of Oz (1907), will turn the travelers to dust. Upon reaching Oz, Dorothy and her companions are warmly welcomed by the mechanical man Tik-Tok and Billina the Yellow Hen. They proceed in company, to come in their travels to the Truth Pond, where Button Bright and the Shaggy Man regain their true heads by bathing in its waters. They meet the Tin Woodman, the Scarecrow, and Jack Pumpkinhead who journey with them to the imperial capital called Emerald City for Ozma's grand birthday bash. Dorothy meets up with Ozma as her chariot is pulled in by the Cowardly Lion and the Hungry Tiger. As preparations for Ozma's birthday party are made, the guests include Dorothy, Scarecrow, Tin Woodman, Cowardly Lion, the Wizard of Oz, Jack Pumpkinhead, Sawhorse, Tik-Tok, Billina, Jellia Jamb, Woggle-Bug, Hungry Tiger, the Good Witch of the North, Shaggy Man, Button-Bright, Polychrome, and characters from all over Nonestica (such as Santa Claus, a band of Ryls, and a bunch of Knooks from the Forest of Burzee, Queen Zixi of Ix, the Queen of Merryland, four wooden soldiers, and the Candy Man from Merryland, the Braided Man from Boboland's Pyramid Mountain, the Royal Family of the Land of Ev, King Bud and Princess Fluff from Noland, and John Dough, Chick the Cherub, Para Bruin the Rubber Bear from Hiland and Loland) as well as invitations to King Dox, King Kik-a-Bray, and Johnny Dooit. The Shaggy Man receives permission to stay in Oz permanently. He is given, in addition to this, a new suit of clothes having bobtails in place of his former costume's ragged edges, so that he may retain his name and identity. After everyone has presented their gifts and feasted at a lavish banquet in Ozma's honor, the Wizard of Oz demonstrates a method of using bubbles as transportation by which to send everyone home. Polychrome is finally found by her rainbow family and she is magically lifted into the sky when she climbs back onto her bow. Button-Bright goes home with Santa Claus to the North Pole in a soap bubble. Dorothy and Toto are finally wished back home to Kansas again by Ozma's use of the Magic Belt.

In 1973, sports handicapper and mafia associate Sam "Ace" Rothstein (Robert De Niro) is sent to Las Vegas to run the Teamsters Union-funded Tangiers Casino on behalf of the Chicago Outfit, which secretly controls the Teamsters, while Philip Green (Kevin Pollak) serves as the mob's frontman. Taking advantage of gaming laws that allow him to work in a casino while his gaming licence is pending, Sam doubles the casino's profits, which are skimmed by the mafia before they are reported to income tax agencies. Impressed with his work, mafia boss Remo Gaggi (Pasquale Cajano), sends Sam's childhood friend and mob enforcer Nicholas "Nicky" Santoro (Joe Pesci) and his associate Frank "Frankie" Marino (Frank Vincent) to protect Sam and the whole operation. Nicky's volatile temper soon gets him banned from every casino in Las Vegas, so he gathers his own crew and engages in independent shakedowns and burglaries instead. Sam meets and falls in love with a hustler and former prostitute, Ginger McKenna (Sharon Stone). They conceive a daughter and marry, but their marriage is proven difficult by Ginger's strong independence and love for her former boyfriend, con artist-turned pimp Lester Diamond (James Woods), who is ordered beaten severely by Sam and Nicky after they catch him conning Ginger out of some money. Ginger subsequently turns to alcohol. Meanwhile, Sam makes an enemy in county commissioner Pat Webb (L. Q. Jones) for firing his brother-in-law Don Ward (John Bloom) for incompetence. When Sam refuses to reinstate him, Webb pulls Sam's licence from the backlog, forcing him to face a hearing for his gaming licence while secretly arranging for the board to deny Sam. Sam blames the incident on Nicky's recklessness and the two argue furiously in the desert after Sam attempts to tell Nicky to leave Las Vegas. The casino counters begin stealing some money for themselves, prompting the Midwest mafia bosses to put Artie Piscano (Vinny Vella) of the Kansas City mafia in charge of overseeing the transactions. He rants about it in his grocery store, unaware that the FBI are listening on an old bug they had planted there long before. The FBI subsequently begin an investigation. Tired of his wife's alcoholism, Sam seeks a divorce from Ginger. She then kidnaps their daughter, Amy, taking her to Los Angeles, and plans to flee to Europe with Lester. Sam convinces her to come back with Amy, and then scolds her for stealing his money and kidnapping their daughter. After he overhears Ginger talking on the phone about killing him, he kicks her out of the house, but soon relents knowing if he gives Ginger money he would never see her again. Ginger then approaches Nicky for help in getting her valuables from their shared vault in the bank, and the two start an affair. Sam discovers this after finding Amy tied to her bed by Ginger, who is with Nicky at his restaurant. Sam disowns Ginger, and so does Nicky. A furious and drunk Ginger crashes her car into Sam's driveway, making a scene and retrieves the key to their deposit box after distracting the attending police. Though she succeeds in taking her share of the money from the bank, she is arrested by the FBI for aiding and abetting Sam. The FBI move in and the casino empire crumbles. Green decides to cooperate with the authorities and Piscano dies of a heart attack, though Nicky flees Las Vegas before he can be caught. The FBI approach Sam for help, but he turns them down. The bosses are arrested and put on trial, but decide to eliminate anyone involved in the scheme to stop them from testifying and prolonging their coming sentences, among them three casino executives, Teamsters head Andy Stone (Alan King) and money courier John Nance. Ginger flees to Los Angeles and ultimately dies penniless of a drug overdose in a motel. Sam himself is almost killed in a car bomb, and suspects Nicky was behind it. Before Sam can take revenge, Nicky and his brother Dominick are ambushed by Frankie and their own crew and savagely beaten and buried alive in a cornfield, the bosses having had enough of Nicky's behaviour and offered his crew clemency in exchange for the murder. With the mob now out of power, the old casinos are demolished and purchased by big corporations, who build new and gaudier attractions, which Sam laments are not the same as when the mafia was in control. Sam subsequently retires to San Diego and continues to live as a sports handicapper for the mob, in his own words, ending up "right back where I started". He closes the film with the words, "and that's that".

The Man of Feeling details the fragmentary episodes of the life of Harley which exist within the remains of a manuscript traded to the initial narrator of the novel by a priest. The novel itself begins with these two latter figures hunting, whereas the manuscript is missing the first ten chapters and approximately thirty others at various locations throughout the manuscript's entirety. As a young boy, Harley loses his parents and is assigned several guardians who constantly disagree with each other. They do however agree that he should make an effort to acquire more wealth, and so they urge him to make an old distant relative amiable towards him to claim some inheritance. Harley fails in this endeavour, as he doesn't cooperate with the relative's attempts to warm to him. Harley is then advised to acquire a patron; to sell his vote at an election for a lease of land. His neighbour Mr. Walton gives him a letter of introduction, and he leaves home (and Miss Walton) for London. He meets a beggar and his dog on the way, and after donating to them, hears the fortune-telling beggar's story. In the following (missing) chapters, Harley formally visits the baronet Mr. Walton recommended him to, because when the narrative continues, Harley is calling on him for the second time. The baronet however is away from London, and Harley meets another gentleman named Tom. They go for a stroll and then dine together, discussing pensions and resources with two older men. Harley proceeds to visit Bedlam, and weeps for an inmate there, before dining with a scorned, cynical man and together they discuss honour and vanity. He then demonstrates his skill (or, as many argue, his lack of skill) in physiognomy by being charitable on behalf of an old gentleman, with whom Harley later plays cards. After losing money to them, Harley is informed the gentleman and his acquaintance are con men. Approached by a prostitute, Harley takes her to a tavern and feeds her, despite having to hand the waiter his pocket watch as collateral for paying the bill, and then meets again with her the next morning to hear her story. At its conclusion her father arrives, and after a misunderstanding is reconciled with his daughter. Jamie is then deemed the 'man of feeling' as a result of his loss of control over his emotions. Upon discovering that his claim for the land lease has failed, Harley takes a stage-coach back home, discussing poetry and vice with a fellow passenger until they part ways and the coach reaches the end of its route. Harley continues on foot, and along the way meets Edwards, an old farmer from his village who has fallen on hard times and is returning from his conscription in the army. Together they approach the village, to find the school house destroyed, and two orphans who are actually the grandchildren of Harley's companion. Harley takes the three of them home, and provides some land for them. After discussing corrupt military commanders with Edwards, Harley is informed to his dismay that Miss Walton is going to be married to Sir Harry Benson. The Man of Feeling then jumps to an unconnected tale of a man named Mountford, who journeys to Milan as tutor to the young Sedley, where they meet with a count. They visit a debtors' prison to find a man and his family living there at the behest of the count's son, a man who had been so charming to the two gentlemen. Sedley pays the family's debt, and then Mountford and Sedley leave Milan in disgust. The narrative returns to the story of Harley. Miss Walton has not married Benson. She visits an unwell Harley (who has contracted a fever nursing Edwards and his grandchildren), who confesses his love to her. They hold hands and he dies.

After having haughtily refused a number of suitors, under the pretext that they are not peers of France, Émilie de Fontaine falls in love with a mysterious young man who quietly appeared at the village dance at Sceaux. Despite his refined appearance and aristocratic bearing, the unknown (Maximilien Longueville) never tells his identity and seems interested in nobody but his sister, a sickly young girl. But he is not insensible to the attention Émilie gives him and he accepts the invitation of Émilie’s father, the Comte de Fontaine. Émilie and Maximilien soon fall in love. The Comte de Fontaine, concerned for his daughter, decides to investigate this mysterious young man, and he discovers him on the Rue du Sentier, a simple cloth merchant, which horrifies Émilie. Piqued, she marries a 72-year-old uncle for his title of Vice Admiral, the Comte de Kergarouët. Several years after her marriage, Émilie discovers that Maximilien is not a clothier at all, but in fact a Vicomte de Longueville who has become a Peer of France. The young man finally explains why he secretly tended a store: he did it in order to support his family, sacrificing himself for his sick sister and for his brother, who had departed the country.

The novel revolves around Montgomery Brewster, a young man who inherits one million dollars from his rich grandfather. Shortly after, a rich and eccentric uncle who hated Brewster's grandfather (a long-held grudge stemming from the grandfather's disapproval of the marriage of Brewster's parents) also dies. The uncle will leave Brewster seven million dollars, but only under the condition that he keeps none of the grandfather's money. Brewster is required to spend every penny of his grandfather's million within one year, resulting in no assets or property held from the wealth at the end of that time. If Brewster meets these terms, he will gain the full seven million; if he fails, he remains penniless. Brewster finds that spending so much money within the course of a year is incredibly difficult under the strict conditions imposed by his uncle's will. Brewster is required to demonstrate business sense by obtaining good value for the money he spends, limiting his donations to charity, his losses to gambling, and the value of his tips to waiters and cab drivers. Moreover, Brewster is sworn to secrecy, and cannot tell anyone why he is living to excess. Working against him are his well-meaning friends, who try repeatedly to limit his losses and extravagance even as they share in his luxurious lifestyle. Brewster's challenge is compounded by the fact that his attempts to lose money through stock speculation and roulette prove to increase his funds rather than decrease them. He throws large parties and balls, and charters a cruise lasting several months to Europe and Egypt for his large circle of friends and employees; the press lampoons him as a spendthrift. Despite his loose purse strings, Brewster repeatedly demonstrates a strong moral character. At one point, he uses his funds to bail out a bank to save his landlady's account, despite risking his eligibility for the will. At another, he jumps overboard to save a drowning sailor from his cruise even as his rich friends choose not to. Monty's would-be wife Barbara Drew turns down his marriage proposal early in the year, believing him to be financially irresponsible and bound to a life of poverty, and his attempts to win her back repeatedly fail as Monty's attention is entirely absorbed by the requirement to spend so much money. At the conclusion of the year, Monty succeeds in spending the last of his funds, which he has meticulously documented, and confesses his love to another woman, Peggy Gray, who has been sympathetic to his lifestyle despite knowing nothing about his challenge. Tragedy strikes the night before Monty's deadline, as his lawyers inform him that the executor of his uncle's will has vanished after liquidating all of the assets. Monty convinces himself that he is doomed to poverty, but marries Peggy Gray, who accepts him despite the lack of wealth. Shortly after the wedding, the executor of his uncle's will arrives to inform him that he has successfully met the challenge and that he has come to deliver the money to Monty in person.

Struggling actor Andrew Largeman (Braff) wakes up from a dream—in which he apathetically sits on a crashing plane—to a telephone message from his father (Holm), telling Andrew that he needs to return home because his mother has died. Andrew leaves Los Angeles and returns home to New Jersey to attend the funeral. He recognizes the grave-diggers as old friends Mark (Sarsgaard) and Dave (Alex Burns), who invite him to a party that night. At home, his father gets Andrew a doctor's appointment for headaches he's been having. Later that night, Andrew goes to the party where he meets up with Mark, Dave and Jesse (Armando Riesco), an old friend who has just earned a fortune after creating silent Velcro. After smoking marijuana and taking ecstasy at the party he still remains detached. The morning after the party, Andrew proceeds to the appointment. In the waiting room, he meets a young woman named Sam (Portman), who is a pathological liar. She later explains that most times she does not know why she lies and will always admit to them afterward. In Andrew's meeting with his doctor (Ron Leibman), it is revealed that Andrew has been on lithium and other mood stabilizers, as well as antidepressants, for his entire adult life, but has recently stopped taking them. He also says that his father, who is his psychiatrist, put him on the medication. Andrew finds Sam outside the office and offers her a ride home. Sam invites him into her house, and he meets her mother, who inadvertently reveals that Sam has epilepsy. Andrew tells Sam of his mother's death, and Sam tearfully eulogizes her hamster. After returning home, Andrew's father confronts him and is insistent that they have a talk before Andrew leaves. Later, Andrew and Jesse sit in the cemetery as Mark digs another grave. Andrew observes Mark stealing jewelry from the corpse he is burying. Andrew then returns to Sam's house, and the two spend the rest of the day together, joining his friends later at Jesse's mansion. Andrew tells her that when he was nine years old he pushed his mother in frustration, knocking her over a broken dishwasher in an accident that left her paraplegic; he says that his father blames him for his wife's paralysis and put him on his medications to "curb the anger" he supposedly harbors. Sam listens, and Andrew then admits his feelings for her. The next day, Mark tells Andrew that he needs help "tracking down" a going-away present for him. Sam, Andrew, and Mark spend the day together, ending it in a quarry in Newark where Mark talks to a man named Albert (Denis O'Hare), who is employed in keeping intruders out of the quarry. The three visitors discuss the reasons for which Albert and his wife choose to live in the quarry. Albert explains that living there and exploring the quarry is "doing something that's completely unique, that's never been done before," mirroring an earlier speech by Sam. Finally, Albert explains that what actually matters is living with his family. Andrew is inspired by the conversation, and outside in the rain, he climbs atop a derelict crane and screams into the quarry, joined by Sam and Mark. He and Sam then share a kiss. When Mark and Andrew look at the gift later on, it turns out to be Andrew's mother's favorite pendant, one of the items Mark stole from her grave, sold, and subsequently located. Andrew eventually talks with his father, and states that he was not to blame for his mother's accident and that he will live the rest of his life without medications. He forgives his father and says he wants to build a better relationship with him. The morning after, Andrew says his goodbyes to Sam at the airport, while she begs him not to leave. He acknowledges that she has changed his life but that he still has to fix his personal problems before continuing the relationship. Andrew boards the flight, and Sam is left crying in a telephone booth. Andrew then returns, saying that he doesn't want to waste any more of his life without Sam. He wonders what to do next, and the two then kiss.

Elle Woods, a student of fashion merchandising and president of her sorority, is taken to an expensive restaurant by her boyfriend, Warner Huntington III, who is the governor's son. Expecting Warner to propose, to her dismay, he breaks up with her, thinking that she is not serious enough for his political aspirations. Elle seeks comfort from her sorority sisters, who encourage her to keep pursuing him, leading to her plan to follow Warner into Harvard Law School. After much effort, she scores a 179 on the Law School Admission Test, and combined with her 4.0 GPA in fashion merchandising, the Harvard panel admits her. Upon arriving at Harvard, Elle's SoCal personality is a contrast to her arrogant, drab, East Coast classmates, who refuse to take her seriously. Elle soon encounters Warner, but finds out that he is engaged to another classmate, Vivian Kensington. To make things worse, her studies are off to a poor start, as she struggles to keep up with the reading, and shows up unprepared for a lecture, causing a strict female professor, Professor Stromwell, to heavily berate her. After being kicked out of the class, Elle meets Emmett, who gives her advice for handling each of her professors. Vivian invites Elle to a costume party, and Elle shows up in a playboy bunny suit, when it is actually not a costume party. Elle tells Warner that she intends to apply for one of her professor's internships, but Warner tells her that she won't be accepted and that she's just wasting her time. Elle realizes that Warner will never take her back. She finds motivation to prove herself. Determined to succeed against the odds, Elle studies diligently and eventually receives an internship at the legal office of Callahan, the school's most respected professor, who is defending a prominent fitness instructor named Brooke Windham. Accused of murdering her husband, Brooke is unwilling to produce an alibi. The prosecution's main witness, a pool cleaner, claims that he was having an affair with Brooke, and that the two were going to run off with Brooke's husband's money. In fact, Brooke reveals to Elle that she was having liposuction during the murder, but forces her to keep the alibi a secret as it would ruin her career and reputation. Impressed by Elle's ingenuity, Vivian befriends her and admits to certain things about Warner that even Elle never knew about. Elle, using her fashion sense, deduces that the pool cleaner is gay, but Callahan dismisses her theory. However, Emmett, Callahan's junior partner, believes her and during cross-examination tricks the pool cleaner into confessing his homosexuality, thereby undermining the case for Brooke's guilt. Callahan later makes advances toward Elle, but she rejects him. Overhearing his attempted seduction, Vivian is angered and blames Elle for using sex to further her career. Elle, frustrated by these events, contemplates leaving law school, but Professor Stromwell restores her self-esteem. Meanwhile, Brooke demands to know why Elle is missing from the team. When Emmett explains Callahan's behavior, an enraged Brooke decides to fire Callahan and Vivian learns the truth. Elle, having been hired back, conducts an aggressive cross-examination of Brooke's step-daughter Chutney, forcing her to confess that she was the one who killed Brooke's husband, but had intended to kill Brooke because she resented the fact that her father married someone her age. Brooke is exonerated and Chutney is arrested. Elle rejects Warner, claiming that she needs a man who loves her for her and not someone who acted like a bonehead. Two years later, Elle gives the graduation speech at her law school as class elected speaker. Vivian, meanwhile, has broken up with Warner, who graduated "without honors and without a job offer." Emmett has fallen out with Callahan, started his own firm, and has been dating Elle for two years and intends to propose to her.

Pascal, a physician in Plassans for 30 years, has spent his life cataloging and chronicling the lives of his family based on his theories of heredity. Pascal believes that everyone's physical and mental health and development can be classified based on the interplay between innateness (reproduction of characteristics based in difference) and heredity (reproduction based in similarity). Using his own family as a case study, Pascal classifies the 30 descendants of his grandmother Adelaïde Fouque (Tante Dide) based on this model. Pascal has developed a serum he hopes will cure hereditary and nervous diseases (including consumption) and improve if not prolong life. His niece Clotilde sees Pascal's work as denying the omnipotence of God and as a prideful attempt to comprehend the unknowable. She encourages him to destroy his work, but he refuses. (Like other members of the family, Pascal is somewhat obsessive in the pursuit of his passion.) Pascal's explains his goal as a scientist as laying the groundwork for happiness and peace by seeking and uncovering the truth, which he believes lies in the science of heredity. After he shows her the Rougon-Macquart family tree and demonstrates his refusal to sugarcoat the family's acts, Clotilde begins to agree with him. Her love for him solidifies her faith in his theories and his lifelong work. Clotilde and Pascal eventually begin a romance, much to the chagrin of his mother Félicité. (She is less concerned about the incestuous nature of the relationship than by the fact that the two are living together out of wedlock.) Félicité wants to keep the family secrets buried at any cost, including several family skeletons living nearby: her alcoholic brother-in-law Antoine Macquart and her centenarian mother-in-law Tante Dide. When Clotilde's brother Maxime asks Clotilde to come to Paris, Félicité sees this as an opportunity to control Pascal and access his papers to destroy them. Pascal suffers a series of heart attacks, and Clotilde is not able to return from Paris before he dies. Félicité immediately burns all of Pascal's scholarly work and the documents she considers incriminating. The novel, and the entire 20-novel series, concludes with the birth of Pascal and Clotilde's son and the hope placed on him for the future of the family.

In 1969, child prodigy William Miller struggles to fit in with the world. His widowed mother Elaine – who has led him to believe he is 12 years old, until Williams older sister, Anita, tells their mother to tell the truth, his age is actually 11, from being placed into First Grade at the age of 5, and skipped 5th grade. Their mother strictly controls and protects him and his older sister Anita, forbidding rock music and other unwelcome influences, driving Anita to leave home and become a flight attendant. In 1973, 15-year-old William, influenced by the rock albums left by his sister, aspires to be a rock journalist, writing freelance articles for underground papers in San Diego. Rock journalist Lester Bangs, impressed with his writing, gives him a $35 assignment to review a Black Sabbath concert. He can't get backstage, but opening band Stillwater arrives, and after he flatters them with critical praise they bring him along. Lead guitarist Russell Hammond takes a liking to him, partly because of William's new friendship with veteran groupie Penny Lane, though she prefers the term Band-Aid. Feigning retirement from her glory days, she takes William under her wing, but only to get close to Russell, for whom she has genuine feelings. William is contacted by Ben Fong-Torres, editor of Rolling Stone, who believes him to be older and hires him to write a story. He convinces Ben to let him write about Stillwater, and he is instructed to go on the road with them. Tensions between Russell and lead singer Jeff Bebe are evident. William begins to interview the members of the band, but Russell repeatedly puts it off. Penny watches the interaction and sympathizes with William, whom they joking call "the enemy" because he's a journalist, but he quickly becomes part of their inner circle as he loses his objectivity. The band experiences problems with promoters and venues on the tour, and hires Dennis, a professional manager. Penny is told she must leave them before New York, where Russell's ex-wife/girlfriend Leslie will join them. Stillwater "loses" Penny's three protégé groupies to another band in a poker game; she acts nonchalant but is devastated. Also, Dennis has chartered a small plane to allow them to play more gigs than their tour bus does, and there is no room on it for Penny, who is left behind. However, Penny goes to New York on her own, and shows up at the restaurant where the band is celebrating the news that they will be featured on the cover of Rolling Stone. Leslie notices her apparent attempts to get Russell's attention, and Penny is asked to leave. William chases her back to her hotel, where he saves her from overdosing on quaaludes. The next day, the band flies to another gig, but the plane encounters severe weather. Believing they are about to die, members of the group confess their secrets to one another, bringing the conflicts between Jeff and Russell into the open. Jeff insults Penny, but William defends her and confesses that he loves her. The plane lands safely, leaving everyone to ponder the changed atmosphere. William leaves the group, to finish the article at the Rolling Stone office in San Francisco, writing the whole truth about what he has observed. Fearful the story will damage the band's image, Russell tells the magazine's fact-checker that the boy's story is untrue, killing the article and crushing William emotionally. William's sister happens to encounter him sitting dejected in the airport, and offers to take him anywhere in the world; he chooses to go home to San Diego, where their mother is overcome to have them back. One of the groupies chastises Russell for what he did to William. Russell calls Penny and asks to meet with her, but she tricks him, giving him William's home address instead. He is forced to face William and apologizes; William finally gets his interview, and Russell reverses himself and confirms William's article to Rolling Stone, which runs it as a cover feature. Meanwhile, Penny purchases a ticket to Morocco, fulfilling her long-standing fantasy.

Ojo the very unlucky, is a young Munchkin boy who, devoted to life with his uncle Unc Nunkie in the wilderness but on the verge of starvation, goes to see a neighboring "magician" and old friend of Unc, Dr. Pipt. While there they see a demonstration of the Pipt-made Powder of Life, which animates any object it touches after saying the magic words. Unc Nunkie and Dr. Pipt's wife are also the sufferers of the consequences of another of the Doctor's inventions, the Liquid of Petrifaction, which turns them into solid marble statues. The remainder of this book is Ojo's quest through Oz to collect the five components of an antidote to the Liquid: a six-leaved clover found only in the Emerald City, three hairs from the tip of a Woozy's tail, a gill (a quarter of a pint) of water from a dark well (one that remains untouched by natural light), a drop of oil from a live man's body, and the left wing of a yellow butterfly. With the help of the life-size patchwork doll named Scraps, Bungle the snobbish Glass Cat (another of Dr. Pipt's creations), the Woozy, Dorothy, the Shaggy Man, and the Scarecrow, Ojo gathers all of these supplies but the left wing – the Tin Woodman, who rules the yellow Winkie Country, which is the only place where yellow butterflies grow, will not allow any living thing to be killed, even to save another's life. The party returns to the Emerald City, where the Wizard of Oz (one of the few allowed to lawfully practice magic in Oz) uses his own magic to restore Unc Nunkie and Dr. Pipt's wife. The story is also a growth process for Ojo; he learns that luck is not a matter of who you are or what you have, but what you do; he is renamed "Ojo the Lucky," and so he appears in the following Oz books.

Thirty years after a nuclear apocalypse, Eli (Denzel Washington) travels on foot toward the west coast of the former United States. Along the way he demonstrates uncanny survival and fighting skills, hunting wildlife and swiftly defeating a group of desert bandits who try to ambush him. Searching for water, he arrives in a ramshackle town rebuilt and overseen by Carnegie (Gary Oldman). Carnegie dreams of building more towns and of controlling the people by using the power of a certain book. His henchmen scour the desolate landscape daily in search of it, but to no avail. In town he barters with a store owner, the Engineer (Tom Waits), to recharge the battery of his portable music player. While waiting, he goes across the street to the town bar, where a gang of bikers attack, but he quickly kills them all. Realizing Eli is a literate man like himself, Carnegie asks Eli to stay, making it clear that the offer is non-negotiable. After Carnegie's blind mistress Claudia (Jennifer Beals) gives Eli some food and water, Carnegie orders Claudia's daughter Solara (Mila Kunis) to seduce Eli, but he turns her down. While killing time, she finds his book. Unperturbed, Eli offers to share his food with her, and before they eat, he says grace. The following day, Solara repeats the prayer, but Carnegie overhears them and realizes Solara's words relate to the book he has been seeking. He soon forces Solara to tell him if Eli was reading a book, and realizes Eli's book is the one he wants—a Bible. Eli sneaks out of his room and Carnegie has his henchmen shoot at Eli, but the bullets seemingly just graze him, as if he is being protected. Eli shoots most of Carnegie's men and hits Carnegie in the leg with a shotgun blast. Solara, having left the town, leads Eli to a cave which is the town's water supply, hoping she can accompany him on his travels. Eli traps her inside and continues on alone. Solara escapes and soon finds herself ambushed by two bandits who attempt to rape her, but Eli reappears and kills them. As they continue on, Eli explains his mission to Solara. According to Eli, his book is the last remaining copy of the Bible, as all other copies were intentionally destroyed following the nuclear war thirty years ago. He says he was led to the book by a voice in his head, which then directed him to travel westward to a place where it would be safe. The voice assured him that he would be protected and guided on his journey. Eventually, Eli and Solara investigate an isolated house. They fall into a trap, but manage to allay the suspicions of the residents, George (Michael Gambon) and Martha (Frances de la Tour), who invite them in for tea. When Eli realizes that the couple are cannibals, they attempt to leave just as Carnegie and his henchmen arrive. In the ensuing shootout, George, Martha and many of Carnegie's men are killed. Eli and Solara are captured. When Carnegie threatens to kill Solara, Eli surrenders the Bible, but Carnegie shoots him, and leaves him for dead. Solara escapes and drives back to help Eli. Rather than chase her, Carnegie returns to the town, since his sole remaining vehicle is running low on fuel. Solara finds Eli, and they drive until they reach the Golden Gate Bridge, and then row to Alcatraz Island, where they find a group intent on preserving what they can of literature and music. Eli tells the guards that he has a copy of the King James Version of the Bible. Once inside, Eli, revealed to be blind, begins to dictate the Bible from memory to Lombardi (Malcolm McDowell), the leader of the group. Meanwhile, back in the town, the Engineer opens the locked Bible where Carnegie discovers, to his dismay, that it is in Braille, and orders Claudia to read it to him. She pretends that she cannot remember how to read braille, telling Carnegie his leg wound has become infected and his men have begun to run amok. At the sanctuary, Eli has died, but not before he finished reciting the entire book. The printing press at Alcatraz begins producing copies of the Bible, and Lombardi places one on a bookshelf between the Torah and Tanakh on one side and the Quran on the other. Solara, though offered sanctuary, chooses to return home, taking with her Eli's sword and other possessions.

Calchas, a soothsayer, foresees the fall of Troy and abandons the city in favour of the Greeks; his daughter, Criseyde, receives some ill will on account of her father's betrayal. Troilus, a warrior of Troy, publicly mocks love and is punished by the God of Love by being struck with irreconcilable desire for Criseyde, whom he sees passing through the temple. With the help of sly Pandarus, Criseyde's uncle, Troilus and Criseyde begin to exchange letters. Eventually, Pandarus develops a plan to urge the two into bed together; Troilus swoons when he thinks the plan is going amiss, but Pandarus and Criseyde revive him. Pandarus leaves, and Troilus and Criseyde spend a night of bliss together. Calchas eventually persuades the Greeks to exchange a prisoner of war, Antenor, for his daughter Criseyde. Hector, of Troy, objects; as does Troilus, although he does not voice his concern. Troilus speaks to Criseyde and suggests they elope but she offers a logical argument as to why it would not be practical. Criseyde promises to deceive her father and return to Troy after ten days; Troilus leaves her with a sense of foreboding. Upon arriving in the Greek camp, Criseyde realizes the unlikeliness of her being able to keep her promise to Troilus. She writes dismissively in response to his letters and on the tenth day accepts a meeting with Diomede, and listens to him speak of love. Later, she accepts him as a lover. Pandarus and Troilus wait for Criseyde: Pandarus sees that she will not return and eventually Troilus realizes this as well. Troilus curses Fortune, even more so because he still loves Criseyde; Pandarus offers some condolences. The narrator, with an apology for giving women a bad name, bids farewell to his book, and briefly recounts Troilus's death in battle and his ascent to the eighth sphere, draws a moral about the transience of earthly joys and the inadequacy of paganism, dedicates his poem to Gower and Strode, asks the protection of the Trinity, and prays that we be worthy of Christ's mercy.

The play tells the story of Nikolai Ivanov, a man struggling to regain his former glory. For the past five years, he has been married to Anna Petrovna, a disinherited 'jewess', who has become very ill. Ivanov's estate is run by a distant relative, Mikhail Borkin, who is frequently advising people on how he can help them make money. The doctor, Lvov, an 'honest' man as he frequently reminds the rest of the cast, informs Ivanov that his wife is dying of Tuberculosis, and that she needs to recover by going to the Crimea. Unfortunately, Ivanov is unable, and unwilling, to pay for the trip. He is heavily in debt and already owes Zinaida Lebedeva 9000 roubles. Ivanov is criticised for heartlessness and for spending time with the Lebedevs instead of his seriously ill wife. At the end of Act One, Ivanov departs to visit the Lebedevs', and unbeknown to him is followed by Anna and Lvov. Act Two shows a party at Lebedevs', and features various people discussing Ivanov. They say his only motive for marrying Anna was for the large dowry; however, when she married him, she was forced to convert from Judaism to Russian Orthodox and was disowned. Lebedev is married to Zinaida, who manages his money-lending, and they have a daughter, Sasha, who is infatuated with Ivanov. She throws herself at Ivanov and he is unable to resist: the act concludes with the two kissing. Unfortunately, Anna arrives unexpectedly at just this moment and witnesses the betrayal. Act Three shows a number of conversations between Ivanov and other members of the cast – Lebedev begs Ivanov to repay his debts, and Lvov confronts Ivanov once again about the heartless way he treats Anna. Sasha then appears, concerned by Ivanov's refusal to visit since the incident at the end of Act Two. The act then ends with Anna confronting Ivanov about Sasha's visit, and about how he has lied and cheated on her for the entirety of their marriage. Ivanov's anger is aroused by the false accusation and in a fit of anger he reveals to her that she is dying. Act Four occurs around a year after the previous acts. Anna has died, and Ivanov and Sasha are preparing to marry. As the wedding is about to begin, Lvov appears, planning to unveil Ivanov's 'evil' intentions – believing Ivanov is simply marrying Sasha for the dowry. He makes the accusation publicly and even though other characters have previously expressed doubts they all leap to Ivanov's defence and challenge Lvov to duels. Ivanov finds the whole situation amusing, returning to his old self, and takes out his gun. Sasha realises what he is about to do, but is unable to stop him: Ivanov runs away from the crowd and shoots himself, abruptly ending the play.

Robert Scott is a former Force Recon Master Gunnery Sergeant, acting as a selection cadre member for Delta Force. While observing an exercise designed to evaluate Delta candidates, Scott meets a recruit, Curtis, as well as Sergeant Jacqueline Black, a knife-fighting instructor. Scott is drawn into a clandestine operation to find Laura Newton, the President's daughter, who is missing. Their search takes them to a bar where girls are recruited as prostitutes, and Scott's team follows a middleman to a bordello that funnels some of these girls to an international sex slavery ring. The madam gives them a contact number leading to a pay phone. Calls placed to the pay phone are traced back to Tariq Asani, a Lebanese national currently in federal prison. They plan to intercept Asani during a prisoner transport and gain information from him about the sex trafficking operation. When the car carrying Asani and another prisoner stops en route to its destination, Scott shows up and appears to kill the transport guard, then kills the other prisoner (who was on death row). He spares Asani when Asani says he can get them on a plane out of the country that night and confirms the sex slavery ring is based in Dubai. Scott stops at a convenience store to relay the information to the team. Curtis provides him with more ammunition, but Asani, waiting in the car, happens to spot the badge of another agent talking with Curtis and opens fire. Curtis is wounded and Scott has to kill Asani. As the team prepares an assault in Dubai, a news broadcast reports that Laura and her college professor were discovered drowned while sailing off the coast of Martha's Vineyard. The rescue operation is called off. Scott returns home, but Curtis tracks him down and persuades him that Laura is alive and shows Scott an earring that was caught in his mat from the beach house identical to those Laura is wearing in a news photograph. When they return to the beach house, Curtis is killed by a sniper. Scott evades the sniper and finds Laura's unique sign in a window in the beach house indicating she was there, he realizes that she is not dead. He takes his pager and phone apart and finds a tracking device. He tries to contact Laura's mother but he is intercepted by a female Secret Service agent assigned to guard the First Family. When he shows the agent the earring, the agent explains that for years the President has used visits to his daughter as a cover for extramarital affairs, and that he pulled Laura's Secret Service detail to use as extra protection for himself during the latest trip. Scott enlists Sergeant Black to help him rescue the girl from Dubai and turns to Avi, a former Israeli operative. Avi agrees to get him into Dubai and smuggle Laura out concealed in a cargo container, obtaining weapons for him and support from a man known as Jones. Jones is killed during the rescue and Scott flees with Laura to a safe house, where he persuades her that although he is alone, he is acting under orders. Correctly guessing that he is really acting on his own, Laura says that King Leonidas of Sparta would respond to requests for help from neighboring kingdoms by sending one man, and decides to trust him. When he takes Laura to the airport to seal her in the cargo container, Scott discovers he is being tracked when he finds a transmitter hidden in his knife. He rushes her out of the container just as his old team arrives to apprehend them. Scott is shot and Laura is captured. Her captor reveals herself as Sgt. Black, who shows her the earring and photos from the Secret Service agent, convincing Laura to stop struggling. A Swedish news crew witnesses the struggle as they are about to board their own plane nearby, and recognize Laura. Black is shot by Stoddard, and a hysterical Laura is hustled to safety aboard the journalists' plane. Just as the jet takes off, Stoddard's throat is slit by Scott. An injured Black then asks Scott if Laura is now safe, which Scott confirms. Later, on a London city street, a stubbled Scott is shown watching an evening news broadcast regarding Laura's return on a television in a shop window. The government spins the story of Laura's kidnapping as an opportunity for the President to take action to end the trafficking of American girls as sex slaves. A British man watching the news broadcast with Scott then says, "Time to go home," and walks away. Scott watches him leave and says, "Lucky man." Scott is then seen walking off into Piccadilly Circus.

Nick Conklin is a New York City police officer facing possible criminal charges; Internal Affairs believes Nick was involved with his partner who was caught taking criminal money in a corruption scandal. Nick is divorced from his wife, who has custody of their two children. Nick also has financial difficulties. At a restaurant, Nick and his partner Charlie Vincent observe two Japanese men meet with Mafia gangsters. Nick's suspicions are validated when another Japanese man enters the restaurant, seizes a small package at gunpoint, kills two people, and leaves. Nick and Charlie chase and arrest the suspect after he nearly kills Nick. The suspect, a Yakuza gangster named Sato, is to be extradited to Osaka and given to the police there. Though angered Sato will not be prosecuted in the US, Nick agrees to escort him. Nick’s captain believes it will keep Nick from causing more trouble and exacerbating the already biased Internal Affairs investigation. When they arrive in Osaka, they surrender Sato to the Japanese police, only to be told that they were duped by impostors. Nick convinces the Osaka police to allow them to observe the investigation, though their weapons are confiscated. They are assigned to Masahiro Matsumoto. Nick behaves rudely and offends Matsumoto, while Charlie attempts to be more polite. Nick also makes contact with an American nightclub hostess, Joyce, who explains that Nick and Charlie represent American inefficiency and stupidity to the Japanese. Through her, Nick discovers Sato is fighting a gang war with a notorious crime boss, Sugai, and traveled to New York to disrupt Sugai's counterfeiting scheme. Nick joins a police raid without permission and takes a few $100 bills from the crime scene. The next day, Matsumoto explains they have dishonored themselves, him, and the police force by his theft, which has been reported in America; Nick calls him a snitch and demonstrates the money is counterfeit by burning one of the bills. At night, Nick and Charlie walk back to their hotel drunk and unescorted, despite warnings about their safety. In an apparent prank, a young motorcyclist steals Charlie's coat and leads him to an underground parking garage. Separated from Charlie, Nick watches in horror as Sato and several others briefly torture and kill him. Joyce comforts the distraught Nick at her apartment. Later, Mastumoto hands him Charlie's service pistol. As Matsumoto and Nick trail one of Sato's operatives, Nick admits he stole money in New York. The operative retrieves a sample counterfeit note, which she passes to a gangster. Nick and Matsumoto tail him to a steel foundry, where they find Sato is meeting Sugai, and the package from New York is a printing plate for American $100 bills. Nick confronts Sato, who escapes when swarming police arrest Nick for waving a gun in public. Though deported, Nick sneaks off the plane to pursue Sato on his own, as Matsumoto has been suspended and demoted. Joyce helps him meet Sugai, who explains that making counterfeit US currency is his revenge for the "black rain", or nuclear fallout, after the bombing of Hiroshima in World War II. Nick suggests a deal where Sugai can use Nick to retrieve the stolen plate from Sato, leaving Sugai's reputation and hands clean. Sugai drops Nick at a remote farm with a shotgun. Matsumoto arrives, and they deduce Sato plans a massacre. During a meeting with Sugai, Sato cuts off one of his fingers in atonement, stabs Sugai, and escapes with the plates, prompting a gunfight between Sugai's and Sato's men. Sato escapes the fight on a dirt bike, Nick pursues, and the two fight briefly. Nick gains the advantage and, having Sato at his mercy, has the choice of whether or not to kill Sato for Charlie and all the humiliation he has suffered. Matsumoto and Nick walk a handcuffed Sato into police headquarters to the amazement of everyone and later receive commendations, which Nick accepts gratefully. Before boarding his flight home, Nick thanks Matsumoto for his assistance and friendship, and gives him a dress shirt in a gift box. Underneath it, Matsumoto finds the counterfeit printing plates.

Trinity, an infamous hacker, is cornered by police in an abandoned hotel. She overpowers them with superhuman abilities and escapes, but a group of sinister and superhuman black-suited Agents lead the police in a rooftop pursuit. She answers a ringing public telephone and vanishes. Thomas Anderson is a computer programmer living a double life under the hacker alias "Neo". He believes something is wrong with the world and is puzzled by repeated online encounters with the cryptic phrase "the Matrix". Trinity contacts him, saying that a man named Morpheus can explain its meaning; however, the Agents, led by Agent Smith, apprehend Neo at his office. Undeterred, Neo meets Morpheus, who offers him a choice between a red pill that will allow him to learn the truth about the Matrix, and a blue pill that will return him to his old life. Swallowing the red pill, Neo's reality disintegrates and he awakens, naked and weak, in a liquid-filled pod, finding himself one of countless people connected by cables to an elaborate electrical system. He is rescued and brought aboard Morpheus's hovercraft, the Nebuchadnezzar. Morpheus explains that, in the 21st century, humans waged a war against intelligent machines that they had created. When humans blocked the machines' access to solar energy, the machines began to harvest the humans' bioelectricity for power. The Matrix is a shared simulation of the world as it was in 1999 in which the minds of the harvested humans are trapped and pacified; Neo has been living in it since birth. Morpheus and his crew belong to a group of rebels who hack into the Matrix and "unplug" enslaved humans, recruiting them as rebels. The rebels' understanding of the true nature of the simulated reality allows them to bend its physical laws, granting them superhuman abilities. Neo is warned that fatal injuries within the Matrix will also kill one's physical body, and that the Agents he encountered are powerful sentient programs that eliminate threats to the system. Neo's skill during virtual combat training lends credence to Morpheus's belief that Neo is "the One", a man prophesied to lead the insurrection of enslaved humans against the machines. The group enters the Matrix to visit the Oracle, a prophet who predicted the emergence of the One. She implies that Neo is not the One, and warns Neo that he will soon have to choose between his life and the life of Morpheus. Before they can leave the Matrix, the group is ambushed by Agents and tactical police. Morpheus allows himself to be captured so that Neo and the crew can escape. However, their getaway is hindered by Cypher, a crew member who betrayed Morpheus to Agent Smith in exchange for a comfortable life within the Matrix. Cypher disconnects and murders several crew members as they lie defenseless in the real world, before he is killed by Tank, a crewman whom he had left for dead. In the Matrix, the Agents interrogate Morpheus in an attempt to learn his access codes to the mainframe computer in Zion, the rebel humans' last refuge in the real world. Tank proposes killing Morpheus to prevent this, but Neo, who believes that he is not the One, instead resolves to return to the Matrix to rescue Morpheus, and Trinity insists on accompanying him. They succeed in rescuing Morpheus, and in doing so Neo gains the necessary confidence in his abilities, performing feats on par with those of the Agents. Morpheus and Trinity exit the Matrix, but Smith ambushes and kills Neo before he can leave. In the real world, "sentinel" machines attack the Nebuchadnezzar, while Trinity stands over Neo and whispers to him that the Oracle told her that she would fall in love with the One. She kisses Neo, and he revives, this time with the power to perceive and control the Matrix. He effortlessly destroys Smith and leaves the Matrix in time for the ship's electromagnetic pulse weapon to disable the attacking sentinels. Some time later, Neo makes a telephone call in the Matrix, promising the machines that he will show their prisoners "a world where anything is possible". He hangs up and flies into the sky.

Dr. Malcolm Crowe, a child psychologist in Philadelphia, returns home one night with his wife, Anna, after having been honored for his work. Anna tells Crowe that everything is second to his work, and that she believes he is truly gifted. Just then, a young man appears in their bathroom, and accuses Crowe of failing him. Crowe recognizes him as Vincent Grey, a former patient whom he treated as a child for hallucinations. After Crowe realizes he did fail him, Vincent shoots his former doctor before killing himself. The next fall, Crowe begins working with another patient, 9-year-old Cole Sear, whose case is similar to Vincent's. Crowe becomes dedicated to the boy, though he is haunted by doubts over his ability to help him after his failure with Vincent. Meanwhile, he and his wife seldom, if ever, speak or do anything together. Crowe feels he must help Cole in order to rectify his failure to help Vincent and reconcile with his wife. Cole's mother, Lynn, who truly loves him, worries about his social stamina, especially after seeing signs of physical abuse. Cole eventually confides his secret to Crowe: he sees ghosts, who walk around like the living unaware they are dead. At first, Crowe thinks Cole is delusional and considers dropping him. Remembering Vincent, the psychologist listens to an audiotape from a session with Vincent when he was a child. On the tape, when Crowe leaves the room, and then returns, Vincent was crying. Turning up the volume, Crowe hears a weeping man begging for help in Spanish, and now believes that Cole is telling the truth and that Vincent may have had the same ability. He suggests to Cole that he should try to find a purpose for his gift by communicating with the ghosts and perhaps aid them with their unfinished business. At first, Cole is unwilling since the ghosts terrify and sometimes even threaten him, but he finally decides to do it. Cole talks to one of the ghosts, Kyra Collins, a young girl who recently died after a chronic illness. He goes with Crowe to her funeral reception at her home, where Kyra directs him to a box holding a videotape, which he then gives to her father. The tape shows Kyra's mother putting a cleaning fluid in her soup. By proving she was a victim of Munchausen syndrome by proxy, Cole has saved Kyra's younger sister, the mother's next victim. Learning to live with the ghosts he sees, Cole starts to fit in at school and gets the lead in the school play, which Crowe attends. The doctor and patient depart on positive terms and Cole suggests to Crowe that he should try speaking to Anna while she is asleep. Later, while stuck in a traffic jam, Cole confesses his secret to his mother, saying that someone died in an accident up ahead and he knows because the person is right next to him. Lynn does not see the recently deceased, but Cole sees a woman cyclist with blood dripping down her face. Although his mother at first does not believe him, Cole proves his ability to her by talking about how his grandmother visits him. He describes how his grandmother saw his mother in a dance performance, even though Lynn thought her mother was not there. He further relays the answer to a question his mother privately asked at her mother's grave. When Cole says that his grandmother feels proud of Lynn, his mother tearfully accepts the truth and they hug each other. Crowe returns home, where he finds his wife asleep with their wedding video playing. While still asleep, Anna asks her husband why he left her, and drops Crowe's wedding ring, which he suddenly discovers he has not been wearing. He remembers what Cole said about ghosts and realizes that he was actually killed by Vincent that night, and was unknowingly dead the entire time he was working with Cole. Because of Cole's efforts, Crowe's unfinished business – rectifying his failure to understand and help Vincent – is finally complete. Crowe fulfills the second reason he returned: to tell his wife she was never second, and that he loves her. His goal complete, he is free to leave the world of the living.

Best friends Enid and Rebecca face the summer after their high school graduation. The girls are social outcasts, but Rebecca is more popular with boys than Enid. Enid's diploma is withheld on the condition that she attend a remedial art class. Even though she is a talented artist, her art teacher, Roberta (Illeana Douglas), believes that art must be socially meaningful and dismisses Enid's sketches as nothing more than "light entertainment." The girls see a personal ad in which a lonely, middle-aged man named Seymour (Steve Buscemi) asks a woman he met recently to contact him. Enid makes a prank phone call to Seymour, pretending to be the woman and inviting him to meet her at a diner. The two girls and their friend, Josh (Brad Renfro), secretly watch Seymour at the diner and make fun of him. Enid soon begins to feel sympathy for Seymour, and a few days later the girls follow him to his apartment building. They find him selling vintage records in a garage sale. Enid buys an old blues album from him, and they become friends. She decides to try and find women for him to date. Enid has meanwhile been attending her remedial art class, and she persuades Seymour to lend her an old poster depicting a grotesquely caricatured black man, which was once used as a promotional tool by Coon Chicken Inn, the fried chicken franchise now known as "Cook's Chicken", where Seymour works in a managerial position. Enid presents the poster in class as a social comment about racism, and Roberta is so impressed with the concept that she offers Enid a scholarship to an art college. Seymour receives a phone call from Dana (Stacey Travis), the intended recipient of his personal ad. Enid encourages him to pursue a relationship with Dana, but she becomes unexpectedly jealous when he does so. Enid and Rebecca's lives start to diverge. While Enid has been spending time with Seymour, Rebecca has found a job at a coffee shop and has become more interested in clothing, boys and other typically traditional teenage obsessions. Enid also finds herself a job so she can afford to rent an apartment with Rebecca, but she is fired after only one day. The girls argue, and Rebecca abandons the idea of living with Enid. At the end of the summer, Enid and Seymour's lives fall apart. When Enid's poster is displayed in an art show, school officials find it so offensive they force Roberta to give her a failing grade and revoke the scholarship. Enid turns to Seymour for solace, resulting in a drunken one-night stand. Seymour breaks up with Dana, and is called to account at work when the Coon Chicken poster is publicized in a local newspaper. He unsuccessfully tries to contact Enid, only for Rebecca to tell him about Enid's prank phone call, describing the way the trio mocked him at the diner. Seymour is understandably upset and ends up confronting Josh. Seymour is injured while doing so and is hospitalized. Enid visits Seymour in an effort to apologize, causing him to realize that he has no chance of any kind of future with her. Enid gives in to her childhood fantasy of running away from home and disappearing. Throughout the film, she has seen an old man named Norman (Charles C. Stevenson Jr.), who waits at an out-of-service bus stop for a bus that will never come. Enid sits next to him, and Norman boards an out-of-service bus. The next day, while Seymour discusses the summer's events with his therapist, Enid returns to the bus stop and boards the out-of-service bus when it arrives.

Lincoln opened his speech by first indicating that he would not touch on "those matters of administration about which there is no special anxiety or excitement." The remainder of the speech would address the concerns of Southerners, who were apprehensive that "by the accession of a Republican Administration their property and their peace and personal security are to be endangered." Lincoln emphatically denied this assertion, and invited his listeners to consider his past speeches on the subject of slavery, together with the platform adopted by the Republican Party, which explicitly guaranteed the right of each individual state to decide for itself on the subject of slavery, together with the right of each state to be free from coercion of any kind from other states, or the Federal government. He went on to address several other points of particular interest at the time: Slavery: Lincoln stated emphatically that he had "...no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so." Legal status of the South: He asserted that as he had just taken an oath "to preserve, protect, and defend the United States Constitution", this oath enjoined him to see that the laws of the Union were faithfully executed in all states—including those that had seceded. Use of force: Lincoln promised that there would be no use of force against the South, unless it proved necessary for him to fulfill his obligation to "hold, occupy, and possess the property and places" belonging to the federal government, and to collect legal duties and imposts. However, if the South chose to actively take up arms against the Government, their insurrection would meet a firm and forceful response. Secession: Referring to words in the preamble to the Constitution, Lincoln stated that the Constitution was established "to form a more perfect union" than the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union had effected. Since the Union established under the Articles was explicitly perpetual in name and text, thus the Union under the Constitution was equally perpetual. He added that even if the Constitution were to be construed as a simple contract, it could not be legally rescinded without an agreement between all parties, meaning all of the states, North and South. Protection of slavery: Lincoln explicitly stated that he had no objection to the proposed Corwin Amendment to the Constitution, which had already been approved by both houses of the United States Congress. This amendment would have formally protected slavery in those states in which it already existed, and assured to each state the right to establish or repudiate it. Lincoln indicated that he thought that this right was already protected in the original Constitution, and thus that the Corwin Amendment merely reiterated what it already contained. Slavery in the Territories: Lincoln asserted that nothing in the Constitution expressly said what either could or could not be done regarding slavery in the territories. He indicated his willingness to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act, so long as free blacks could be protected from being kidnapped and illegally sold into slavery through its misuse. The postal service: The U.S. Mails would continue to operate throughout the South, "unless repelled." Federal offices in the South: With no professional civil service in operation during this period of American history, Lincoln promised that he would not use the spoils system to appoint Northern office-holders to federal offices, such as postmasterships, located in the Southern states. Instead, he said he would "forego the use of such offices" rather than force "obnoxious strangers" upon the South. Lincoln concluded his speech with an eloquent plea for calm and cool deliberation in the face of mounting tension throughout the nation. He assured the rebellious states that the Federal government would never initiate any conflict with them, and indicated his own conviction that once "touched" once more by "the better angels of our nature," the "mystic chords of memory" North and South would "yet swell the chorus of the Union."

Ford Fairlane (Andrew Dice Clay) is seen sitting on a beach smoking as the film opens. A flashback initiates, showing a roaring crowd at a concert given by fictional popular heavy metal band The Black Plague. Lead singer Bobby Black (Vince Neil) makes an eccentric entrance down a zip-line onto the stage and begins performing. Shortly into one of the band's songs, Bobby Black collapses on stage and dies. After the lead singer of The Black Plague is murdered onstage, shock-jock Johnny Crunch (Gilbert Gottfried), an old friend who came west with Fairlane, hires Ford to track down a mysterious teenage groupie named Zuzu Petals, who may have a connection to Black's death. Soon after hiring Fairlane, Crunch is electrocuted on the air. The world's hippest detective soon finds himself trading insults with ruthless record executive Julian Grendel (Wayne Newton), a clueless cop and former disco star (Ed O'Neill), a merciless hit man (Robert Englund) and countless ex-girlfriends out for his blood. Aiding and abetting Fairlane is loyal assistant Jazz (Lauren Holly) and a hip record producer (Morris Day) at the head of a bizarre lineup of suspects, victims, beautiful women and a koala as he finds himself hip-deep in the case of his life. The Macguffin of the film is three data CDs which, when read simultaneously, detail the illegal dealings of Julian Grendel, who was getting rich bootlegging his record company's music and murdered Bobby Black when he found out Black had acquired the CDs with the incriminating evidence. The first disc was with Colleen Sutton, the second with Zuzu Petals, and the third disc was hidden under the star for Art Mooney on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

In 1998, Los Angeles has become immensely crime-ridden and decadent, ultimately being directly governed and patrolled by the recently created United States Police Force. Two years later, on August 23, 2000, a massive earthquake strikes Los Angeles, the San Fernando Valley floods, and the Los Angeles area turns into an island from Malibu to Anaheim. An American presidential candidate who is also an outspoken theocrat has been saying that L.A. is sinful and has been punished by God. When he is elected President for life, he declares that anyone not conforming to the new "Moral America" laws he creates, which ban such things as tobacco, alcoholic beverages, recreational drugs, red meat, firearms, profanity, atheism, freedom of religion and extra-marital sex, will be stripped of their citizenship and deported to Los Angeles Island unless they repent and choose death by electrocution. A containment wall is built around the island, armed guards and watchtowers are posted, and those sent to the island are exiled permanently. In 2013, Cuervo Jones, a Shining Path Peruvian Revolutionary, seduces the President's daughter, Utopia, via a holographic system and brainwashes her into stealing her father's remote control to the "Sword of Damocles" super weapon—a series of satellites capable of rendering all electronic devices anywhere on the planet useless. The President intends to use the system to destroy America's enemies' ability to function and eventually dominate the world. While traveling aboard Air Force Three, Utopia leaves the plane in an escape pod and lands on L.A. Island to join with Cuervo. With the satellites under his control, Cuervo promises to take back America with the assistance of an allied invasion force of third world nations that are standing by to attack. Cuervo claims that if the President tries to stop him, he will "pull the plug" on the country and black out the capital. Cuervo also knows the secret world code that can knock out power for the entire planet. Snake Plissken is captured for another series of crimes and is scheduled to be exiled to Los Angeles Island. Upon his arrival for deportation, Snake meets the President and is offered the mission of retrieving the weapon. The President says he will give him a full pardon if he is successful. The President indicates he does not care if Utopia is returned or not, declaring her a traitor. To ensure his compliance, Snake is infected with the man-made Plutoxin 7 virus that will kill him within ten hours. If he completes the mission, Snake will be cured. Snake is given an assault rifle, a personal holographic projector, a thermal-camouflage overcoat, and a countdown clock for how long he has to live. Los Angeles is in ruins and a hotbed of crime. Snake sneaks into the city with a mini submarine that he loses when the platform it landed on crumbles, causing the sub to sink. Making his way across the island, Snake meets "Map to the Stars" Eddie, a swindler who sells interactive tours of L.A. Snake defeats Cuervo at his staging area of The Happy Kingdom By The Sea in Anaheim and takes the remote control. Snake leaves the island with Utopia and some other Cuervo resistors in a helicopter. Cuervo shoots at it with a rocket launcher just before Eddie kills him, but seeing the incoming rocket, Eddie leaps off the chopper, landing on an awning. The rocket hits the chopper and kills those in the back of the chopper but also causes a fire; Snake and Utopia bail out before it crashes. When the President's men reach the crash site, Snake intentionally hands off the wrong remote to the President while Utopia is taken to the electric chair despite her pleas for forgiveness. The Plutoxin 7 virus is revealed to be nothing more than a fast, hard-hitting case of the flu. The President tries using the satellites to stop a Cuban invasion force threatening Florida. Activating the remote, the President hears only Eddie's "Map to the Stars" intro over I Love L.A.. The President orders Snake's execution but Snake previously activated his hologram projector and the Snake that gets shot is an illusion. Snake activates the real control device, entering the world code, against pleas to stop. At the deportation center, Utopia expresses her surprise that Snake shut down the Earth and thus saved her. In the final scene Snake lights a cigarette and blows out the match used to light it, upon which he utters "Welcome to the human race," and the film ends.

The poem opens with a description of a village named Auburn, written in the past tense. Sweet Auburn! loveliest village of the plain; Where health and plenty cheered the labouring swain, Where smiling spring its earliest visit paid, And parting summer's lingering blooms delayed (lines 1–4). The poem then moves on to describe the village in its current state, reporting that it has been abandoned by its residents with its buildings ruined. Sunk are thy bowers in shapeless ruin all, And the long grass o'ertops the mouldering wall; And trembling, shrinking from the spoiler's hand, Far, far away thy children leave the land Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, Where wealth accumulates, and men decay (lines 47–52) After nostalgic descriptions of Auburn's parson, schoolmaster and alehouse, Goldsmith makes a direct attack on the usurpation of agricultural land by the wealthy: ... The man of wealth and pride Takes up a space that many poor supplied; Space for his lake, his park's extended bounds, Space for his horses, equipage, and hounds: The robe that wraps his limbs in silken sloth Has robbed the neighbouring fields of half their growth (lines 275–300) The poem later condemns the luxury and corruption of the city, and describes the fate of a country girl who moved there: Where the poor houseless shivering female lies. She once, perhaps, in village plenty blessed, Has wept at tales of innocence distressed; Her modest looks the cottage might adorn, Sweet as the primrose peeps beneath the thorn: Now lost to all; her friends, her virtue fled, Near her betrayer's door she lays her head, And, pinched with cold, and shrinking from the shower, With heavy heart deplores that luckless hour, When idly first, ambitious of the town, She left her wheel and robes of country brown. (Lines 326–36) Goldsmith then states that the residents of Auburn have not moved to the city, but have emigrated overseas. He describes these foreign lands as follows: Far different there from all that charmed before The various terrors of that horrid shore; Those blazing suns that dart a downward ray, And fiercely shed intolerable day (lines 345–8) The poem mentions "wild Altama", a river in Georgia, an American colony founded by James Oglethorpe to receive paupers and criminals from Britain. As the poem nears its end, Goldsmith gives a warning, before reporting that even Poetry herself has fled abroad: Even now the devastation is begun, And half the business of destruction done; Even now, methinks, as pondering here I stand, I see the rural virtues leave the land. Down where yon anchoring vessel spreads the sail (lines 395–9) The poem ends with the hope that Poetry can help those who have been exiled: Still let thy voice, prevailing over time, Redress the rigours of the inclement clime; Aid slighted truth with thy persuasive strain, Teach erring man to spurn the rage of gain; Teach him, that states of native strength possest, Tho' very poor, may still be very blest; That trade's proud empire hastes to swift decay, As ocean sweeps the labour'd mole away; While self-dependent power can time defy, As rocks resist the billows and the sky. (Lines 421–30)

A nameless narrator goes to Venice to find Juliana Bordereau, an old lover of Jeffrey Aspern, a famous and now dead American poet. The narrator presents himself to the old woman as a prospective lodger and is prepared to court her niece Miss Tita (renamed Miss Tina in later editions), a plain, somewhat naive spinster, in hopes of getting a look at some of Aspern's letters and other papers kept by Juliana. Miss Tita had denied the existence of any such papers in a letter to the narrator and his publishing partner, but he believes she was dissembling on instructions from Juliana. The narrator eventually discloses his intentions to Miss Tita, who promises to help him. Later, Juliana offers to sell a portrait miniature of Aspern to the narrator for an exorbitant price. She doesn't mention Jeffrey Aspern's name, but the narrator still believes she possesses some of his letters. When the old woman falls ill, the narrator ventures into her room and gets caught by Juliana as he is about to rifle her desk for the letters. Juliana calls the narrator a "publishing scoundrel" and collapses. The narrator flees, and when he returns some days later, he discovers that Juliana has died. Miss Tita hints that he can have the Aspern letters if he marries her. Again, the narrator flees. At first he feels he can never accept the proposal, but gradually he begins to change his mind. When he returns to see Miss Tita, she bids him farewell and tells him that she has burned all the letters one by one. The narrator never sees the precious papers, but he does send Miss Tita some money for the miniature portrait of Aspern that she gives him.

Act 1 is set in a chocolate house where Mirabell and Fainall have just finished playing cards. A footman comes and tells Mirabell that Waitwell (Mirabell's male servant) and Foible (Lady Wishfort's female servant) were married that morning. Mirabell tells Fainall about his love of Millamant and is encouraged to marry her. Witwoud and Petulant appear and Mirabell is informed that should Lady Wishfort marry, he will lose £6000 of Millamant's inheritance.He will only get this money if he can make Lady Wishfort consent to his and Millamant's marriage. Act 2 is set in St. James’ Park. Mrs. Fainall and Mrs. Marwood are discussing their hatred of men. Fainall appears and accuses Mrs. Marwood (with whom he is having an affair) of loving Mirabell (which she does). Meanwhile, Mrs. Fainall (Mirabell's former lover) tells Mirabell that she hates her husband, and they begin to plot to deceive Lady Wishfort into giving her consent to the marriage. Millamant appears in the park and, angry about the previous night (when Mirabell was confronted by Lady Wishfort), she tells Mirabell of her displeasure in his plan, which she only has a vague idea about. After she leaves, the newly wed servants appear and Mirabell reminds them of their roles in the plan. Acts 3, 4 and 5 are all set in the home of Lady Wishfort. We are introduced to Lady Wishfort who is encouraged by Foible to marry the supposed Sir Rowland – Mirabell's supposed uncle – so that Mirabell will lose his inheritance. Sir Rowland is, however, Waitwell in disguise, and the plan is to entangle Lady Wishfort in a marriage which cannot go ahead, because it would be bigamy, not to mention a social disgrace (Waitwell is only a serving man, Lady Wishfort an aristocrat). Mirabell will offer to help her out of the embarrassing situation if she consents to his marriage. Later, Mrs. Fainall discusses this plan with Foible, but this is overheard by Mrs. Marwood. She later tells the plan to Fainall, who decides that he will take his wife's money and go away with Mrs. Marwood. Mirabell and Millamant, equally strong-willed, discuss in detail the conditions under which they would accept each other in marriage (otherwise known as the "proviso scene"), showing the depth of their feeling for each other. Mirabell finally proposes to Millamant and, with Mrs. Fainall's encouragement (almost consent, as Millamant knows of their previous relations), Millamant accepts. Mirabell leaves as Lady Wishfort arrives, and she lets it be known that she wants Millamant to marry her nephew, Sir Wilfull Witwoud, who has just arrived from the countryside. Lady Wishfort later gets a letter telling her about the Sir Rowland plot. Sir Rowland takes the letter and accuses Mirabell of trying to sabotage their wedding. Lady Wishfort agrees to let Sir Rowland bring a marriage contract that night. By Act 5, Lady Wishfort has found out the plot, and Fainall has had Waitwell arrested. Mrs. Fainall tells Foible that her previous affair with Mirabell is now public knowledge. Lady Wishfort appears with Mrs. Marwood, whom she thanks for unveiling the plot. Fainall then appears and uses the information of Mrs. Fainall's previous affair with Mirabell and Millamant's contract to marry him to blackmail Lady Wishfort, telling that she should never marry and that she is to transfer her fortune to him. Lady Wishfort offers Mirabell her consent to the marriage if he can save her fortune and honour. Mirabell calls on Waitwell who brings a contract from the time before the marriage of the Fainalls in which Mrs. Fainall gives all her property to Mirabell. This neutralises the blackmail attempts, after which Mirabell restores Mrs. Fainall's property to her possession and then is free to marry Millamant with the full £6000 inheritance.

Bartley Alexander is a construction engineer and world-renowned builder of bridges undergoing a mid-life crisis. Although married to Winifred, Bartley resumes his acquaintance with a former lover, Hilda Burgoyne, in London. The affair gnaws at Bartley's sense of propriety and honor.Professor Wilson arrives at the Alexanders' house in Boston, Bartley Alexander having persuaded him to attend a Congress of Psychologists in the city. He is greeted by Winifred Alexander. When her husband comes home the men talk; Winifred plays the piano for them. The next day, she tells Wilson how she met her husband through her aunt. On Christmas Eve, the Alexanders prepare for Christmas dinner. Bartley tells Wilson he is having trouble with a bridge in Canada. Later he gives his wife pearl earrings. On New Year's Day, Alexander makes ready to leave for London. On the ship, he endures sharp gales and goes into a bar, where he gambles at bridge, the card game. In London, Bartley visits Hilda and tells her he cannot go on having two relationships; she must forget about him and leave him alone. She is distressed. The day before he is due to return to America however, he takes her out to dinner. Later, Hugh MacConnell walks Hilda back to her house on a foggy day. She says she isn't attracted to him; they are just close friends. In her house, she receives a letter from Bartley, saying he is going mad away from her. This prompts her to visit him in America to tell him she will marry another man; Bartley doesn't like the idea. They spend one last evening together. Soon afterward, Philip Horton calls Bartley to Canada to inspect the bridge. Bartley discovers that one of the lower chords is failing, compromising the structural integrity of the entire bridge. Horton, concerned not to halt construction, had attempted to contact Bartley earlier – the very day Bartley was with Hilda. As Bartley is on the bridge stopping the work crews, the bridge collapses, killing many of the workers. Bartley's body is recovered the next day and taken to Horton's house. Winifred comes back to make arrangements for her husband's corpse. Finally, Wilson visits Hilda. The latter expresses her envy of Winifred. Wilson reminds her that Winifred is now bereft and will be haunted by Bartley's death. Hilda concludes that she will be too.

The subject of Cratylus is the correctness of names (περὶ ὀνομάτων ὀρθότητος), in other words, it is a critique on the subject of naming (Baxter). When discussing a ὄνομα (onoma ) and how it would relate to its subject, Socrates compares the original creation of a word to the work of an artist. An artist uses color to express the essence of his subject in a painting. In much the same way, the creator of words uses letters containing certain sounds to express the essence of a word's subject. There is a letter that is best for soft things, one for liquid things, and so on. He comments; the best possible way to speak consists in using names all (or most) of which are like the things they name (that is, are appropriate to them), while the worst is to use the opposite kind of names. One countering position, held by Hermogenes, is that names have come about due to custom and convention. They do not express the essence of their subject, so they can be swapped with something unrelated by the individuals or communities who use them. The line between the two perspectives is often blurred. During more than half of the dialogue, Socrates makes guesses at Hermogenes' request as to where names and words have come from. These include the names of the Olympian gods, personified deities, and many words that describe abstract concepts. He examines whether, for example, giving names of "streams" to Cronus and Rhea (Ροή – flow or space) are purely accidental. Don't you think he who gave to the ancestors of the other gods the names “Rhea” and “Cronus” had the same thought as Heracleitus? Do you think he gave both of them the names of streams (ῥευμάτων ὀνόματα) merely by chance? The Greek term "ῥεῦμα" may refer to the flow of any medium and is not restricted to the flow of water or liquids. Many of the words which Socrates uses as examples may have come from an idea originally linked to the name, but have changed over time. Those of which he cannot find a link, he often assumes have come from foreign origins or have changed so much as to lose all resemblance to the original word. He states, "names have been so twisted in all manner of ways, that I should not be surprised if the old language when compared with that now in use would appear to us to be a barbarous tongue." The final theory of relations between name and object named is posited by Cratylus, a disciple of Heraclitus, who believes that names arrive from divine origins, making them necessarily correct. Socrates rebukes this theory by reminding Cratylus of the imperfection of certain names in capturing the objects they seek to signify. From this point, Socrates ultimately rejects the study of language, believing it to be philosophically inferior to a study of things themselves.

Jimmy Torrance, football player, boxer, socialite, athlete and all-around Big Man On Campus, is nearly kicked out of university, but upon pleading for a second chance, he is granted one and successfully graduates. Spurning an offer from his father to come work for the family business, he determines to make something of himself first, and repairs to Chicago. However, nothing comes of his many attempts to find work, and he despairs. Friendship with a pickpocket known as "The Lizard" cheers him up and he reapplies himself, finally finding work in a department store. He also makes the acquaintance of a young lady of quality, one Elizabeth Compton. Torrance gains (and loses) a number of jobs in rapid succession, including ladies' hosiery clerk, waiter, boxer, and milkman, chancing to meet Elizabeth and her friend Harriet Holden in most of these occupations. During his stint as a waiter, he also wins the friendship of a prostitute with a heart of gold named Edith (Little Eva). Elizabeth's father runs a factory and is worried that he is losing money. He advertises for an "efficiency expert" to come help him turn things around. Edith sees the ad and encourages Torrance to apply, writing him fraudulent letters of recommendation to assist him. Torrance does indeed get the job, where he immediately begins to improve things while simultaneously beginning to suspect that someone at the factory is stealing. Elizabeth's fiancé Harold Bince, the factory's assistant manager – who is himself the embezzler in question, due to large gambling debts – tries to get Torrance fired, an effort in which Elizabeth herself eagerly assists. Torrance figures out the truth and has Mr. Compton engage an outside firm of accountants to prove his case, not wanting to deliver the bad news himself. In desperation, Bince tries to get rid of Torrance, leading up to a violent climax in which Elizabeth's father is murdered and Torrance is framed. The Lizard and Little Eva work to get him off, an effort that finally succeeds when The Lizard takes the stand and proves Torrance could not have committed the murder. Bince, who has persuaded Elizabeth to marry him, is exposed and commits suicide. A sadder and wiser Elizabeth asks Torrance to take over as manager of the factory.

In 1974, 11-year-olds Wendy Richards, Jude Cunningham, Kelly Lynch, and Nick McBride play hide and seek in an abandoned convent. 10-year-old Robin Hammond tries to join them, but they start teasing her by repeating "Kill! Kill! Kill!". Robin is then backed up towards a window from which she falls to her death. Instead of reporting the incident to the police, the children make a pact not to tell anyone what happened and keep the incident a secret, but after they leave, a shadow falls across Robin's body. Later a known rapist, Leonard Merch is mistakenly blamed for Robin's death and is arrested. Six years pass, Robin's family attend her memorial on the anniversary of her death. Robin's teenage sister and brother, Kim and Alex, are also preparing for the school prom to be held that evening. Their parents will also attend, as their father is the school principal. Kelly, Jude and Wendy begin receiving obscene phone calls from an unknown figure, while Nick ignores his ringing phone. Kim and Nick, whom she is dating, are attending prom together; Jude is asked by goofy jokester Seymour "Slick" Crane whom she meets by chance that morning; Kelly is going with her boyfriend Drew Shinnick (who is preoccupied with having sex with her despite objections), while Wendy, previously Nick's girlfriend, asks the school rebel, Lou Farmer with plans to embarrass Nick and Kim at prom. In the changing room after gym class, Kim and Kelly discover the locker room mirror severely cracked and a shard missing. The offender blamed for Robin's death has escaped and Lt. McBride, Nick's father, investigates. Also during the day, Wendy, Jude and Kelly discover their year book photos in their lockers torn and stabbed with a piece of glass. During the senior prom, Kim and Nick perform a dance number to impress Wendy who had insisted Nick would be getting back with her after the prom. Later, Kelly and Drew make out in the changing room, but Kelly refuses to continue to full sex, resulting in Drew angrily leaving. As Kelly gets dressed, an unidentified figure wearing a ski mask and all-black clothing stealthily approaches her and slits her throat with a mirror shard. Jude and Slick have sex and smoke marijuana in Slick's van parked outside school grounds. Unbeknownst to them, they are being watched and are then attacked by the masked killer, who stabs Jude's throat. Slick struggles with the killer while attempting to drive away but the killer escapes from the van (with Slick inside) as it tumbles off a cliff and explodes into a wreckage. McBride, staking out the prom, is informed that the sex offender blamed for Robin's death has been caught. He is relieved and ends his scrutiny of the event. Wendy in the bathroom is then confronted by the killer now wielding an axe and is chased through the school. After evading the killer several times, she is suddenly caught and killed after she screams upon discovering Kelly's body in a storage room. Kim and Nick prepare to be crowned prom king and queen but Wendy's plan is put into action by Lou and his lackeys who tie up Nick with Lou taking his crown and assuming his position back stage. Thinking he is Nick, the killer approaches behind Lou and decapitates him. Lou's head lands onto the dance floor, sending the partygoers fleeing in horror. Kim finds Nick and frees him. As they prepare to escape, they are confronted by the killer who attacks Nick but not Kim. Eventually in the ensuing brawl, Kim bluntly strikes the killer's head with his own axe. She and the killer then stare at each other for a moment and Kim realizes who he really is. He runs outside where the police have arrived. As guns are raised Kim screams for Lt. McBride not to shoot him. The killer then collapses on the ground and is revealed to be Alex, who is Robin's twin. He tearfully tells his sister that Jude, Kelly, Wendy and Nick were responsible for their sister's death. The film ends as he cries Robin's name and dies. Kim sheds a tear for the death of another sibling.

Sir Oliver Tressilian lives at the estate of Penarrow with his brother, Lionel. Oliver is betrothed to Rosamund Godolphin, whose hot-headed brother, Peter, detests the Tressilians due to an old feud between their fathers. Peter and Rosamund's guardian, Sir John Killigrew, also has little love for the Tressilians. Peter's manipulations drive Oliver into a duel with Sir John. The scheme backfires: Sir John is seriously wounded, further stoking Peter's hatred. Peter attempts to bait Oliver into a violent confrontation, but Oliver is mindful of Rosamund's warning never to meet her brother in an affair of honor. One evening, Lionel returns home, bloodied and exhausted. He has killed Peter in a duel, but there were no witnesses. Oliver is widely believed to be Peter's killer, and Lionel does nothing to disprove the accusations. To avoid repercussions for Peter's death, Lionel has Oliver kidnapped and sold into slavery to ensure that he never reveals the truth. En route to the New World, the slave ship is boarded by the Spanish, and her crew are added to the slaves. For six months Oliver toils at the oars of a Spanish galley. He befriends a Moorish slave, Yusuf-ben-Moktar. Oliver, Yusuf and the other slaves are freed when the galley is boarded by Muslim corsairs. They offer to fight for the Muslims. Oliver's fighting skills and the testimony of Yusuf, the nephew of the Basha of Algiers, grants Oliver special privileges in Muslim society. He becomes the corsair known as Sakr-el-Bahr, "the Hawk of the Sea". In this new role, Oliver rescues English slaves by purchasing them himself and releasing them in Italy. Oliver captures a Spanish vessel and discovers his one-time kidnapper, Jasper Leigh, as a slave at the oars. He gives Jasper the opportunity to convert to Islam and join his corsairs. With Jasper's navigational skills, Sakr-el-Bahr sets sail for England to take revenge on Lionel. Lionel has taken possession of Penarrow. He is now betrothed to Rosamund, who believes that Oliver murdered her brother. Sakr-el-Bahr carries them off to Algiers to be sold as slaves. The Basha takes a fancy to Rosamund, and plans to buy her himself. The Basha does not have enough ready cash to meet the high bid, and Sakr-el-Bahr wins her instead. The Basha threatens to take her by force, but Sakr-el-Bahr marries her, foiling the Basha's efforts. He also buys Lionel and tricks him into revealing the truth about Peter's death.

Hook-handed Vietnam veteran Staff Sergeant John "Four Leaf" Tayback's (Nick Nolte) memoir, Tropic Thunder, is being made into a film. With the exception of newcomer supporting actor Kevin Sandusky (Jay Baruchel), the cast—fading action hero Tugg Speedman (Ben Stiller), five-time Academy Award-winning Australian method actor Kirk Lazarus (Robert Downey, Jr.), rapper Alpa Chino (Brandon T. Jackson), and drug-addicted comedian Jeff Portnoy (Jack Black) all behave unreasonably. Rookie director Damien Cockburn (Steve Coogan) cannot control them during filming of a large battle scene, and production is reported to be one month behind schedule a mere week into production. Furious studio executive Les Grossman (Tom Cruise) orders Cockburn to resume filming as planned, or have the project shut down. Acting on Four Leaf's advice, Damien drops the actors into the middle of the jungle, with hidden cameras and rigged special effects explosions to film "guerrilla-style". The actors have guns that fire blanks, along with a map and scene listing that will lead to a helicopter waiting at the end of the route. Unknown to the actors and production, the group have been dropped in the middle of the Golden Triangle, the home of the heroin-producing Flaming Dragon gang. Just as the group are about to set off, Damien inadvertently steps on an old land mine and is blown up, stunning the actors. Tugg, believing Damien faked his death to encourage the cast to give better performances, persuades the others that Damien is alive, and that they are still shooting the film. Lazarus is unconvinced but joins them in their trek through the jungle. When Four Leaf and pyrotechnics operator Cody Underwood (Danny McBride) try to locate the dead director, they are captured by Flaming Dragon. Four Leaf is revealed to have hands; he confesses to Underwood that he actually served in the Coast Guard, has never left the United States, and that he wrote his "memoir" as a tribute. As the actors continue through the jungle, Kirk and Kevin discover that Tugg is leading them in the wrong direction. The four actors, tired of walking and hoping to be rescued, leave Tugg, who goes off by himself and is captured by Flaming Dragon. Taken to their heroin factory, Tugg believes it is a POW camp from the script. The gang discovers he is the star of their favorite film, the box office bomb Simple Jack, and forces him to reenact it several times a day. Meanwhile in Los Angeles, Tugg's agent Rick 'Pecker' Peck (Matthew McConaughey) is trying to negotiate with Les an unfulfilled term in Tugg's contract that entitles him to a TiVo. Flaming Dragon calls the two and demands a ransom for Tugg, but Les instead berates the gang. Despite the threats, Les expresses no interest in rescuing Tugg and tries to convince Rick about the benefits of allowing Tugg to die and collecting the insurance. Les also offers Rick a Gulfstream V jet and money in return for his cooperation. Kirk, Alpa, Jeff, and Kevin discover Flaming Dragon's heroin factory. After witnessing Tugg being tortured, they plan a rescue attempt based on the film's script. Kirk impersonates a farmer towing a captured Jeff on the back of a water buffalo, distracting the armed guards so Alpa and Kevin can locate the captives, but after the gang's leader (Brandon Soo Hoo) notices inconsistencies in Kirk's story, the actors, knowing their cover has been blown, begin firing, temporarily subduing the gang. Their control of the gang falls apart when Jeff grabs the leader and heads for the drugs, and the gang regains their guns and begin firing. The four actors locate Four Leaf, Cody, and Tugg and cross a bridge rigged to explode to get to Underwood's helicopter. Tugg asks to remain behind with the gang which he considers his family, but quickly returns when Flaming Dragon fires in pursuit. Four Leaf detonates the bridge allowing Tugg to reach safety, but as the helicopter takes off, the gang fires a rocket-propelled grenade at the helicopter. Rick unexpectedly stumbles out of the jungle carrying a TiVo box and throws it in the path of the grenade, saving them. The crew return to Hollywood, where footage from the hidden cameras is compiled into a feature film, Tropic Blunder, which becomes a major critical and commercial success. The film wins Tugg his first Academy Award, which Kirk presents to him at the ceremony. In a mid-credits scene, Rick is on a plane back to Hollywood with his estranged son. Also during the credits, you see Tom Cruise dancing by himself listening to Ludacris's "Get Back".

Supreme Chancellor Valorum, leader of the Galactic Republic, dispatches Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn and his apprentice, Obi-Wan Kenobi, to negotiate with the Trade Federation leadership to end a blockade of battleships around the planet Naboo. Darth Sidious, a Sith Lord and the Trade Federation's secret adviser, orders Federation Viceroy Nute Gunray to kill the Jedi and invade Naboo with an army of battle droids. The Jedi escape and flee to Naboo, where Qui-Gon saves a Gungan outcast, Jar Jar Binks, from being killed during the invasion. Indebted to the Jedi, Jar Jar leads them to an underwater Gungan city. The Jedi unsuccessfully try to persuade the Gungan leader, Boss Nass, into helping the people of Naboo, though they are able to obtain transportation to Theed, the capital city on the surface. They rescue Queen Amidala, the ruler of the Naboo people, and escape the planet on her royal starship, which is damaged as they pass the Federation blockade. Amidala's ship is unable to sustain its hyperdrive and lands for repairs on the desert planet Tatooine. Qui-Gon, Jar Jar, astromech droid R2-D2, and Amidala (in disguise as Padmé, her handmaiden) visit the settlement of Mos Espa to buy new parts at a junk shop. They meet the shop's owner Watto and his nine-year-old slave, Anakin Skywalker, who is a gifted pilot and engineer and has created a protocol droid called C-3PO. Qui-Gon senses a strong presence of the Force within Anakin and is convinced that he is the "chosen one" of Jedi prophecy who will bring balance to the Force. Qui-Gon wagers Anakin's freedom with Watto in a Podrace, which Anakin wins. Anakin joins the group to be trained as a Jedi, leaving his mother, Shmi, behind. En route to their starship, Qui-Gon briefly duels with Darth Maul, Darth Sidious's apprentice, who was sent to capture Amidala. The Jedi escort Amidala to the Republic capital planet, Coruscant, so she can plead her people's case to Chancellor Valorum and the Galactic Senate. Qui-Gon asks the Jedi Council for permission to train Anakin as a Jedi, but the Council, concerned that Anakin is vulnerable to the dark side, refuse. Undaunted, Qui-Gon vows to train Anakin anyway. Meanwhile, Naboo's Senator Palpatine persuades Amidala to make a vote of no confidence in Valorum to elect a more capable chancellor to resolve the crisis on Naboo. Though she pushes for the vote, Amidala grows frustrated with the corruption in the Senate and decides to return to Naboo with the Jedi. On Naboo, Padmé reveals herself to the Gungans as Queen Amidala and persuades them into an alliance against the Trade Federation. Jar Jar leads his people in a battle against the droid army while Padmé leads the hunt for Gunray in Theed. In a starship hangar, Anakin enters a vacant starfighter and inadvertently triggers its autopilot, joining the battle against the Federation droid control ship in space. Anakin ventures into the ship and destroys it from within, deactivating the droid army. Meanwhile, Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan battle Darth Maul, who mortally wounds Qui-Gon before being bisected by Obi-Wan. As he dies, Qui-Gon asks Obi-Wan to train Anakin. Subsequently, Palpatine is elected as the new Supreme Chancellor and Gunray is arrested. The Jedi Council promotes Obi-Wan to the rank of Jedi Knight and reluctantly accepts Anakin as Obi-Wan's apprentice. At a festive ceremony, Padmé presents a gift of appreciation and friendship to the Gungans.

At a fairground in rural Northern Ireland, Provisional IRA volunteer Fergus (Stephen Rea) and a unit of other IRA members, including a woman named Jude (Miranda Richardson) and led by Maguire (Adrian Dunbar), kidnap Jody (Forest Whitaker), a black British soldier, after Jude lures him to a secluded area with the promise of sex. The IRA demands the release of jailed IRA members, threatening to execute Jody in three days if their demands are not met. Fergus is tasked to guard Jody and develops a bond with the prisoner, much to the chagrin of the other IRA men. During this time, Jody tells Fergus the story of the Scorpion and the Frog. Jody persuades Fergus to promise to seek out his girlfriend Dil (Jaye Davidson) in London should Jody be killed. The deadline set by Jody's captors passes and with none of the IRA's demands being met, Jody is to be executed. When Fergus takes him into the woods to carry out the sentence, Jody makes a break for it. Fergus cannot bring himself to shoot the fleeing Jody in the back, but Jody is accidentally run over and killed by a British Saracen armoured personnel carrier as they move in to assault the IRA safe-house. With his IRA companions seemingly dead after the attack, Fergus flees to London, where he takes a job as a day labourer, using the alias "Jimmy". A few months later, Fergus finds Dil at a hair salon. Later they talk in a bar, where he sees her singing "The Crying Game". Fergus suffers from guilt about Jody's death and sees him in his dreams bowling a cricket ball to him. He pursues Dil, protecting her from an obsessive suitor and falling in love with her. Later, when he is about to make love to her in her apartment, he discovers that she is transgender. His initial reaction is of revulsion. Rushing to the bathroom to throw up, he accidentally hits Dil in the face. A few days later, he leaves her a note and the two make up. Despite everything, Fergus is still attracted to Dil. Around the same time, Jude unexpectedly reappears in Fergus' apartment. She tells him that the IRA tried and convicted him in absentia, and she forces him to agree to help with a new mission to aid in assassinating a judge. She also mentions that she knows about Fergus and Dil, warning him that the IRA will kill her if Fergus does not co-operate. Fergus, unable to overcome his feelings for Dil, continues to woo her. To shield her from possible retribution, he gives her a haircut and menswear as a disguise. The night before the IRA mission is to be carried out, Dil gets heavily drunk and Fergus escorts her to her apartment, where she asks him to stay with her. Fergus complies, then admits he had an indirect hand in Jody's death. Dil, drunk, appears not to understand, but in the morning, before Fergus wakes up, Dil ties him to the bed. She unwittingly prevents Fergus from joining the other IRA members and completing the planned assassination. Holding Fergus at gunpoint, Dil forces him to tell her that he loves her and will never leave her. She unties him, saying that, even if he is lying, it is nice to hear his words. Dil then breaks down in tears. Meanwhile, Jude and Maguire gun the judge down, but Maguire is shot dead by one of the bodyguards. A vengeful Jude enters Dil's flat with a gun, seeking to kill Fergus for missing the assassination. Dil takes several shots at Jude, hitting her, whilst stating that she is aware that Jude was complicit in Jody's death and that Jude used her sexuality to trick him. Dil finally kills Jude with a shot in the neck. She then points the gun at Fergus but lowers her hand, saying that she cannot kill him, because Jody will not allow her to. Fergus prevents Dil from shooting herself and tells her to hide out in the club for a while. When she is gone, he wipes her fingerprints off the gun (replacing them with his own), and allows himself to be arrested in her place. A few months later, Dil visits Fergus in prison where he is serving six years. After discussing his post-release plans, she asks why he took the fall for her, and he responds, "As a man once said, it's in my nature." He then tells her the story of the Scorpion and the Frog.

Set in late 1975, Rocky Balboa is a hard-living but failing prize fighter from an Italian neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Between fights, he works as an enforcer for loan shark Tony Gazzo. The World Heavyweight Champion, Apollo Creed, announces plans to hold a match in Philadelphia during the upcoming United States Bicentennial. However, he is informed five weeks from the fight date that his scheduled opponent, Mac Lee Greene, is unable to compete due to an injured hand. With all other potential replacements booked up or otherwise unavailable, Creed decides to spice things up by giving a local contender a chance to face him. He finds Balboa in the paper, liking his nickname "The Italian Stallion" and his fighting style, being Southpaw. Rocky meets with promoter Miles Jergens presuming Creed is seeking local sparring partners. Rocky reluctantly agrees to the match, which will pay him $150,000. After several weeks of training, using whatever he can find, including meat carcasses as punching bags, Rocky accepts an offer of assistance from former boxer Mickey "Mighty Mick" Goldmill, a respected trainer and former bantamweight fighter from the 1920s who always criticized Rocky for wasting his potential. At the same time, Rocky begins a relationship with Adrian, a clerk at the local pet store. He gradually gains the shy Adrian's trust, culminating in a kiss. Her alcoholic brother Paulie becomes jealous of Rocky's success, but Rocky calms him by agreeing to advertise his meatpacking business at the fight. The night before the match, Rocky becomes depressed after touring the arena. He confesses to Adrian that he does not expect to win, but is content to go the distance against Creed and prove himself to everyone. On New Year's Day, the climactic boxing match begins, with Creed making a dramatic entrance dressed as George Washington and then Uncle Sam. Taking advantage of his overconfidence, Rocky knocks him down in the first round—the first time that Creed has ever been knocked down. Humiliated, Creed takes Rocky more seriously for the rest of the fight, though his ego never fully fades. The fight goes on for the full 15 rounds, with both fighters sustaining many injuries; Rocky suffers his first broken nose and debilitating trauma around the eye, and Creed sustains brutal blows to his ribs with substantial internal bleeding. As the match progresses, Creed's superior skill is countered by Rocky's apparently unlimited ability to absorb punches, and his dogged refusal to be knocked out. As the final round bell sounds, with both fighters locked in each other's arms, they promise to each other that there will be no rematch. After the fight, multiple layers of drama are played out: the sportscasters and the audience go wild, Jergens announces over the loudspeaker that the match was "the greatest exhibition of guts and stamina in the history of the ring", and Rocky calls out repeatedly for Adrian, who runs down and comes into the ring as Paulie distracts arena security. As Jergens declares Creed the winner by virtue of a split decision (8:7, 7:8, 9:6), Adrian and Rocky embrace and profess their love to each other, not caring about the result of the fight.

Joe Moore runs a ring of professional thieves, which includes Bobby Blane, Don "Pinky" Pincus and Joe's wife Fran. During a robbery of a New York City jewelry store, Joe's face is captured by a security camera after he takes off his mask in an attempt to distract the store's last remaining employee. As both the picture and a witness can identify him, Joe retires from crime and plans to disappear on his sail boat with his wife. This does not sit well with Joe's fence, Mickey Bergman, who runs a garment business as a front. After accruing a number of expenses in setting up another robbery, Bergman decides to withhold the payment due to Joe and his crew. He insists they go through with the other job — robbing an airplane carrying a large shipment of gold. Bergman further insists that his nephew, Jimmy Silk, be a part of the crew. Joe accepts, but a series of shifting loyalties changes the complexity of their task, including Jimmy's interest in Joe's wife and Bergman and Jimmy's belief that Joe's skills are declining. They attempt to rob the plane twice. In their first attempt, while setting up explosive devices along the border of the airport, they are stopped by passing law enforcement officers. While Joe and Bobby talk the officers into leaving, an agitated Jimmy draws his gun but is stopped by the rest of the team from shooting the officers and blowing their cover, so Joe calls the robbery off for the day. He forces his team out of finishing the job after he finds out that Pinky didn't destroy the getaway car, covered in the team's fingerprints. Bergman doesn't accept the team's departure and forces them to finish the job. The plane robbery is a series of misdirections. Pinky poses as a guard while Joe, Bobby, and Jimmy pose as airport security personnel. They stop the jet, pretending to be responding to an emergency. They fill a van with what they take from the plane, then move the van to a rented garage on the airport grounds, where they re-brand it and call for a tow truck to have it hauled away. Jimmy betrays the others to steal the gold and Fran. He knocks out Joe and tells Fran he knew Joe changed the plan. He and Fran take the van, but Jimmy finds out that the hidden compartments are filled with metal washers. Joe avoids arrest and returns to the plane in disguise. He and Bobby remove a shipment of goods they had booked on board the same Swiss flight, which they insist now must be driven to its destination due to the plane's delay. Inside the shipment is the stolen gold, which Joe and Bobby melt into long rods. A furious Bergman apprehends Pinky, who is walking his niece to the school bus. Pinky discloses the plan in order to save his niece. Bergman and his crew arrive at Joe's sail boat along with Jimmy and Fran, where they hold Joe at gunpoint. They notice the boat railings are golden. Fran leaves with Jimmy, pleading with Bergman to give Joe some money and let him go. The railings are painted and a hidden Bobby opens fire. Bergman's men are killed and Joe kills Bergman. Bobby gives Joe the address to send his share. Joe waits to meet Fran with a new truck filled with black-painted rods. Fran shows up with Jimmy. They take the truck and the gold. Joe gets into an older truck to leave. A black bar in the truck scrapes the garage door, revealing gold underneath. Joe lifts a tarp in the truck bed, revealing the gold rods. He covers the rods with the tarpaulin and drives away.

The tale begins with three feline siblings – Mittens, Tom Kitten, and Moppet – tumbling about the doorstep and playing in the dust. Their mother, Mrs. Tabitha Twitchit, expects "fine company" for tea so she fetches the children indoors to wash and dress them before her friends arrive. Tom is "very naughty" and scratches his mother while she grooms him. Tabitha dresses Moppet and Mittens in clean pinafores and tuckers, and Tom in "all sorts of elegant uncomfortable clothes" taken from a chest of drawers. Tom is fat and bursts several buttons, but his mother sews them back on again. Tabitha turns her kittens into the garden to keep them out of the way while she makes hot buttered toast for the party. She tells them to keep their frocks clean and keep away from the pigsty, the dirty ash pit, Sally Henny Penny, and the Puddle-Ducks, and then returns to her work. Moppet and Mittens soon have their pinafores smeared with grass stains. They climb upon the garden wall and lose some of their clothing in the ascent. Tom has a more difficult time gaining the top of the wall "breaking the ferns, and shedding buttons right and left". He is disheveled when he reaches the top of the wall, and loses his hat, but his sisters try to pull him together. The rest of his buttons burst. Three Puddle-ducks come marching along the road – "pit pat paddle pat! pit pat waddle pat!" Jemima Puddle-duck and Rebeccah put on some of the dropped clothing. The kittens lose the rest of their clothing descending the wall. Moppet invites Mr. Drake Puddle-duck to help dress Tom. He picks up various articles of Tom's clothing and "he put[s] them on himself!" The three ducks set off up the road just as Tabitha approaches and discovers her three children with no clothes on. She pulls them off the wall, "smacks" them, and takes them back to the house. "My friends will arrive in a minute, and you are not fit to be seen; I am affronted!" she says. Tabitha sends her kittens upstairs, and tells her guests the kittens are in bed with the measles. However, "the dignity and repose of the tea party" is disturbed by the "very extraordinary noises overhead" as the playful kittens romp in a bedroom. An illustration depicts the bedroom in complete disorder and Tom in his mother's bonnet. The next illustration shows Tabitha entering the room. The author interrupts to promise the reader she will make a larger book about Tom some day. In the last pages, the Puddle-ducks have lost the kittens' clothing in a pond, and they have been looking for them ever since.

David (Maguire) and his twin sister Jennifer (Witherspoon) lead different high-school social lives. Jennifer is shallow and extroverted; David is introverted and spends most of his time watching television. One evening while their mother, Sherry (Jane Kaczmarek), is away, they fight over the TV. Jennifer wants to watch a concert on MTV, but David wants to watch a marathon of Pleasantville, a black and white 1950s sitcom about the idyllic Parker family, who live in the squeaky-clean suburb of Pleasantville, Iowa. During the fight, the remote control breaks, and the TV cannot be turned on manually. A mysterious TV repairman (Knotts) shows up, quizzes David about Pleasantville, then gives him a strange remote control. The repairman leaves, and David and Jennifer resume fighting. However, they are then transported by the remote into the Parkers' black and white Pleasantville living room in 1958. David tries to reason with the repairman (with whom he communicates through the Parkers' television), but he succeeds only in chasing him away. With the remote no longer functioning, David and Jennifer must now pretend they are Bud and Mary Sue Parker, the son and daughter on the show. David and Jennifer witness the wholesome nature of the town, such as a group of firemen who only rescue cats stuck in trees, as there are no fires to fight. David tells Jennifer they must stay in character and not disrupt the lives of the town's citizens, who do not notice any difference between Bud and Mary Sue, and David and Jennifer. To keep the show's plot Jennifer dates a boy from high school, but, due to her impatience, Jennifer skips all forms of storybook romance and has sex with him—a concept unknown to him and everyone else in town. Slowly, Pleasantville begins changing from black and white to color, including flowers and the faces of people who have experienced bursts of emotion and personal transformation (usually through sex). Though against Jennifer's disruption at first, David eventually joins in when he begins to see the shows characters as real people and not just avatars. David introduces Mr. Johnson (Daniels), owner of the cheeseburger joint/soda shop where Bud works, to colorful modern art via a book from the library, sparking in him an interest in painting. Johnson and Betty Parker (Allen) fall in love, causing her to leave home, throwing George Parker (Macy), Bud and Mary Sue's father, into confusion. The only people who remain unchanged are the town's fathers, led by the mayor, Big Bob (Walsh in his final performance), who sees the changes eating at the values of Pleasantville. They resolve to do something about their increasingly independent wives and rebellious children. As the townsfolk become more colorful, a ban on "colored" people is initiated in public venues. Eventually, a riot is touched off by a nude painting of Betty (painted by Johnson) on the window of Mr. Johnson's soda shop. The soda shop is destroyed, books are burned, and people who are "colored" are harassed in the street. As a reaction, the town fathers announce rules preventing people from visiting the library, playing loud music, or using paint other than black, white, or gray. In protest, David and Mr. Johnson paint a colorful mural on a brick wall, depicting their world, prompting their arrest. Brought to trial in front of the town, David and Mr. Johnson defend their actions, and their passion begins to influence the non-colored members of the population into becoming colored. David also eventually arouses enough anger and indignation in Big Bob that the mayor becomes colored as well. The mayor runs off, effectively ending the segregation. With Pleasantville and its populace now in full color, Jennifer and David both reflect on how their actions in changing Pleasantville have changed their own views on how they perceive the real world and their place in it, noting that it had been far more difficult for them to become colorful as opposed to the other townsfolk, and the circumstances that eventually allowed them to. Jennifer stays to finish her education, citing that her poor academic record in the real world would not allow for college. David uses the remote control, now working again, to return to the real world, and surprises his mother with his newfound maturity. The mysterious TV repairman, who had been outside the house in his truck the whole time, smiles as he drives away.

Jennie Gerhardt is a destitute young woman. While working in a hotel in Columbus, Ohio, Jennie meets George Brander, a United State Senator, who becomes infatuated with her. He helps her family and declares his wish to marry her. Jennie, grateful for his benevolence, agrees to sleep with him. He dies before they marry, and Jennie is pregnant. She gives birth to a daughter, Vesta, and moves to Cleveland with her mother. There she finds work as a lady's maid in a prominent family. In this home, she meets Lester Kane, a prosperous manufacturer's son. Jennie falls in love with him, impressed by his strong will and generosity. She leaves her daughter in Cleveland and travels to New York with Kane. He does not know of her illegitimate daughter and wants to marry Jennie. But because of their difference in class, he anticipates his family's disapproval and decides to take her as his mistress. They live together successfully in the university neighborhood of Hyde Park, Chicago. After three years, Jennie tells him that Vesta is her daughter. Kane does not yield to his family's pressure to leave Jennie. But, after his father's death, he learns that his inheritance of a substantial part of the family business is conditioned on his leaving her. On hearing the will's terms, Jennie demands they separate for his sake. During their trip to Europe, Kane meets Letty Gerald Pace, an affluent widow. Bowing to pressure from Jennie and his family, he decides to marry. After providing financially for Jennie, he marries Letty, resuming his former social status. Jennie loses her daughter to typhoid fever and adopts two orphans. She continues to love Kane. He becomes seriously ill and tells Jennie he still loves her. She tends him until his death, and mourns secretly at his funeral.

Anne, a young orphan from the fictional community of Bolingbroke, Nova Scotia (based upon the real community of New London), is sent to Prince Edward Island after a childhood spent in strangers' homes and orphanages. Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert, siblings in their fifties and sixties, had decided to adopt a boy from the orphanage to help Matthew run their farm. They live at Green Gables, their Avonlea farmhouse on Prince Edward Island. Through a misunderstanding, the orphanage sends Anne Shirley. Anne is described as bright and quick, eager to please, talkative, and extremely imaginative. She has a pale face with freckles and usually braids her red hair. Marilla at first says the girl must return to the orphanage, but after a few days, she decides to let her stay. Marilla feels that she could be a good influence on the girl and has also learned that a disagreeable woman in town might take Anne instead. As a child of imagination, Anne takes much joy in life and adapts quickly, thriving in the close-knit farming village. Her talkativeness initially drives the prim, duty-driven Marilla to distraction, although Matthew falls for her charm immediately. Anne says that they are "kindred spirits." The book recounts Anne's adventures in making a home: the country school where she quickly excels in her studies; her friendship with Diana Barry (her best or "bosom friend" as Anne fondly calls her); her budding literary ambitions; and her rivalry with classmate Gilbert Blythe, who teases her about her red hair. For that, he earns her instant hatred, although he apologizes many times. As time passes, Anne realizes she no longer hates Gilbert but cannot bring herself to speak to him. The book also follows Anne's adventures in quiet, old-fashioned Avonlea. Episodes include her play-time with friends (Diana, Jane Andrews and Ruby Gillis), her run-ins with the unpleasant Pye sisters (Gertie and Josie), and domestic mishaps such as dyeing her hair green (while intending to dye it black) or accidentally getting Diana drunk (by giving her what she thinks is raspberry cordial but is currant wine). At fifteen, Anne goes to Queen's Academy to earn a teaching license, along with Gilbert, Ruby, Josie, Jane and several other students. She obtains her license in one year instead of the usual two and wins the Avery Scholarship for the top student in English. Her attainment of this scholarship would allow her to pursue a Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) degree at the fictional Redmond College (based on the real Dalhousie University) on the mainland in Nova Scotia. Near the end of the book, Matthew dies of a heart attack after learning that all of his and Marilla's money has been lost in a bank failure. Out of devotion to Marilla and Green Gables, Anne gives up the scholarship to stay at home and help Marilla, whose eyesight is failing. She plans to teach at the Carmody school, the nearest school available, and return to Green Gables on weekends. In an act of friendship, Gilbert Blythe gives up his teaching position at the Avonlea School to work at White Sands School instead, knowing that Anne wants to stay close to Marilla after Matthew's death. After this kind act, Anne and Gilbert's friendship is cemented, and Anne looks forward to the next "bend in the road."

While working an undercover prostitute sting operation in a nightclub to arrest a pimp named Neptune, Miami-Dade Police detectives James "Sonny" Crockett and Ricardo "Rico" Tubbs receive a frantic phone call from their former informant Alonzo Stevens (John Hawkes). Stevens reveals that he's leaving town, and, believing his wife Leonetta to be in immediate danger, asks Rico to check on her. Crockett learns that Stevens was working as an informant for the FBI but has been compromised. Crockett and Tubbs quickly contact FBI Special Agent in Charge John Fujima (CiarĂĄn Hinds) and warn him about Stevens' safety. Tracking down Stevens through a vehicle transponder and aerial surveillance, Crockett and Tubbs stop him along I-95. Stevens reveals that a Colombian cartel had become aware that Russian undercovers (now dead) were working with the FBI, and had threatened to murder Leonetta via a C-4 necklace bomb if he didn't confess. Rico, learning of Leonetta's death by telephone call, tells Alonzo that he doesn't have to go home. Hearing this, the grief-stricken Stevens commits suicide by walking in front of an oncoming semi truck. En route to the murder scene, Sonny and Rico receive a call from Lt. Castillo (Barry Shabaka Henley) and are instructed to stay away. He tells them to meet him downtown, where they are introduced in person to John Fujima, head of the Florida Joint Inter-Agency Task Force between the FBI, the DEA, and ICE. Crockett and Tubbs berate Fujima for the errors committed and inquire as to why the MPD wasn't involved. Fujima reveals that the Colombian group is highly sophisticated and run by JosĂŠ Yero (John Ortiz), initially thought to be the cartel's leader. Fujima enlists Crockett and Tubbs, making them Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force deputies, to help, and they continue the investigation by looking into go-fast boats coming from the Caribbean, delivering loads of narcotics from the Colombians. They then use their Miami informant contacts to set up a meet and greet with the cartel. Posing as drug smugglers, Sonny and Rico offer their services to Yero, the cartel's security and intelligence man. After a high tension meeting they pass screening and are introduced to Arcangel de Jesus Montoya (Luis Tosar), South Florida's drug trafficking kingpin. In the course of their investigation, Crockett and Tubbs learn that the cartel is using the Aryan Brotherhood to distribute drugs, and is supplying them with state-of-the-art weaponry (which they had used to kill the Russian undercovers). Crockett and Montoya's financial adviser and lover Isabella (Gong Li) begin a secret romance and Tubbs begins to fear for the team's safety. Those fears are soon realized as Trudy (Naomie Harris), the unit's intelligence agent and Rico's girlfriend, is kidnapped by the Aryan Brotherhood by Yero's order, who never trusted Crockett and Tubbs. The Aryan Brotherhood demand for Crockett and Tubbs to deliver the cartel's load directly to them. With Lt. Castillo's help, the unit triangulates Trudy's location to a mobile home in a trailer park and perform a rescue, but she is critically injured when Tubbs fails to evacuate her before a bomb is remotely detonated by Yero. Soon afterwards, Yero reveals Isabella's betrayal to Montoya and captures her. In the showdown, Crockett and Tubbs face off against Yero, his men, and the Aryan Brotherhood at the port of Miami. During the firefight, Crockett begins to call in backup. When Isabella sees his police shield and radio, she realizes that he's undercover. Betrayed, she demands that Crockett tell her who he really is. After the gunfight, Crockett takes her to a police safe house and tells her she will have to leave the country and return to her home in Cuba. Meanwhile, Tubbs is keeping watch on Trudy in hospital, and she begins to recover.

Investment banker Harold Lee is persuaded by his colleagues Billy and JD to do their work while they leave for the weekend. Kumar Patel attends a medical school interview, but intentionally botches it to prevent getting accepted. Harold meets his neighbor Maria, but is unable to admit his feelings. After smoking marijuana with Kumar, and seeing an advertisement for White Castle, the pair decide to get hamburgers. After traveling to the nearest White Castle in New Brunswick, they find it replaced by "Burger Shack" but are informed by an employee of another White Castle in Cherry Hill. When Kumar becomes sober, he suggests stopping at Princeton University to buy more marijuana. Kumar buys marijuana from a student named Bradley and after smoking more marijuana, they are discovered by campus security and forced to flee, losing their marijuana. The guards discover Bradley's bag of marijuana and arrest him. Harold and Kumar resume their drive, and Kumar pulls over to urinate. A raccoon gets in the car and bites Harold. Kumar takes Harold to a hospital where Kumar's father and older brother work. Kumar steals ID badges to obtain medical marijuana, but after being mistaken for his brother, Kumar performs surgery on a gunshot victim and after a successful surgery the patient tells them how to reach White Castle. On the road, Kumar spots Maria. He decides to get her attention so Harold can talk to her, but Harold panics and presses the accelerator, causing the car to crash into a ditch. They are rescued by Freakshow, a tow-truck driver, who takes them to his house to repair their car and gives them permission to have sex with his wife. Harold and Kumar are propositioned by Freakshow's wife, but after Freakshow suggests a foursome, Harold and Kumar flee in disgust. Kumar pick up a hitchhiker, Neil Patrick Harris, who is high on ecstasy. Harold and Kumar go into a convenience store to get directions and Harris drives away. The duo are then harassed by a racist police officer for jaywalking. Harold attempts to punch Kumar for teasing the officer, but ends up punching the officer. In jail, Harold sees Bradley being released and his stash confiscated. Kumar fakes a 911 call to draw the police away and breaks into the station to free Harold. Harold and Kumar flee with Bradley's stash. The pair encounters an escaped cheetah, and after smoking marijuana with it, they ride it. They realize the cheetah took them in the wrong direction and consider returning home, but when Harold and Kumar see their Jewish neighbors Goldstein and Rosenberg eating at a hot dog restaurant, Harold wants the satisfaction from achieving their goal. After encountering a group of sport punks who harass the pair, Harold and Kumar steal their truck. A police officer spots the speeding truck and chases them. They are trapped when they reach the edge of a cliff. Spotting the White Castle below, Harold and Kumar use a hang glider from the truck to reach their destination. The pair place their orders but are disheartened to find they have no money. Harris suddenly appears, and pays for their meal as an apology for stealing and then trashing their car. Kumar realizes he wants to be a doctor, but is afraid of conforming to the stereotype of Indians becoming doctors. Harold notices his co-workers pull up with two women and gets angry because they said they had to work with clients, when they were out partying. He confronts them for leaving their work to him, and threatens to get them fired if it happens again. After returning to their apartment they encounter Maria in the elevator. Harold professes his feelings for her and they kiss. She informs Harold that she is leaving for Amsterdam but will return in ten days. Kumar convinces Harold to go with him to Amsterdam to pursue Maria, reminding him that marijuana is legal in the Netherlands.

The play begins with an extended bit of metadrama; the company's stage-keeper enters, criticising the play about to be performed because it lacks romantic and fabulous elements. He is then pushed from the stage by the book-keeper, who (serving as prologue) announces a contract between author and audience. The contract appears to itemise Jonson's discontentment with his audiences: Members are not to find political satire where none is intended; they are not to take as oaths such innocuous phrases as "God quit you"; they are not to "censure by contagion," but must exercise their own judgment; moreover, they are allowed to judge only in proportion to the price of their ticket. Perhaps most important, they agree not to expect a throwback to the sword-and-buckler age of Smithfield, for Jonson has given them a picture of the present and unromantic state of the fair. The play proper begins with a proctor and amateur dramatist Littlewit and his friends, Quarlous and Winwife; they are plotting how to win Dame Purecraft (a widow, and Littlewit's mother-in-law) from Zeal-of-the-Land Busy, a canting, hypocritical Puritan. This colloquy is interrupted by the entrance of Wasp, the irascible servant of Cokes, a country simpleton who is in town to marry Grace Wellborn. Grace is the ward of Adam Overdo, a Justice of the Peace; Overdo's wife is Cokes's sister. All of these characters are at Littlewit's to get a marriage license; having obtained it, they indulge Cokes's wish to visit the fair. Littlewit and his friends also plan to go to the fair to see a puppet-show Littlewit wrote. To overcome Busy's likely objections, they pretend that Win (Littlewit's wife) has a pregnant craving for roast pork. The Renaissance audience, familiar with stage satire of Puritans, would not have been surprised that Busy, far from abhorring the fair and its debauchery, is ready to rationalise his presence there as allowable and even godly. The first act ends with both groups, the genteel Overdos and the raffish Littlewits, headed for the fair. The fair propels these characters through experiences that put their social identities under extreme strain. Justice Overdo, well-read in the "disguised prince" tradition, assumes a disguise to ferret out wrongdoing at the fair; he is beaten by Wasp, falsely accused by Edgeworth, a cut-purse, and put in the stocks. Quarlous and Winwife engage Edgeworth to steal the marriage license from Wasp; he does so when Wasp is arrested after starting a fight. Wasp, too, is put in the stocks. Winwife has abandoned his plan to marry Dame Purecraft; instead, he and Quarlous fight for Grace's hand. Win Littlewit and Mistress Overdo are enlisted as prostitutes by the pimp Whit; Zeal-of-the-land Busy is arrested for preaching without license and put into the stocks. Cokes is robbed several times by Edgeworth and other denizens of the fair. All the imprisoned characters escape when Trouble-All, a seeming madman for whom Dame Purecraft has conceived a sudden passion, fights with the guards. The climax of the play occurs at the puppet show. Madame Overdo and Win are brought in, masked, as prostitutes; Madame Overdo is drunk. Overdo is still in disguise, and Quarlous has disguised himself as Trouble-All; in this guise, he stole the marriage license from Winwife and made it into a license for himself and Purecraft. The puppet show, a burlesque of Hero and Leander and Damon and Pythias, proceeds until Busy interrupts, claiming that the play is an abomination because the actors are cross-dressed. The puppets refute him decisively by raising their clothes, revealing that they have no sex. Busy announces himself converted into a "beholder" of plays. At this point, Justice Overdo reveals himself, intent on uncovering the "enormities" he has witnessed at the fair. He is in the process of punishing all of the various schemers and malefactors when his wife (still veiled) throws up and begins to call for him. Abashed, Overdo takes the advice of Quarlous and forgives all parties; Winwife marries Grace, Quarlous marries Purecraft, and all the characters are invited to Overdo's house for supper.

Badlands is set in 1959 and is narrated by the impressionable 15-year-old Holly Sargis (Spacek), a teenage girl living in a dead-end South Dakota town called Fort Dupree. Holly lives with her sign painter father, although their relationship has been strained since her mother died of pneumonia some years earlier. One day she meets the 25-year-old garbage collector Kit Carruthers (Sheen). Kit is a young, troubled greaser, who resembles James Dean, an actor Holly admires. Kit charms Holly, and she slowly falls in love with him. Holly's narration, describing her adventures with Kit in romantic clichĂŠs, is juxtaposed with the gradual revelations of Kit's increasingly antisocial and violent behavior. Holly's father disapproves of the relationship between Kit and Holly, and shoots her dog as a punishment for spending time with him. Kit comes to Holly's house and shoots her father dead. They then fake suicide by burning down the house and go on the run together, making their way towards the badlands of Montana. Kit and Holly build a treehouse in a remote area and live there happily for a time, fishing and stealing chickens for food, but are eventually discovered by bounty hunters. Kit shoots the three bounty hunters dead and the couple flee. They next seek shelter with Kit's friend Cato, but when Cato attempts to deceive them and go for help, Kit shoots him, and also shoots a teenage couple who arrive to visit Cato shortly thereafter. Kit and Holly are hunted across the Midwest by law enforcement. They stop at a rich man's mansion and take supplies, clothing and his Cadillac, but spare the lives of the man and his housemaid. Heading across Montana to Saskatchewan, the police find and pursue them. Holly, who is tired of life on the run and of her relationship with Kit, refuses to go with him and turns herself in. Kit leads the police on a car chase but is soon caught, and enjoys the attention he receives from police and reporters. They admire him and engage with him as he is sitting in their custody, asking him questions and cracking jokes. Kit is later executed for his crimes, while Holly receives probation and marries the son of her defense attorney.

Los Angeles Times reporter Irwin "Fletch" Fletcher (Chase) is writing an article exposing drug trafficking on the beaches of Los Angeles. Posing as an addict during his investigation, he is approached by Boyd Aviation executive vice president Alan Stanwyk (Matheson) who mistakenly assumes Fletch is a junkie. Stanwyk claims to have bone cancer, with only months left to live, and wishes to avoid the pain and suffering. Stanwyk offers $50,000 for Fletch to come to his mansion in a few days time, kill him, and then escape to Rio de Janeiro, staging the murder to look like a burglary. Fletch, while not completely convinced on the truth of Stanwyk's story, reluctantly agrees to the plan. Along with his colleague Larry (Davis), he begins investigating Stanwyk instead of completing his drug trafficking exposĂŠ, much to the disapproval of his overbearing editor Frank Walker (Libertini). Disguised as a doctor, Fletch accesses Stanwyk's file at the hospital and learns Stanwyk lied about having cancer. Fletch visits Stanwyk's wife Gail (Wheeler-Nicholson) at her tennis club. Pretending to be a tennis instructor and friend of Alan's, he flirts with her during an impromptu tennis lesson. Looking into Stanwyk's finances, Fletch finds that Gail recently converted $3 million of her personal stock in Boyd Aviation into cash for her husband, to buy a ranch in Provo, Utah. Fletch breaks into the realtor's office and discovers the deed lists the sale price as only $3,000. Meanwhile, LAPD Chief Jerry Karlin (Baker) learns of Fletch's drug article. He warns Fletch that the article will jeopardize his undercover operation on the beach. Karlin threatens to kill Fletch unless he agrees to drop the investigation. At the tennis club, Fletch overhears an arrogant club member, Mr. Underhill, insulting a waiter and decides to use Underhill's tab to treat Gail to an expensive lunch in her private cabana. Fletch reveals Alan's murder scheme to her and tells her the true price of the ranch. Fletch watches Stanwyk making a suspicious briefcase exchange with Chief Karlin, but is unable to determine the nature of their relationship. He returns home to find LAPD officers lying in wait at his apartment. He flees, but is pursued in a harrowing car chase. Forced to go into hiding, Fletch returns to Provo. Posing as an insurance investigator, he interviews Stanwyk's parents. Fletch discovers Stanwyk has been secretly married to another woman for eight years; his bigamous marriage to Gail allowed him access to her personal wealth. Fletch arrives at Stanwyk's mansion on the night of the planned murder, but finds Stanwyk prepared to kill him instead. Fletch reveals his discovery of Stanwyk's real plan: to fake his own death by killing Fletch and burning his body beyond recognition, then escape to Brazil with his first wife and Gail's $3 million. Stanwyk was also using his private jet to smuggle cocaine from South America to supply Chief Karlin, who blackmailed ex-convicts to peddle it on the beaches. Karlin arrives unexpectedly; learning of Stanwyk's intention to flee with $800,000 of the Chief's drug money, he kills Stanwyk. Karlin and Fletch fight over the gun until Gail strikes Karlin from behind, rendering him unconscious. Karlin is indicted with Fletch's testimony. Fletch begins dating Gail and, in the final scene, takes her on a vacation to Rio, again using Mr. Underhill's tab.

The film has a straightforward chronology with events spanning from 1937 to 1959; the setting is Tibet, except for brief sequences in China and India. It begins with the search for the 14th mindstream emanation of the Dalai Lama. After a vision by Reting Rinpoche (the regent of Tibet) several lamas disguised as servants discover a promising candidate: a child born to a farming family in the province of Amdo, near the Chinese border. These and other lamas administer a test to the child in which he must select from various objects the ones that belonged to the previous Dalai Lama. The child passes the test, and he and his family are brought to Potala Palace in Lhasa, where he will be installed as Dalai Lama when he comes of age. During the journey, the child becomes homesick and frightened, but is comforted by Reting, who tells him the story of the first Dalai Lama – whom the lamas called "Kundun." As the film progresses, the boy matures in both age and learning. After a brief power struggle in which Reting is imprisoned and dies, the Dalai Lama begins taking a more active role in governance and religious leadership. Meanwhile, the Chinese communists, recently victorious in their revolution, are proclaiming Tibet a traditional part of Imperial China and express their desire to reincorporate it with the newly formed People's Republic of China. Eventually, despite Tibet's pleas to the United Nations, the United States, the United Kingdom, and India for intervention, Chinese Communist forces invade Tibet. The Chinese are initially helpful, but when the Tibetans resist Communist reorganization and reeducation of their society, the Chinese become oppressive. Following a series of atrocities suffered by his people, the Dalai Lama resolves to meet with Chairman Mao Zedong in Beijing. While Mao initially expresses his sympathies to the Tibetan people and the Dalai Lama and insists that changes must be made as the Dalai Lama sees fit, relations inevitably deteriorate. During their face-to-face meeting on the final day of the Dalai Lama's visit, Mao makes clear his view that "religion is poison" and that the Tibetans are "poisoned and inferior" because of it. Upon his return to Tibet, the Dalai Lama learns of more horrors perpetrated against his people, who have by now repudiated their treaty with China and begun guerrilla action against the Chinese. After the Chinese make clear their intention to kill him, the Dalai Lama is convinced by his family and his Lord Chamberlain to flee to India. After consulting the Nechung Oracle about the proper escape route, the Dalai Lama and his staff put on disguises and slip out of Lhasa under cover of darkness. During an arduous journey, throughout which they are pursued by the Chinese, the Dalai Lama becomes very ill and experiences several visions of the past and future. The group eventually makes it to a small mountain pass on the Indian border. As the Dalai Lama walks to the guard post, an Indian guard approaches him, salutes, and inquires: "May I ask, are you the Lord Buddha?" The Dalai Lama replies with the film's final line: "I think that I am a reflection, like the moon on water. When you see me, and I try to be a good man, you see yourself." Once the Dalai Lama arrives at his new residence, he unpacks his telescope and steps outside. Erecting it and removing his spectacles, he gazes through it toward the Himalayas – and toward Tibet. The film concludes with two lines printed on screen: The Dalai Lama has not yet returned to Tibet. He hopes one day to make the journey.

Jeremy Fisher is a frog who lives in a damp little house amongst the buttercups at the edge of a pond. His larder and back passage are "slippy-sloppy" with water, but he likes getting his feet wet; no one ever scolds and he never catches cold. One day, Jeremy finds it raining and decides to go fishing. Should he catch more than five minnows, he will invite his friends to dinner. He puts on a Macintosh and shiny Galoshes, takes his rod and basket, and sets off with "enormous hops" to the place where he keeps his lily-pad boat. He poles to a place he knows is good for minnows. Once there, he sits cross-legged on his lily-pad and arranges his tackle. He has "the dearest little red float". His rod is a stalk of grass and his line a horsehair. An hour passes without a nibble. He takes a break and lunches on a butterfly sandwich. A water beetle tweaks his toe causing him to withdraw his legs, and rats rustling about in the rushes force him to seek a safer location. He drops his line into the water and immediately has a bite. It is not a minnow but little Jack Sharp, a stickleback. The fish escapes but not before Jeremy pricks his fingers on Jack's spines. A shoal of little fishes come to the surface to laugh at Jeremy. Jeremy sucks his sore fingers, but a trout rises from the water and seizes him with a snap (Mr. Jeremy screams, "OW-OW-OW!!!"). The trout dives to the bottom, but finds the Macintosh tasteless and spits Jeremy out, swallowing only his goloshes. Jeremy bounces "up to the surface of the water, like a cork and the bubbles out of a soda water bottle", and swims to the pond's edge. He scrambles up the bank and hops home through the meadow, having lost his fishing equipment but quite sure he will never go fishing again. In the last few pages, Jeremy has put sticking plaster on his fingers and welcomes his friends, Sir Isaac Newton, a newt, and Alderman Ptolemy Tortoise, a tortoise who eats salad. Isaac wears a black and gold waistcoat and Ptolemy brings a salad in a string bag. Jeremy has prepared roasted grasshopper with ladybird sauce. The narrator describes the dish as a "frog treat", but thinks "it must have been nasty!"

Zed (Jack Black) is a hunter and Oh (Michael Cera) is a gatherer. After being informed that Zed ate from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, the shaman (Bill Hader) and Marlak (Matthew Willig) banish him from the tribe. After Zed burns down the village by accident, Oh decides to go with Zed on his journey to discover all the world has to offer. Along the way, they encounter Cain and Abel (David Cross and Paul Rudd). Cain kills Abel and informs Zed and Oh that they must escape with him or else be accused of killing Abel. Afterwards, Zed and Oh find that the girls they want to "lay with", Maya (June Diane Raphael) and Eema (Juno Temple), from their former tribe have been captured and are being sold into slavery. They try to buy the girls' freedom, but Cain ends up selling Zed and Oh. While being taken to a village by the owner with all the other slaves from their tribe, Sodomites attack and take the slaves prisoner, though Zed and Oh escape and hide in the desert, watching the Sodomites. The next morning, Zed and Oh discover that the Sodomites have left with the slaves. They head off to save the slaves. They come to a mountain and find Abraham (Hank Azaria) about to kill his son Isaac (Christopher Mintz-Plasse). Zed stops them, claiming that the Lord sent him to do so. Abraham takes them to his Hebrew village and tells them about the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. Zed and Oh head off for Sodom after Abraham decides to circumcise them. As they arrive in Sodom, they are captured. Cain, now a Sodomite soldier, saves them from being sodomized, calling them "his brothers." The two recalled that they were sold by Cain as slaves and Cain apologizes and offers them food. While being given a tour of the city by Cain, Zed and Oh are offered by Cain to become guards. Shortly after they become guards and are patrolling the city they see the princess Inanna (Olivia Wilde), who is fasting because she feels guilty that most of the city is starving. That night, at a party, Zed is invited by the princess to talk with her. Inside the palace, Zed sees Maya and Eema serving as slaves, while Oh is forced to follow the very effeminate high priest around the palace. Zed meets Princess Inanna and she asks him to enter the Holy of Holies and tell her what it is like, thinking that Zed is the "Chosen One." Inside the temple, Zed encounters Oh, who is hiding from the high priest (Oliver Platt). There, they get into a heated argument and are then imprisoned for going inside the temple. The two are sentenced to be stoned to death but Zed convinces the Sodomites to have mercy, so they are instead sentenced to hard labor until they die from work. The king then announces that he will be sacrificing his daughter and two virgins (Maya and Eema) as a gift to the gods. Zed interrupts the ceremony, claiming he is the "Chosen One." A riot starts, Oh saves Eema and Abraham arrives with the Hebrews to overthrow the king. Oh and Eema lay with each other inside the palace, which not only consummates their relationship, but also means that Eema cannot be sacrificed. They then come out to help Zed fight the soldiers (including Cain). The crowd kills all the leaders and proclaim Zed as the Leader being the "Chosen One". Zed turns this down, letting Inanna rule, and instead becomes an explorer with Maya. Oh becomes the leader of the village where the whole adventure started. The two say their goodbyes and head their separate ways.

Fifteen-year-old Sarah Williams rehearses a play in the park with her dog Merlin but becomes distracted by a line she is unable to remember while being watched by a barn owl. Realizing she is late to babysit her baby brother Toby, she rushes home and is confronted by her stepmother Irene before she and her father Robert leave for dinner. Sarah has many toys that she has grown out of and realizes that Toby is in possession of her treasured teddy bear Lancelot. Frustrated by this and his constant crying, Sarah rashly wishes Toby be taken away by the Goblin King Jareth, a character in the play she is rehearsing. She is shocked when Toby disappears and the Goblin King confronts her then transports her to his kingdom. He refuses to return the baby, but gives Sarah thirteen hours to solve his Labyrinth and find him before Toby is turned into a goblin forever. Sarah meets a dwarfish man named Hoggle, who aids her in entering the Labyrinth. She has trouble finding turns and corners but then meets a talking worm who inadvertently sends her in the wrong direction. Sarah ends up in an oubliette where she reunites with Hoggle. After they confront Jareth and escape one of his traps, the two encounter a large beast named Ludo. Hoggle cowardly flees while Sarah befriends Ludo. After another riddle, she loses him in a forest. Hoggle encounters Jareth, who gives him a peach and instructs him to give it to Sarah, calling his loyalty into question as he was supposed to lead her out of the maze. Sarah is assaulted by a group of creatures called Firies with detachable body parts who try to remove her head, but Hoggle comes to her aid. She kisses him, and Jareth magically sends them to the swamp of the Bog of Eternal Stench as punishment, where they reunite with Ludo. Sarah, Hoggle, and Ludo meet a guard of the bridge out of the swamp named Sir Didymus, an anthropomorphic Fox Terrier and his Old English Sheepdog steed named Ambrosius. After Ludo howls and summons a trail of rocks to save Sarah from falling into the bog, Didymus joins the group (Her three new friends are just like some of the toys in her room). After the group gets hungry, Hoggle gives Sarah the peach and runs away as she falls into a trance and begins to lose her memories. She has a dream where Jareth comes to her at a masquerade ball, proclaiming his love for her, but she begins to remember and escapes, falling into a junkyard. After an old Junk Lady fails to brainwash her and her memory is jogged, she is rescued by Ludo and Didymus, and they are right outside Goblin City near Jareth's castle. They are confronted by the gate guard, but Hoggle bravely comes to their rescue. Despite his feeling unworthy of forgiveness for his betrayal, Sarah and the others welcome him back, and they enter the city together. Jareth is alerted to their presence and sends his goblin army to stop them, but Ludo howls and summons a mountain of rocks to chase the guards away, and they enter the castle. Sarah insists she must face Jareth alone and promises to call the others if needed. In a room modeled after an Escher staircase, she confronts Jareth while trying to retrieve Toby. She recites the lines from her play, that have told her adventure to that point, but still cannot remember the last line. As Jareth begs her to obey him and he will love her, she remembers the line, "You have no power over me!" Defeated at the last second, Jareth returns Sarah and Toby home safely and turns into a barn owl, flying away. Realizing how important Toby is to her, she gives him Lancelot and returns to her room. After she hears her father and stepmother come in, she sees her friends in the mirror and realizes even though she is growing up, she still needs them in her life every now and again. In an instant, all of the major characters from the Labyrinth appear in her room for a raucous celebration, and she reunites with Hoggle, Ludo, Didymus, and Ambrosius. As they celebrate, Jareth, in his owl form, watches from outside and then flies away into the night.

Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray), a successful insurance salesman, returns to his office building in downtown Los Angeles late one night. Visibly in pain, he begins dictating a confession into a Dictaphone for his friend and colleague, Barton Keyes (Edward G. Robinson), a brilliant claims adjuster. The story, told primarily in flashback, ensues. Neff first meets the alluring Phyllis Dietrichson (Barbara Stanwyck) during a routine house call to remind her husband (Tom Powers) that his automobile insurance policy is up for renewal. They flirt, until Phyllis asks how she could take out an accident policy on her husband's life without his knowledge. Neff deduces she is contemplating murder, and makes it clear he wants no part of it. However, he cannot get her out of his mind, and when Phyllis shows up at his own home, he cannot resist her any longer. Neff knows all the tricks of his trade and devises a plan to make the murder of her husband appear to be an accidental fall from a train that will trigger the "double indemnity" clause and pay out twice the policy's face value. After Dietrichson breaks his leg, Phyllis drives him to the train station for his trip to Palo Alto for a college reunion. Neff is hiding in the backseat and kills Dietrichson when Phyllis turns onto a deserted side street. Then, Neff boards the train posing as Dietrichson and using his crutches. He makes his way to the last car, the observation car, and steps outside to the open platform to supposedly smoke a cigarette. A complication ensues when he meets a passenger named Jackson (Porter Hall) there, but he manages to get the man to leave. Neff then throws the crutches on the railway tracks, jumps off at a prearranged meeting spot with Phyllis, and drags Dietrichson's body onto the tracks by his crutches. Mr. Norton, the company's chief, believes the death was suicide, but Keyes scoffs at the idea, quoting statistics indicating the improbability of suicide by jumping off a slow-moving train, to Neff's hidden delight. Keyes does not suspect foul play at first, but his instincts, to which he refers as the "little man", pointing to his stomach, starts nagging. He wonders why Dietrichson did not file a claim for his broken leg, and deduces he did not know about the policy. Keyes tells Neff of his theory outside Neff's apartment, while Phyllis hides behind the door. Keyes soon concludes that Phyllis and some unknown accomplice murdered Dietrichson for the insurance money, but needs more proof. Keyes, however, is not Neff's only worry. The victim's daughter, Lola (Jean Heather), comes to him, convinced that stepmother Phyllis is behind her father's death. Lola's mother also died under suspicious circumstances, when Phyllis was her nurse. Neff begins seeing Lola, at first to keep her from going to the police with her suspicions and then because he is plagued by guilt and a sense of responsibility for her. Keyes brings Jackson to Los Angeles. After examining photographs of Dietrichson, Jackson is sure the man he met was not that old, but at least 15 years younger. Keyes is eager to reject the claim and force Phyllis to sue. Neff warns Phyllis not to go to court and admits he has been talking to Lola about her past. Lola eventually tells him she has discovered her boyfriend, the hotheaded Nino Zachetti (Byron Barr), has been seeing Phyllis behind her (and Neff's) back. When Keyes informs Neff that he suspects Nino of being Phyllis's accomplice (Nino has been spotted repeatedly visiting Phyllis at night), Neff sees a way out of his predicament. He arranges to meet Phyllis at her house. He informs her that he knows about her involvement with Nino, and guesses that she is planning to have the other man kill him. He tells her that he intends to kill her and put the blame on Nino. She is prepared, however, and shoots him in the shoulder. Seriously wounded but still standing, he slowly comes closer and dares her to shoot again. She does not, and he takes the gun from her. She says she never loved him "until a minute ago, when I couldn't fire that second shot." Neff doesn't believe a word she says, and as she hugs him tightly, Neff says, "Goodbye, baby," and shoots twice, killing her. Outside, Neff waits for Nino to arrive (something Neff had orchestrated). Neff advises him not to enter the house and instead go to "the woman who truly loves you": Lola. Nino is reluctantly convinced and leaves as told. Neff drives to his office and starts speaking into his Dictaphone, as seen at the film's opening. Keyes arrives unnoticed and hears enough to know the truth. Keyes sadly tells him, "Walter, you're all washed up." Neff tells Keyes he is going to Mexico rather than face the gas chamber, but sags to the floor from his injury and blood loss before he can reach the elevator. A weakened Neff tells Keyes the reason he couldn't figure the case out was beacause the guy he was looking for was "too close, right across the desk from you." When Keyes replies "closer than that, Walter." Neff replies that he loves Keyes too. As Neff had done lighting Keyes' cigars for him throughout the film, Keyes lights Neff's cigarette as they await the police and an ambulance.

Clinical psychologist Dr. Chris Kelvin is approached by emissaries for DBA, a corporation operating a space station orbiting the planet Solaris, who relay a message sent from his scientist friend Dr. Gibarian. Gibarian requests that Kelvin come to the station to help understand an unusual phenomenon but is unwilling to explain more. DBA is unsure how to proceed, as the mission to study Solaris has been sidetracked and none of the astronauts want to return home. In addition, DBA has lost contact with the security patrol recently dispatched to the station. Kelvin agrees to a solo mission to Solaris as a last attempt to bring the crew home safely. Upon arriving at Solaris Station, Kelvin learns that Gibarian has committed suicide and most of the crew have either died or disappeared under bizarre circumstances. Both surviving crew members, Snow and Dr. Gordon, are reluctant to explain the situation at hand. Once alone in his quarters, Kelvin dreams about his dead wife Rheya — reliving when they first met and some of their most romantic and intimate moments. He awakens shocked and terrified to encounter Rheya, apparently alive again beside him in bed, and he leads her into an escape pod and jettisons it into space. Kelvin confides his actions to Snow and comes to understand that replicas of the crew's loved ones have been mysteriously appearing. When Rheya manifests a second time Kelvin lets her stay, but she admits she does not feel human; her memories feel artificial, in that she lacks the emotional attachment that comes with actually having lived them. Through numerous flashbacks, Kelvin and Rheya's meeting and courtship are explored, with hints as to her disturbed upbringing and emotional difficulties. It is also gradually revealed through these flashbacks that Rheya once terminated a pregnancy but did not tell Kelvin about it. When he discovered her choice he was distraught and walked out on her. Rheya then committed suicide and was later found by Kelvin when he returned for her. Kelvin, Rheya, Snow and Gordon meet to discuss the situation and Gordon tells Rheya what Kelvin did to her previous replica. An appalled Rheya abandons the meeting. Kelvin confronts Gordon, who in turn chastises him for getting emotionally involved with something that is not really human and may eventually pose a threat to human beings on the station as well as on Earth. Later during a dream, Kelvin questions a replica of Gibarian as to what Solaris's motives are for providing the manifestations, but he is told "there are no answers, only choices." Kelvin wakes to find Rheya dead, having committed suicide by drinking liquid oxygen. But she quickly self-resurrects, and it is revealed that other manifestations who have 'died' have done the same. Gordon develops an apparatus which can permanently destroy a replica but Kelvin objects to using it on Rheya. Driven by his own grief and guilt over the 'real' Rheya's death on Earth, he begins ingesting a chemical stimulant to stay awake in order to monitor Rheya, trying to avoid repeating the past and essentially abandoning her to suicide. Kelvin eventually falls asleep and Rheya successfully petitions Gordon to destroy her with the apparatus as she has done for her own replica(s). Traumatized, Kelvin confronts Dr. Gordon who maintains she merely facilitated in assisted suicide and only strives for the preservation of the humans on the station. Kelvin and Gordon then discover Snow's body stashed away in a ceiling vent and realize that the Snow they have been interacting with is a replica. Snow admits to being a replica and explains that upon being dreamed into existence, he was attacked by his creator and thus killed the "original Snow" in self-defense. The Snow replica tells them that repeat usage of the apparatus has drained the ship's fuel cell reactor, making a return trip to Earth impossible. Furthermore, Solaris has reacted to the behavior of the humans by 'exponentially' increasing its mass, thereby gravitationally pulling the space station inexorably toward the planet. Gordon and Kelvin begin prepping a smaller space vehicle called Athena to escape. Kelvin gives up the idea of boarding the lifeboat, and Doctor Gordon leaves him behind. As the plummeting space station rattles itself to pieces around him, a replica of Gibarian's young son appears and offers his hand in assistance. Kelvin is then shown struggling to return to normal life on Earth whilst ruminating on the idea that he "remembered her wrong" - that is, Rheya as being invariably suicidal. He accidentally cuts his finger while chopping vegetables in his kitchen, but the wound immediately heals, and he realises that he has only glimpsed a possible future and that he is still on Solaris, since an artificial environment has apparently been created by Solaris for his continued survival on the planet. Or maybe the original Kelvin died aboard the wrecked space station and has been replaced by a replica of himself without realising it. But even his perception of this home away from home could merely be a temporary convenience, because when Rheya appears to him yet again, she replies to a question of his with an implication that they have transcended the conventional meanings of 'life' and 'death' and that all they have done to each other is forgiven.

The story is set just after the Union of Scotland and England (1707), in the Liddesdale hills of the Scottish Borders, familiar to Scott from his work collecting ballads for The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border. The main character is based on David Ritchie, whom Scott met in the autumn of 1797. In the tale, the dwarf is Sir Edward Mauley, a hermit regarded by the locals as being in league with the Devil, who becomes embroiled in a complex tale of love, revenge, betrayal, Jacobite schemes and a threatened forced marriage. Scott began the novel well, "but tired of the ground I had trode so often before... I quarrelled with my story, & bungled up a conclusion." Critics and public found it poor in comparison with its popular companion Old Mortality. One of the harshest reviews was in the Quarterly Review, written anonymously by Scott himself. The introduction to The Black Dwarf attributes the work to Jedediah Cleishbotham, whom Scott had invented as a fictional editor of the Landlord series. It is here that we have the most complete view of this character.As Hobbie Elliot was returning over a wild moor from a day's sport, thinking of the legends he had heard of its supernatural occupants after nightfall, he was overtaken by Patrick Earnscliff, whose father had been killed in a quarrel with the laird of Ellislaw, Richard Vere. The moon suddenly revealed the figure of a human dwarf, who, on being spoken to, refused their offers of assistance, and bid them begone. Having invited Earnscliff to sup with his womenfolks, and pass the night at his farm, Hobbie accompanied him next morning to confront the strange being by daylight; and having assisted him in collecting stones for constructing a hut, they supplied him with food and other necessaries. In a short time he had completed his dwelling, and became known to the neighbours, for whose ailments he prescribed, as Elshender the Recluse. Being visited by Isabel Vere and two of her friends, he told their fortunes, and he gave her a rose, with strict injunctions to bring it to him in her hour of adversity. As they rode homewards, their conversation implied that she loved young Patrick Earnscliff, but that Mr Vere intended her to marry Sir Frederick Langley. Another of the dwarf's visitors was Willie Graeme of Westburnflat, on his way to avenge an affront he had received from Hobbie Elliot, whose dog the next day killed one of the dwarf's goats, for which he warned him that retribution was at hand. Shortly afterwards, Willie Graeme brought word that he and his companions had fired Hobbie's farm, and carried off his sweetheart, Grace Armstrong, and some cattle. On hearing this Elshie despatched him with an order for some money, and insisted that Grace should be given up uninjured. Having dispersed his neighbours in search of her, Hobbie Elliot went to consult Elshie, who handed him a bag of gold, which he declined, and intimated that he must seek her whom he had lost "in the west." Earnscliff and his party had tracked the cattle as far as the English border, but on finding a large Jacobite force assembling there they returned, and it was decided to attack Westburnflat's stronghold. On approaching it, a female hand, which her lover swore was Grace's, waved a signal to them from a turret, and as they were preparing a bonfire to force the door, Graeme agreed to release his prisoner, who proved to be Isabel Vere. On reaching home, however, Elliot found that Grace had been brought back, and at dawn he started off to accept the money which the dwarf had offered him to repair his homestead. Isabel had been seized by ruffians while walking with her father, who appeared overcome with grief, and under the impression that Earnscliff was the offender; whereas Mr Ratcliffe, who managed his affairs, suggested that Sir Frederick had stronger motives for placing her under restraint. Mr Vere's suspicion seemed justified by their meeting his daughter returning under her lover's care; but she confirmed his version of the circumstances under which he had intervened, to the evident discomfiture of his rival and her father. At a large gathering, the same day, of the Pretender's adherents in the hall of Ellieslaw Castle, Ralph Mareschal produced a letter which dissipated all their hopes, and Sir Frederick insisted that his marriage with Isabel should take place before midnight. She had consented, on her father's representation that his life would be forfeited if she refused, when Mr Ratcliffe persuaded her to make use of the token which Elshie had given her, and escorted her to his dwelling. He promised that at the foot of the altar he would redeem her; and, just as the ceremony was commencing in the chapel, a voice, which seemed to proceed from her mother's tomb, uttered the word "Forbear." The dwarf's real name and rank were then revealed, as well as the circumstances under which he had acquired the power of thus interfering on Isabel's behalf, while Hobbie and his friends supported Mr Ratcliffe in dispersing the would-be rebels. Sir Edward at the same time disappeared from the neighbourhood, and Mr Vere retired, with an ample allowance, to the Continent, all the Ellieslaw property, as well as the baronet's, being settled on Earnscliff and his bride Isabel. Sir Frederick Langley was a few years afterwards executed at Preston, and Westburnflat earned a commission in Marlborough's army by his services in providing cattle for the commissariat.

The story focuses on a family of anthropomorphic rabbits. The widowed mother rabbit cautions her young against entering the vegetable garden of a man named Mr McGregor, telling them: "your Father had an accident there; he was put in a pie by Mrs McGregor". Her three daughters obediently refrain from entering the garden, going down the lane to pick blackberries, but her rebellious son Peter enters the garden to snack on some vegetables. Peter ends up eating more than is good for him and goes looking for parsley to cure his stomach ache. Peter is spotted by Mr McGregor and loses his jacket and shoes while trying to escape. He hides in a watering can in a shed, but then has to run away again when Mr McGregor finds him, and ends up completely lost. After sneaking past a cat, Peter sees the gate where he entered the garden from a distance and heads for it, despite being spotted and chased by Mr McGregor again. With difficulty he wriggles under the gate, and escapes from the garden, but he spots his abandoned clothing being used to dress Mr McGregor's scarecrow. After returning home, a sick Peter is sent to bed by his mother, while his well-behaved sisters receive a sumptuous dinner of milk and berries as opposed to Peter's supper of chamomile tea.

In writing style The Confessions of a Young Man is presented as a novel, with a hero named Dayne, but the reader assumes in essence it is an autobiography, a true "confession". Dayne (i.e. Moore) went to Paris as a teenager, and almost becomes a full Parisian nearly forgetting the English language after 15 years. He sketches, with a frankness now jubilant, now cynical, the luscious "vie de Boheme" that Paris alone could offer the young man of health and wealth who loved art. Amid scenes splendid, squalid, or bizarre, move students, cabotins, painters, poets, pale enthusiasts starving for the sake of an idea, actresses, women of fashion, courtesans, clubmen, and spectators. Artistic endeavour and perfumed vice mingle in fraternity; everything is unusual, irregular, fantastic. Dayne emerges from the ordeal of this environment but little changed. For him the enticements of the flesh are not more powerful than those of art. One week he is beguiling the hours in some salon or alcove, the next he is incandescent with aspiration. So the years pass; and at last, having saturated himself with the French theories of literary and graphic art which are bound up with the names of Flaubert, Goncourts, Zola, Degas, and Manet, he one day learns with tragic certainty that he is not destined to be a painter, and he courageously admits that all this periodic, frenzied effort has been misdirected. Then we have interludes of philosophy and literary criticism; the philosophy perhaps not of much account; the criticism often original, epigrammatic, sometimes of an astounding penetration, and always literary. Later, Dayne is driven by adverse circumstances to London and to a lodging in the Strand, where the book ends. Dayne's ideas about art and his temperament can be seen in characteristic passages like the following: "For art was not for us then as it is now—a mere emotion, right or wrong only in proportion to its intensity; we believed then in the grammar of art, perspective, anatomy, and la jambe qui forte."

The Wheels of Chance was written at the height of the cycling craze (1890–1905), when practical, comfortable bicycles first became widely and cheaply available and before the rise of the automobile (see History of the bicycle). The advent of the bicycle stirred sudden and profound changes in the social life of England. Even the working class could travel substantial distances, quickly and cheaply, and the very idea of travelling for pleasure became a possibility for thousands of people for the first time. This new freedom affected many. It began to weaken the rigid English class structure and it gave an especially powerful boost to the existing movement toward female emancipation. Wells explored these social changes in his story.The hero of The Wheels of Chance, Mr. Hoopdriver, is a frustrated "draper's assistant" in Putney, a badly paid, grinding position (and one which Wells briefly held); and yet he owns a bicycle and is setting out on a bicycling tour of "the Southern Coast" on his annual ten days' holiday. Hoopdriver survives his frustration by escaping in his imagination into a world of fantasy. He is not a skilled rider of his forty-three-pound bicycle, and his awkwardness reflects both Wells's own uncertainties in negotiating the English class system and his critical view of that society. Nonetheless, Hoopdriver is treated sympathetically: "But if you see how a mere counter-jumper, a cad on castors, and a fool to boot, may come to feel the little insufficiencies of life, and if he has to any extent won your sympathies, my end is attained." Hoopdriver's summer adventure begins lyrically: Only those who toil six long days out of the seven, and all the year round, save for one brief glorious fortnight or ten days in the summer time, know the exquisite sensations of the First Holiday Morning. All the dreary, uninteresting routine drops from you suddenly, your chains fall about your feet. . . . There were thrushes in the Richmond Road, and a lark on Putney Heath. The freshness of dew was in the air; dew or the relics of an overnight shower glittered on the leaves and grass. . . . He wheeled his machine up Putney Hill, and his heart sang within him. Hoopdriver encounters a pretty young woman cycling alone and wearing rationals (bloomers). He dares not speak to the Young Lady in Grey, as he calls her, but their paths keep crossing. She is ultimately revealed to be Jessie Milton, a girl of seventeen who has run away from her stepmother in Surbiton, risking "ruin" at the hands of the bounder Bechamel, an unscrupulous older man who has promised to help the naive Jessie to establish herself an independent life but who is really intent on seducing her. Ironically, her flight has in part been inspired by liberal ideals of unconventionality that have been hypocritically promoted by her stepmother's popular novels. Hoopdriver half-inadvertently rescues her from Bechamel's clutches, and the two proceed to cycle across the south of England. Ashamed of his true circumstances, Hoopdriver spins droll tales of South African origins and the comforts of wealth until shame induces him to confess his true circumstances. But he also displays genuine courage, rebuking insolent travellers who insult Jessie's honour. Hoopdriver's encounter inspires in him a desire to better himself, as well as impossibly romantic feelings toward Jessie. At last a party consisting of her stepmother, some of her stepmother's admirers, and her former schoolteacher catches up with them. Jessie returns home and Hoopdriver returns to the Drapery Emporium of Messrs. Antrobus & Co., but Jessie has promised to "send him some books" and has held out the vague prospect that "in six years' time" things may be different. Jessie's bookish and romantic education has kept her ignorant of the realities of life, and her ignorance contributes to the comedy of Hoopdriver's half-clever, half-ridiculous improvised stories of life in Africa. Jessie has her own aspirations: "She was going to Live her Own Life, with emphasis." H.G. Wells's intention in The Wheels of Chance might be taken to be satirical, were his protagonists' circumstances not so closely related to his own history and that of his second wife, Catherine Robbins.

The film opens with a group of thieves led by Anthony Fait attempting to steal diamonds for a Frenchman named Christophe, who serves as the middleman for a mysterious employer. When Fait contacts Christophe, a Taiwanese Intelligence Agent named Su intercepts the conversation and attempts to identify the criminals. While the crew gathers up as many diamonds as they can, including a bag of black diamonds, Agent Su calls Fait and demands that he and his crew leave the diamonds in the vault, warning him that the police are on the way. However, Fait ignores this warning, and the criminals attempt a daring escape past a SWAT team blockade. While Fait, Daria, and Tommy all manage to escape, Agent Su captures Miles and recovers Miles' share of the diamonds. Su is disappointed to find that Miles does not have the black diamonds though. Meanwhile, Fait asks his friend Archie to appraise the black diamonds he had stolen. Arriving at the San Francisco International Airport, Christophe's mysterious employer, Ling, is informed, by his assistant Sona, that Christophe has been attacked and that Fait and his gang have taken the black diamonds. Later that night, Fait runs into Su. During this inadvertent meeting, Fait receives a phone call from Ling, who demands that Fait hand over the black diamonds. Fait refuses and is subsequently attacked by two of Ling's henchman. With Su's help, he defeats them and escapes. After the fight, Archie tells Fait that some gangsters came to his workshop and demanded the black diamonds as well. After some hesitation, Archie admits that he gave the stones to the gangsters to spare his own life. Fait also receives another call from Ling, who has kidnapped Fait's daughter, Vanessa, to persuade Fait to give up the diamonds. Now with a common enemy, Fait and Su team up to recover the diamonds from the gangsters and rescue Vanessa from Ling. Fait visits jailed crime lord "Jump" Chambers, most likely the employer of the gangsters who had robbed Archie. When Chambers refuses to cooperate, Fait goes to Chambers' night club, hoping to find the stones somewhere in his office. The plan goes awry, and Fait and the gang have to leave empty-handed. Meanwhile, Su and Archie go to an underground club to try to find the gangsters who attacked Archie. Because the club does not allow guests, Su is forced to enter as a fighter in the club's fighting ring. During Su's fight, Archie sees the man they are looking for, recognizing the man's ring. Through this informant, they learn that the diamonds are hidden in the bubble bath in Chamber's office. When they return to the nightclub to retrieve the diamonds, they find that Ling's men have already taken the stones. Meanwhile, while locked in a van, the bound and gagged Vanessa frees herself, and finds a cell phone to call her father. Just before the phone's battery runs out, Vanessa gives some clues as to her location. With these clues, the gang surmises that Vanessa is being held in an airport hangar. Realizing that Ling will want to auction off the stones, which are actually weapons of mass destruction, the group searches flight schedules to find an airport where a large number of private flights will be landing that night. Finding the right airport, the group races to the hangar, where Ling's auction is already starting. A fight ensues, and Fait and his crew take out members of Ling's team. However, Vanessa is rescued and Ling is killed after Su forces him to swallow a capsule of synthetic plutonium and then breaks the capsule lodged in his neck. When the police arrive, Fait promises to end his criminal career in order to lead a safe and happy life with Vanessa. In a bonus scene during the credits, Tommy and Archie made a plan to make the movie with their story, and using famous actors, such as Mel Gibson and Denzel Washington. They plan to get the director of the movies Exit Wounds and Romeo Must Die (Andrzej Bartkowiak).

In Aroostook County, Maine, Marine fish and Game officer Walt Lawson is attacked and bitten in half by something unseen in Black Lake. Sheriff Hank Keough (Brendan Gleeson), Fish and Game officer Jack Wells (Bill Pullman), American Museum of Natural History paleontologist Kelly Scott (Bridget Fonda), and mythology professor/crocodile enthusiast Hector Cyr (Oliver Platt) go to the lake to investigate. A series of strange events occurs, including Kelly and Hank's canoe mysteriously flying into the air and flipping, the discovery of a severed toe and a severed moose head, and the decapitation of Burke, one of Hank's deputies. Later, as Hank and Hector argue, a bear attacks them, but a giant saltwater crocodile then leaps out of the water and drags it into the lake. Later, after finding Burke's severed head, Jack, Kelly, and Hank witness Mrs. Delores Bickerman (Betty White), one of few people living on the lake, feeding a blindfolded cow to the enormous crocodile. Mrs. Bickerman reveals that she has been feeding the crocodile for years after it followed her husband home. It eventually killed him. She is placed under house arrest for initially lying to the police. Hector decides to take Deputy Sharon Gare (Meredith Salenger) on a trip in his helicopter, and lands it in the cove where the crocodile lives. While he is diving, it targets him, but he and Gare escape. Jack and Hank plan to allow Florida Fish and Game to kill the crocodile when they arrive, but Hector suggests instead that he lure it out of the water and drug it. Jack reluctantly accepts the proposal, and they use one of Mrs. Bickerman's cows, dangled from the helicopter, as bait. After a few hours, the crocodile lunges at the cow. Hector pulls up, loses the cow, and crashes the helicopter into the lake. The crocodile comes on land and attacks Jack and Kelly. Kelly is knocked into the lake, but she makes it to the helicopter just in time. The crocodile then gets trapped in the helicopter. Despite Hector and Kelly's protests to let the animal live, Jack grabs a gun and shoots it. The gun is revealed to be a tranquilizer rifle. As Hector comes out of the water, a second crocodile attacks him, but Hank blows it up with his grenade launcher. Florida Fish and Game officers arrive seconds later. They load the crocodile on a truck and take it to Portland, Maine to figure out what to do with it. The last scene shows Mrs. Bickerman feeding bread crumbs to many baby crocodiles, implying the two adults were a mating pair. During the end credits, the surviving adult crocodile is seen tied to the back of a flat-bed truck, speeding down a road.

In 1937, a military facility is on watch behind a two-way mirror as a soldier (Bill Hader), smoking marijuana, begins to reveal very graphically what he hates about the army, but still remains euphoric. A high-ranking officer (James Remar) immediately closes the project and deems marijuana illegal. Jump ahead seventy years later, Dale Denton (Seth Rogen) is a 25-year-old process server and habitual marijuana smoker. He makes a visit to the home of his drug dealer, Saul Silver (James Franco), to buy marijuana. Saul tells him that he may already know the identity of Dale's next customer, Ted Jones (Gary Cole). Dale drives to Ted's house and witnesses Ted and a police officer, Officer Carol Brazier (Rosie Perez), shoot a man to death. Dale panics and flees the area, but leaves his roach at the scene, which contains a rare strain of marijuana called Pineapple Express. Ted is able to identify the strain and sends his two henchmen, Budlofsky and Matheson (Kevin Corrigan and Craig Robinson) to a dealer, Red (Danny McBride), who tells them that he has only sold the pot to Saul. Dale flees to Saul's apartment and learns that Ted is a dangerous drug lord and could trace the roach back to Saul. Dale and Saul flee into the nearby woods while Ted's henchmen persuade Red to arrange a meeting with Saul. They accidentally fall asleep in Dale's car and wake up to find that they missed their meeting with Red. They leave the woods and arrive at Red's house, hoping to determine whether Ted has linked them with the Pineapple Express. Red says Ted isn't after them but Dale realizes that he's lying, and starts a fight that results in Red getting knocked out. They wake Red and question him until he reveals that Ted has discovered who they are and is going to kill them. Dale and Saul decide that they must leave the city. In order to leave town, Dale and Saul sell some Pineapple Express to raise bus fare. However, a police officer named Barber (Cleo King) sees Dale and arrests him for selling marijuana. In the back of the cruiser, Dale tries to convince Barber that Brazier is corrupt and tells her that he witnessed her and Ted murder a man. Barber recognizes Brazier and promises him that she will investigate her soon. However, Saul leaps out in front of the police car and hijacks it thinking that Brazier is the one driving. Brazier hears a police radio call of Dale's arrest and pursues Dale and Saul in a high-speed chase but they manage to escape. After an argument with each other about the situation they are in, Dale and Saul go their separate ways. Saul visits his grandmother in an assisted living home but is kidnapped and held hostage in Ted's lair beneath a barn. Dale enlists Red to help him rescue Saul but Red unexpectedly backs out at the last minute and Dale is captured. While Dale and Saul are held hostage, they reconcile with each other and make plans to escape. Suddenly, Asian mobsters attack the barn to avenge a fellow gangster's death at the hands of Ted and Officer Brazier (the same murder that Dale witnessed). Dale and Saul finally free themselves but are caught by Matheson. Matheson grazes Dale's ear with a gunshot but is disarmed and shot by Saul. Dale and Saul join the fight and a brawl ensues between Dale and Ted. When Budlofsky refuses to kill Saul, Matheson emerges from the lair and shoots him in the chest, killing him. He turns around to kill Saul but Red drives through the barn and saves Saul by hitting Matheson with his car. Red is then seemingly shot to death by Brazier. One of the mobsters activate a bomb, resulting in Ted's death, and setting fire to the barn. When Red's car explodes, it flips over and lands on Brazier, killing her. The explosion incapacitates Saul but Dale finds him and carries him out of the burning barn. Red, wounded but still alive, also escapes and reconciles with them. Afterwards they eat breakfast at a diner and talk about their adventure before Saul's grandmother picks them up and takes them to the hospital.

9 is a sentient rag doll who appears to be the scientist last creation and the last of his kind, living in the ruins of a decaying, post-apocalyptic Earth. He is first seen making simple constructs out of refuse – a swinging armature of scrap metal, an upright book with string tied around it, and a dummy rag doll full of tar, though the purpose behind these things is unclear at first. Hunting 9 relentlessly is the Cat Beast, a mechanical monster wearing a cat's skull for a head. It appears to be guided by a small glowing talisman which it holds in its claws. Sitting quietly, 9 stares into the mirrored surface of his own strange talisman and has a flashback. In the flashback, 9 searches the ruins with his mentor 5, a one-eyed rag doll. They gather useful bits and pieces and store them in the cloth linings of their own skin. With 9's help, 5 is able to salvage a light bulb and operate it using pieces of wire. 5 gives the functional bulb to 9 for safe-keeping. Almost immediately after, 5 draws the mirrored talisman from inside his chest. It glows green, warning of danger. 5 gives the talisman to 9 then pushes him into cover. Extending a homemade folding spear, 5 steps out to confront the threat. But the Cat Beast circles behind him and snatches him up with a metal pincer, shearing off his right arm. Though he struggles, 5 can not break free, and the Cat Beast sucks 5's soul out through his mouth using its talisman leaving 5 lifeless. Horrified, 9 escapes in panic, almost giving away his location to the Cat Beast by scraping the light bulb against a rock. 9 is woken from the memory by the warning green glow of the mirrored talisman. Taking the light bulb, which he has attached to the end of a staff, 9 flees into a ruined house. The Cat Beast follows and we see that it has not just taken the other rag dolls' souls: it also wears their numbered skins like a garment. The number 5 shows prominently on its back. The Beast pounces on what it thinks is 9, but which turns out to be a marionette – the dummy created by 9 at the beginning of the film. The Beast's claws stick in the tar and 9 is able to hop onto its back and steal the Beast's talisman. 9 leads the Beast on a panicked chase through the house and finally runs out onto the end of a broken plank, which extends over a several-story drop. Thinking it has 9 cornered, the Beast walks out onto the plank. But it has fallen into 9's trap. Nearby is the metal armature, and the upright book. 9 leaps off the plank onto the armature, which swings him around to the book. He kicks it and it falls into the pit. The string, tied at one end to the book, has its other end tied to the plank. The weight of the falling book drags the plank into the pit, and the Beast with it. The Beast crashes through a hole in the cellar floor and is presumably impaled by the sharp end of the falling plank. This all reveals that all the things that 9 has built was a cleverly made trap for the Beast. Now free from fear, 9 salvages the skins of the other rag dolls and prepares them to be ceremonially burned. As he looks sadly at the skin of 5, the two talismans begin to glow. 9 realizes that they are two halves of a whole and puts them together. A beam of green light erupts from the united talisman, and the spirits of the eight slain rag dolls 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 emerge, returning to their rag doll skins to be at peace. Before disappearing, 5's soul turns to 9 and nods in approval. In the morning, when the ashes have cooled, 9 – bearing the light bulb staff, a symbol of the persistent light of knowledge and learning – walks off into the wasteland, leaving the empty talisman behind in the sand.

Set in the fictional European kingdom of Lutha, the protagonist is a young American named Barney Custer, of Beatrice, Nebraska, who is the son of an American farmer and a runaway Luthan princess, Victoria Rubinroth. Unaware of his royal blood, much less that he is a dead ringer for his relative Leopold, the current king of Lutha, Barney visits Lutha on the eve of the First World War to see for himself his mother's native land. As he arrives in Lutha, King Leopold has just escaped from his ten years' imprisonment at the hands of his scheming uncle, Prince Peter of Blentz. Much to his own and everyone else's confusion, Barney is naturally mistaken for the king, leading to numerous complications. Barney meets and falls in love with Princess Emma Von Der Tann, Leopold's promised bride and then becomes intimately involved in Luthan affairs, working to help the king and ultimately allowing himself to be proclaimed as king while impersonating Leopold to prevent Prince Peter from seizing the throne. He finally succeeds in foiling Peter's plans to become king himself by rescuing and fighting for the real king. Unfortunately, after his coronation, King Leopold discovers the shared love between Barney and Princess Emma, and Barney is forced to leave Lutha, mimicking the flight of his father years earlier, though his father left with a princess—Barney has only a soldier. Thus ends part one. In the second part of the novel, the European skies are darkening as World War I has begun. In Lutha, King Leopold has proven himself to be a bad ruler and has not yet persuaded Princess Emma to marry him. In Nebraska, Barney's soldier friend leaves the farm to return to Lutha. Barney himself is attacked by one of Prince Peter's henchmen and he decides to return to Lutha as well. After an adventurous trip across war-torn Europe, which includes being mistaken for a spy by the Austrians and barely escaping a firing squad, Barney finally reaches Lutha, where he once again is forced to impersonate the king in order to save Lutha from the advancing Austrians. He makes a diplomatic alliance with Serbia, and defeats the Austrians in person, thereby saving Lutha. The real king Leopold, who has been his antagonist throughout the second part of the novel, is mistaken for Barney and killed by one of Prince Peter's henchmen. Barney then consents to remain as king of Lutha, married at last to Princess Emma.

On the west coast of County Mayo Christy Mahon stumbles into Flaherty's tavern. There he claims that he is on the run because he killed his own father by driving a loy into his head. Flaherty praises Christy for his boldness, and Flaherty's daughter (and the barmaid), Pegeen, falls in love with Christy, to the dismay of her betrothed, Shawn Keogh. Because of the novelty of Christy's exploits and the skill with which he tells his own story, he becomes something of a town hero. Many other women also become attracted to him, including the Widow Quin, who tries unsuccessfully to seduce Christy at Shawn's behest. Christy also impresses the village women by his victory in a donkey race, using the slowest beast. Eventually Christy's father, Mahon, who was only wounded, tracks him to the tavern. When the townsfolk realize that Christy's father is alive, everyone, including Pegeen, shuns him as a liar and a coward. To regain Pegeen's love and the respect of the town, Christy attacks his father a second time. This time it seems that Old Mahon really is dead, but instead of praising Christy, the townspeople, led by Pegeen, bind and prepare to hang him to avoid being implicated as accessories to his crime. Christy's life is saved when his father, beaten and bloodied, crawls back onto the scene, having improbably survived his son's second attack. As Christy and his father leave to wander the world, Shawn suggests he and Pegeen get married soon, but she spurns him. Pegeen laments betraying and losing Christy: "I've lost the only playboy of the western world."