On July 20, 1969, astronaut Jim Lovell watches with family and friends as Neil Armstrong’s first steps on the Moon are televised. Lovell, who took part in the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) Moon-orbiting Apollo 8 mission the previous year, vows to complete a moonwalk, himself. He is initially scheduled to take part in the Apollo 14 mission; however, he and his crew, including Ken Mattingly and Fred Haise, are called on to replace Alan Shepard’s team for the upcoming Apollo 13 mission. When Mattingly is exposed to German Measles, Jack Swigert must take his place. Lovell frets over losing Mattingly but agrees to move forward. On April 11, 1970, the Saturn V rocket launches the Apollo 13 spacecraft out of the Earth’s atmosphere. Three days later, the crew films a television transmission from inside the command module Odyssey. Shortly after, a liquid oxygen tank explodes when Swigert turns it on, and its contents are lost. The crew discover that another oxygen tank is leaking, which requires two fuel cells to be shut off. In the face of these technical difficulties, the Moon landing must be aborted. The lunar module Aquarius is used to power an emergency return to Earth. Meanwhile, at a command station in Houston, Texas, NASA flight director Gene Kranz works with his team to bring the men home safely. Tensions rise among Lovell and his team, as the command module’s cabin loses heat due to power restrictions. Haise suffers a urinary tract infection which leads to fever. He argues with Swigert, whom he blames for the oxygen tank malfunction, but Lovell steps in to mediate. With carbon dioxide levels spiking inside the cabin, Kranz’s team in Houston works frantically to save the astronauts. They engineer a way for Lovell’s team to release the damaged Aquarius module just before re-entry to the Earth’s atmosphere via the Odyssey. Ground control loses communication with the Apollo 13 team longer than expected, but they land safely in the Pacific Ocean. They are rescued and brought aboard the U.S.S. Iwojima, where they are received as heroes. As an older man, Lovell recalls that, following an investigation, it was determined that a minor defect caused the oxygen tank explosion. Apollo 13 marked the final mission into space for his team. Mattingly, who never contracted Measles, orbited the Moon via the Apollo 16 mission in 1972. Ten years later, Swigert was elected to Congress but died of cancer before he could take office. Lovell continued to follow NASA’s work, and watched other astronauts fulfill his dream of walking on the Moon.

In a prologue, an announcer steps from behind a curtain to warn the audience of the horrifying nature of the film they are about to see. In the main story, at a funeral, Fritz, a dwarf, and young scientist Henry Frankenstein dig up a freshly buried body, claiming that the corpse is waiting for a new life. They also remove a man hanging from a gibbet, but his broken neck requires that a new brain be found. After Doctor Waldman's lecture at Goldstadt Medical College, Fritz sneaks in and, after dropping a bottle containing a normal brain, leaves with one containing the brain of a criminal. Meanwhile, in Henry's hometown, Victor Moritz visits Elizabeth, whom he loves. She has received a strange note from Henry her fiancé, who writes that his experiments preclude her from joining him. Concerned, Victor and Elizabeth visit Waldman, Henry's former professor, who explains that Henry had left the college to pursue a mad dream of recreating human life. Together the three go to Henry's laboratory, a watchtower in the mountains. There, Henry and Fritz are preparing to use the power of lightning to charge their electrical mechanisms and give life to a body they have pieced together. Henry agrees to let his friends observe and explains his scientific theories as his creation comes to life. Later Victor and Elizabeth attempt to pacify Henry's doubting father, Baron Frankenstein, who is only interested in promoting the date of his son's wedding. At the laboratory, while Waldman tells Henry of the monster's criminal brain, Fritz torments the monster and the monster kills him. After a fight, Henry and Waldman sedate the monster just as the baron approaches the lab. The exhausted Henry is taken home after Waldman promises to destroy the monster, but instead Waldman is killed by the escaping monster. As the wedding of Elizabeth and Henry is celebrated, the monster drowns Little Maria, a village child who plays with him, then menaces Elizabeth. Ludwig, Maria's father, carries his daughter's body into town, and an angry search party is formed. They go through the mountains by torchlight until Henry finds the monster, and the two engage in a struggle that continues in an abandoned mill, where the monster has fled. The mob sets the mill ablaze, and the monster hurls Henry to the ground before being engulfed by flames. Later, the baron celebrates the wedding of his recovered son with a toast to a future grandchild.

In Chicago, in February, 1929, federal agent Mulligan sets up a raid on a speakeasy run by notorious bootlegger “Spats” Colombo, based on information provided by small-time gangster “Toothpick” Charlie. As Mulligan inspects the lively speakeasy, two members of the band, saxophonist Joe and bass player Jerry eagerly discuss plans for their salary from their first job in four months. The longtime friends begin arguing about how to spend their salary until Jerry notices Mulligan’s badge and they make a hasty exit as the raid begins, avoiding the police roundup. Putting up their coats as collateral, they place a bet with their bookie, and promptly lose both the bet and their coats. Desperate, Joe and Jerry visit the musicians’ agency building hoping to line up another job. At Sid Poliakoff’s agency, receptionist Nellie Weinmeier, incensed over being stood up by Joe a few nights earlier, reveals there is an opening for a bass and sax with a band in an all-expenses paid trip to Florida. Joe and Jerry eagerly question Sid, only to learn that the positions are in an all-girl band. Sid tells them of a job at a college dance in Urbana and Joe accepts, then charms Nellie into loaning them her car for the Urbana gig. Retrieving the car at a garage owned by Toothpick Charlie, Joe and Jerry unintentionally witness Spats and his men shoot Charlie and his men to death for informing on the speakeasy. Although the musicians are spotted by Spats, he is distracted by Charlie, who revives long enough to allow Joe and Jerry to flee. After they evade the gangsters, Jerry suggests they call the police, but Joe reminds him they will not be safe from Spats in any part of Chicago in spite of the police. Joe then telephones Sid and, using a high falsetto voice, accepts the job with the all-girl band. That evening at the train station, Joe and Jerry, uncomfortably disguised as women, check in with band leader Sweet Sue and manager Beinstock as the newest members of the Society Syncopators, Joe as Josephine and Jerry as Daphne. Once on board the train, Joe fears that Jerry’s enthusiasm at finding himself among so many women will expose them and warns his friend to behave “like a girl,” but in the process, musses Jerry’s outfit. Retreating to the ladies’ room for repairs, the men come upon stunning singer and ukulele player Sugar Kane Kowalczyk drinking bourbon from a flask. Sugar pleads with them not to report her to Sue, who has threatened to fire her if she is caught drinking again. A little later during rehearsal, when Sugar’s flask falls to the floor, Sue responds angrily, but Jerry steps forward, and to Sugar’s surprise, claims the flask is his own. That night, Sugar sneaks to Jerry’s berth to thank him for his action, then abruptly jumps into the berth to avoid Sue. Overwhelmed by Sugar’s proximity, Jerry grows anxious and suggests that he needs a drink and within minutes an impromptu party ensues at Jerry’s berth. Joe awakens and is horrified, but gets drawn into the festivities when Sugar asks him to help break up an ice block in the ladies’ room. There Sugar confides that she is with the all-girl band in order to escape a series of unhappy love affairs with tenor saxophone players and dreams of finding a sensitive millionaire who wears glasses. Upon arriving in Florida at the beachfront Ritz Seminole Hotel, “Daphne” catches the attention of wealthy, oft-married Osgood Fielding III. Once in their room, Jerry, infuriated at being flirted with and pinched by Osgood, demands they give up their disguises and find a male band, but Joe insists they must maintain their masquerade, as Spats will surely investigate male orchestras all over the country. Jerry reluctantly agrees and then accompanies Sugar to the beach. Unknown to Jerry, Joe has stolen Beinstock’s suitcase of clothes and eyeglasses and, dressing in them, goes to the beach where he stages an accidental meeting with Sugar. Joe implies that he is the heir to the Shell Oil company and, captivated by the apparently sensitive “Junior,” Sugar invites him to the band’s opening that night. Back in their room, Jerry receives a call from Osgood inviting Daphne to a candlelit dinner on board his yacht. Joe accepts for Jerry, then tells his protesting friend that he must keep the date with Osgood on shore, as he, in the guise of Shell Oil, Junior, plans to dine with Sugar on Osgood’s yacht. That night during the band’s performance, Osgood sends Jerry an enormous bouquet, which Joe commandeers to give to Sugar with a card inviting her to dine with Junior. Afterward, Joe meets Sugar on the pier as an unhappy Jerry talks Osgood into dining at a local roadhouse. While Jerry and Osgood tango to the music of a Cuban band at the roadhouse, on board Osgood’s yacht Joe convinces Sugar that a romantic emotional shock in his youth has left him impotent and years of expensive medical treatment have failed to cure him. Appalled, Sugar begs Joe to allow her to help, but after numerous passionate kisses, Joe insists he is unmoved. Determined, Sugar pleads to keep trying and Joe agrees. At dawn, Joe climbs back in the window of the hotel room to find Jerry deliriously happy because Osgood has proposed. Taken aback, Joe tells his friend it is impossible for him to marry another man, but Jerry explains his plan to reveal his identity after the marriage ceremony and, after an annulment, force Osgood to pay him alimony. Disturbed by Jerry’s high spirits, Joe urges him to remember that he is a boy, and Jerry sadly wonders what to do with Osgood’s engagement gift, an extravagant diamond bracelet. The next day, gangsters from all over the country, summoned by mob boss Little Bonaparte, meet at the hotel under the guise of attending an opera convention. Mulligan is also present and when Spats arrives, accuses him of the murder of Toothpick Charlie and his gang. Upon spotting Spats in the lobby, Joe and Jerry panic and realize they must flee. In their room, Jerry laments having to give up Osgood and Joe telephones Sugar to disclose that Junior’s family has ordered him to Venezuela immediately for an arranged marriage. Moved by Sugar’s despair, Joe places the diamond bracelet in a box of flowers and pushes it across the hall to her door as a farewell gift from Junior. Joe and Jerry then escape out of their hotel window but are seen by Spats and his men on the floor below. When the pair dash away leaving their instruments behind, Spats finds bullet holes in Jerry’s bass and realizes the “broads” are the Chicago murder witnesses in disguise. Knowing they have been discovered, Joe and Jerry dress as a bellboy and a wheelchair-bound millionaire and head across the lobby filled with Spats’s men. Noticing that Jerry has inadvertently left on his high heels, the henchmen give chase and Joe and Jerry run into a convention hall and hide, unaware that the mob “convention” is scheduled to meet there. Moments later, Spats sits at the table under which Joe and Jerry are hiding, and in a prearranged plan, Bonaparte pretends to honor Spats by presenting him with a giant cake, out of which bursts an assassin who guns down Spats and his men. Terrified, Joe and Jerry bolt, but as Bonaparte orders them found, Mulligan and his men close in to make arrests. Resuming their disguises as women, Joe and Jerry overhear that the remainder of Bonaparte’s men are watching all buses and trains out of town and Joe decides they should escape on Osgood’s yacht after Jerry elopes with him. When Jerry balks, Joe says their only option is certain death by Bonaparte’s men. While Jerry telephones Osgood to make arrangements, Joe hears Sugar and the band finishing a song and climbs onto the stage to tell her that no man is worth her heartbreak, then kisses her before hurrying away. Realizing that “Josephine” is “Junior,” Sugar follows the men down to the dock and the waiting Osgood. As they all board the speedboat, Joe removes his wig and confesses that he is a liar and a phony, but Sugar insists that she does not care and the couple embrace. Meanwhile, Osgood proudly tells Daphne that his mother is delighted about their upcoming wedding. Jerry nervously confesses that he cannot marry him, declaring that he is not a natural blonde, smokes, has lived in sin and cannot bear children, but Osgood remains cheerfully undaunted. At last Jerry snatches off his wig and admits that he is a man, wherein Osgood happily assures him that, after all, “nobody’s perfect.”

While playing on his Wyoming homestead, young Joey Starrett spies a lone rider approaching his house, then listens with great curiosity as Shane, the buckskin clad stranger, reveals to his father Joe that he is heading north, toward home. When Joey cocks the rifle he has been toting, Shane, startled by the noise, draws his gun with the speed of a gunslinger. Joe is disturbed by Shane’s behavior and, as a group of men ride up, sends him on his way. The men’s leader, grizzled cattle baron Rufe Ryker, accuses Joe of squatting on his grazing land and demands that he give up his homestead. When Joe refuses, Ryker’s men start to intimidate him until Shane suddenly reappears at Joe’s side. The men depart, and Joe’s wife Marian, who has observed everything from inside the house, urges Joe to invite Shane to dinner. Joey is thrilled to have Shane spend the evening with them, and at the end of the meal, Shane, reticent to talk about his past, goes outside to chop wood for the family. Joe joins in and the next day, the two men team up to pull a stubborn tree stump out of the ground. Later, Joey tells Shane that his parents want him to stay and innocently lets on that his father is concerned about Ryker’s threats. Shane, who has put away his gun, agrees to remain and heads to town to buy work clothes. Soon after, homesteader Ernie Wright arrives at the Starretts’ to announce that Ryker’s men have destroyed his wheat field and, consequently, he and his family are moving away. Joe begs Ernie to stay and calls for a meeting of the homestead men that night. Meanwhile, in town, Shane purchases clothes at Sam Grafton’s general store, then orders a soda pop in the adjoining saloon. There, Chris Calloway, one of Grafton’s men, calls Shane a “sodbuster” and tosses a glass of whiskey on his new shirt. Shane does not react to Calloway’s provocations, however, and walks out. That night, during the meeting, Joey overhears homesteader Fred Lewis, who witnessed the saloon exchange, declare that Shane did not stand up to Calloway. Marian reassures Joey that Shane is not a coward, but counsels him not to become too attached to him. Later, having decided to stick together as a group, the homesteaders and their families go to town to shop for the next day’s Fourth of July celebration. At Grafton’s, Calloway again confronts Shane in the saloon, but this time, Shane throws two drinks on Calloway and slugs him. After a grueling fistfight, Shane finally knocks out Calloway and is offered a job by Ryker. When Shane declines, Ryker accuses him of lusting after Marian, and despite pleas from Joey, Shane single-handedly takes on all of Ryker’s men. Joe aids Shane in the fracas, until Grafton, fed up with the destruction, demands a halt. As the homesteaders depart, Ryker vows to fight on and sends for notorious Cheyenne gunslinger Jack Wilson. Back at home, Joey gushes to Marian about his love for Shane, while Marian wrestles with her growing romantic feelings for the loner. The next day, after Joey admits to Shane that he sneaked a peek at his gun, Shane gives the boy some pointers on how to shoot and demonstrates his skill as a marksman. Though impressed, Marian expresses her disapproval of guns and asks Shane not to encourage Joey’s interest. Ernie, meanwhile, complains to neighbor Stonewall Torrey that because Ryker’s men killed his sow and ruined his fields, he is giving up. Angry, Stonewall, whose courage has been questioned by some of the homesteaders, goes to town and, in the saloon, criticizes Ryker for running Ernie off his land. Later, at the Fourth of July party, Joe and Marian also celebrate their tenth wedding anniversary, and Marian shares a dance with Shane. When Stonewall arrives and announces that Ryker has hired a gunfighter, Shane guesses he is Wilson. Back at their house, the Starretts and Shane are met by Wilson, Ryker’s brother Morgan and Ryker, who in an attempt to appear reasonable, offers to sell Joe his land. Joe angrily rejects the idea, pointing out that the government already recognizes the homesteaders’ claims. In turn, Ryker complains that because he fought the Indians and slaved to make the land livable, he is entitled to own it, without fences. Ryker and Wilson depart peacefully, but in town, Ryker instructs Wilson to do whatever is necessary to defeat Joe. To that end, Wilson provokes a confrontation with Stonewall, then shoots him down when he makes a half-hearted move for his gun. With the nearest lawman a three-day ride away, Wilson’s claim of self-defense goes unchallenged. At Stonewall’s funeral, the Lewis family announce that they, too, are leaving their homestead, but Joe and Shane beseech their other neighbors to keep fighting. Just then, a fire is spotted at the Lewis place, and Ryker’s blatant sabotage strengthens Joe’s resolve to stop Ryker at any cost. That night, Ryker sends for Joe, while Joe prepares to challenge Ryker at gunpoint, ignoring Marian’s tearful pleas not to risk his life. Shane, who has been warned about Ryker’s plans by a reformed Calloway, dons his buckskins and straps on his gun, then fights Joe to keep him from leaving. When Shane hits Joe in the head with his gun butt, a terrified Joey screams hatefully at him, but Marian is relieved. Joe is knocked out, and aware that she will not see Shane again, Marian says a grateful goodbye. Joey trails Shane to the saloon and sees him goad Wilson into drawing his gun. Shane shoots Wilson dead, then shoots Ryker when he draws, and with Joey’s help, outdraws Morgan. Later, Joey apologizes for his angry words and begs Shane to return to the homestead. Gently declining, Shane tries to explain to the boy that he cannot change the man he is at heart and does not belong there. As Shane mounts his horse and rides off, Joey, devastated and confused, cries after him to "come back."

Dowdy, thirtyish Charlotte Vale lives with her dictatorial, aristocratic mother in a Boston mansion. Fearing that Charlotte is on the verge of a nervous breakdown, her sister-in-law Lisa brings psychiatrist Dr. Jaquith to the Vale home to examine her unobtrusively. Jaquith's observations and conversation with Charlotte convince him that she is, in fact, very ill, and he recommends that she visit his sanitarium, Cascade. Away from her domineering mother, Charlotte recovers quickly, but does not feel ready to return home and accepts Lisa's proposal of a long cruise as an alternative. On board the ship, a newly chic Charlotte is introduced to Jerry Durrance, who is also traveling alone. The two spend a day sight-seeing together, during which time the married Jerry asks Charlotte to help him choose gifts for his two daughters. Charlotte is touched when Jerry thanks her with a small bottle of perfume. Subsequently, Charlotte tells Jerry about her family and her breakdown and learns from his good friends, Deb and Frank McIntyre, that Jerry is unhappily married but will never leave his family. After the ship docks in Rio de Janeiro, Jerry and Charlotte become stranded on Sugarloaf Mountain and spend the night together. Having missed her boat, Charlotte stays with Jerry in Rio for five days before flying to Buenos Aires to rejoin the cruise. Although they have fallen in love, they promise not to see each other again. Back in Boston, Charlotte's family is stunned by her transformation. Her mother, however, is determined to regain control over her daughter. Charlotte's resolve to remain independent is strengthened by the timely arrival of some camellias. Although there is no card, Charlotte knows the flowers are from Jerry because he had called her by the nickname "Camille," and, reminded of his love, she is able to forge a new relationship with her mother. Charlotte eventually becomes engaged to eligible widower Elliot Livingston. One night, at a party, Charlotte encounters Jerry, who is now working as an architect, a profession he had renounced years before in deference to his wife's wishes. His youngest daughter Tina is now seeing Dr. Jaquith for her own emotional problems. Charlotte asks Jerry not to blame himself for their affair as she gained much from knowing that he loved her. This chance encounter forces Charlotte to realize that she does not love Elliot passionately, and they break their engagement, so angering Mrs. Vale that during an argument with Charlotte, she has a heart attack and dies. Guilty and distraught, Charlotte returns to Cascade, where she meets Tina. Seeing herself in the girl, Charlotte takes charge of her, with Jaquith's tentative approval. When Tina improves enough, Charlotte takes her home to Boston. Later, Jerry and Jaquith visit the Vale home, and Jerry is delighted by the change in Tina. Charlotte warns him, however, that she is only able to keep Tina with her on condition that she and Jerry end their affair. Jerry believes that he is responsible for her decision not to marry Elliot, but Charlotte reassures him otherwise, saying that Tina is his gift to her and her way of being close to him. Jerry then asks if Charlotte is happy and she responds, "Oh Jerry, don't let's ask for the moon; we have the stars."

Blanche DuBois arrives in New Orleans by train, and follows a sailor's directions to take a streetcar named "Desire" to her sister Stella Kowalski's apartment at Elysian Fields in the French Quarter. Blanche, an aging Southern belle, is horrified by the dilapidated building in which her sister lives with her husband Stanley, but is delighted to reunite with Stella, whom she feels abandoned her after their father's death. Blanche explains that she was given a leave of absence from her teaching job because she had become a little "lunatic," and now makes herself at home in the cramped apartment, which affords little privacy. Blanche is immediately offended by Stanley's coarse manners, and he is infuriated when he learns that Blanche has lost the family home at Belle Reve. Stanley rants about the "Napoleonic code," which he claims decrees that what belongs to the wife belongs to the husband. Unimpressed by Blanche's genteel manners, Stanley reveals that his wife is pregnant, and at his insistence, Blanche reluctantly digs out the papers which document the many unpaid loans written against the Belle Reve estate. That night, Stanley's poker game runs late, and when Stella and Blanche return from an outing together, Blanche meets Stanley's best friend Mitch, a bachelor who looks after his sick mother. Blanche turns on the radio and dances by herself, but Stanley is distracted by the music and flies into a drunken rage, during which he beats Stella. Stella and her terrified sister run up to their neighbor Eunice's apartment, but later, when Stanley calls up to her in remorse, Stella is drawn back to her husband and makes up with him. Blanche, horrified by Stanley's brutality, lingers in the street with Mitch. The next day, Stanley overhears Blanche encourage Stella to leave Stanley, whom she calls an "animal" and "subhuman," but she is unable to shake Stella's devotion to her husband. Stanley reveals that he has heard some unsavory gossip about Blanche, and his apparent secret knowledge unnerves her. That night, Blanche and Mitch go out on a date, and she resists his amorous advances by telling him that she is old-fashioned. After avoiding Mitch's questions about her age, she reveals that she drove her first young husband to suicide by mercilessly demeaning him because their marriage was not consummated. She then accepts Mitch's kiss. Five months later, when Mitch reveals his plans to marry Blanche, he and Stanley fight after Stanley tells him about her sordid past. Stanley then tells Stella that he has learned that Blanche was fired for seducing a seventeen-year-old student, and that she has a notorious reputation. Mitch stands up Blanche on her birthday and refuses to take her calls. When Stanley tells Blanche that she has overstayed her welcome, she insults him by calling him a "Polack." Stanley defends his Polish heritage, and then gives her a birthday gift of a one-way bus ticket home. Blanche then becomes hysterical and shuts herself in the bathroom. Stella and Stanley start to fight, but she goes into labor and Stanley takes her to the hospital. Later, Mitch comes to see Blanche, who is hearing music in her head, and calls her a hypocrite. Blanche truly loves Mitch, but admits that she has had "many meetings with men." Mitch forces a kiss on Blanche, but breaks their engagement and is run out of the apartment by her. She then dresses up as if she were attending a ball, and when Stanley returns home, claims that Mitch has apologized and that she has received an invitation to a cruise. Stanley accuses Blanche of lying and assaults her. When Stella returns home with her baby, she finds that Blanche has gone insane and now lives under the delusion that she is going on a Caribbean cruise. Stella has reluctantly arranged for her sister to be sent to a sanatorium, but when the doctor and matron arrive, Blanche goes completely berserk. Mitch attacks Stanley, who vows that he never touched Blanche. Blanche finally calms down, and is touched by the doctor's gentlemanly manner, telling him that she has "always depended on the kindness of strangers." After they leave, Stella rebuffs Stanley and runs to Eunice's apartment with her baby, vowing never to return.

Child psychologist Malcolm Crowe is shot in his home by Vincent, a deranged former patient. Sometime later, Malcolm has recuperated from the gunshot wounds but has become estranged from his wife, Anna, who resents his workaholism. He begins treating a new patient, nine-year-old Cole Sear, who claims to see the ghosts of dead people and reminds Malcolm of Vincent. While Malcolm initially believes the ghosts are hallucinations, he is eventually convinced of Cole’s ability to communicate with the dead. He encourages the boy to help the spirits with their problems. One night, Cole sees the ghost of a vomiting girl. When they discover her identity, Malcolm takes Cole to the girl’s funeral. With the aid of the girl’s ghost, Cole locates a home video and delivers it to the girl’s father. The video reveals that her mother poisoned her. With this knowledge, the father can save his younger daughter. Satisfied with his power to help ghosts and the living, Cole becomes better adjusted, and wins the lead role in a school play. As he finishes his work with Malcolm, he encourages the psychologist to talk to his wife, Anna, while she sleeps. The boy finally tells his mother, Lynn, about his interaction with ghosts. He offers proof by describing a memory of Lynn as a child, which the ghost of his grandmother once shared with him. Elsewhere, Malcolm returns home to Anna and finds her sleeping, with their wedding video playing in the background. Anna speaks in her sleep, asking why Malcolm had to leave. He sees her drop his wedding ring, then recalls being shot. Malcolm realizes his gunshot wound has not gone away, and that he is, in fact, dead. Malcolm’s ghost speaks to the sleeping Anna, promising that she was his first priority and that he loves her. This releases his spirit from the world of the living, and he vanishes.

During World War II, Casablanca, Morocco is a waiting point for throngs of desperate refugees fleeing Nazi-occupied Europe. Exit visas, which are necessary to leave the country, are at a premium, so when two German couriers carrying letters of transit signed by General DeGaulle are murdered and the letters stolen, German Major Strasser and Louis Renault, the prefecture of police, are eager to find the documents. Strasser is particularly concerned that the letters not be sold to Victor Lazlo, the well-known Czech resistance leader, who is rumored to be on his way to Casablanca. That night, Renault and Strasser search for the killer at Rick's Café Americain, a popular nightclub run by the mysterious American expatriate Richard Blaine. Earlier, Ugarte, a shady dealer in exit visas, had asked Rick to hold the stolen letters temporarily, explaining that he has a buyer for them and with the money from their sale, he plans to leave Casablanca. Although Rick fought on the side of the loyalists in Spain, he has grown cynical, and when Renault advises him not to interfere with Ugarte's arrest, Rick replies "I stick my neck out for nobody." He makes a bet with Renault, however, that Lazlo will manage to leave Casablanca despite German efforts to stop him. After Ugarte is arrested, Lazlo and his companion, Ilsa Lund, arrive at Rick's. Ilsa recognizes Sam, the piano player, and while Lazlo makes covert contact with the underground, Ilsa insists that Sam play the song "As Time Goes By." Reluctantly, Sam agrees, and a furious Rick, who had ordered him never to play the song again, emerges from his office to stop him. Rick is taken aback when he sees Ilsa, whom he knew in Paris. Later, after the café is closed, Rick remembers his love affair with Ilsa: After a brief happy time together, the Nazis invade Paris and, worried that Rick will be in danger because of his record, Ilsa advises him to leave the city. He refuses to go without her, and she agrees to meet him at the train station. Instead of coming, though, she sends him a farewell note, and Sam and Rick leave just ahead of the Nazis. Rick's thoughts return to the present with Ilsa's arrival at the café. She tries to explain her actions, but when a drunken Rick accuses her of being a tramp, she walks out. The following day, Lazlo and Ilsa meet with Renault and, there they learn that Ugarte has been killed while in police custody. After Rick helps a young Romanian couple win enough money at roulette to allow them to leave the country, Lazlo, suspecting that Rick has the letters, asks to buy them. Rick refuses and, when Lazlo asks his reasons, suggests that he ask Ilsa. Angered when Rick allows his orchestra to accompany a rousing rendition of "La Marseillaise," Strasser orders the closing of the Café. That night, while Lazlo attends an underground meeting, Ilsa meets Rick and explains that she stayed behind in Paris because, on the day Rick left Paris she had learned that Lazlo, her husband, whom she had married in secret and thought dead, was alive. Now realizing that they still love each other, Ilsa tells Rick that he must made decisions for both of them. Meanwhile, the police break up the underground meeting, and Lazlo takes refuge at Rick's. Before he is arrested, he begs Rick to use the letters to take Ilsa away from Casablanca. The next day, Rick sells the café to his competitor Ferare, the owner of the Blue Parrot, and tricks Renault into releasing Lazlo from prison. They head for the airport, but Renault has managed to alert Strasser, who hurries after them. At the airport, Rick tells Ilsa, who thought that she would be staying with him, that she is to leave with Lazlo because she gives meaning to his work. He then tells Lazlo that he and Ilsa loved each other in Paris, and that she pretended she was still in love with him in order to get the letters. Lazlo, who understands what really happened, welcomes Rick back to the fight before he and Ilsa board the plane. Strasser arrives just as the airplane is about to take off and when he tries to delay the flight, Rick shoots him. Renault then quickly telephones the police, but instead of turning in Rick, he advises them to "round up the usual suspects," and the two men leave Casablanca for the Free French garrison at Brassaville. It is, Rick says, "the beginning of a beautiful friendship."

Benjamin Braddock, filled with doubts about his future, returns to his Los Angeles home after graduating from an Eastern college. His parents soon have a party so they can boast of their son's academic achievements and his bright prospects in business. Mrs. Robinson, one of the guests, persuades Ben to drive her home and there tries to seduce him, but her overtures are interrupted by the sound of her husband's car in the driveway. Blatant in her seductive maneuvers, she soon has the nervous and inexperienced Ben meeting her regularly at the Taft Hotel. As the summer passes, Benjamin becomes increasingly bored and listless; he frequently stays out overnight and returns home to loll around the pool. When his worried parents try to interest him in Elaine, Mrs. Robinson's daughter, Ben agrees to date her to avoid having the entire Robinson family invited to dinner. At first Benjamin is rude to Elaine and takes her to a striptease club, but realizing how cruel he has been, he apologizes and the two begin dating. Outraged, Mrs. Robinson demands that Ben stop seeing her daughter; instead he blurts out the truth to a shocked Elaine, who returns to college in Berkeley. Although Ben follows her and tries to persuade her to marry him, Elaine's parents intervene and encourage her to marry Carl Smith, a student whom she has been dating. Ben returns to Los Angeles, but when Mrs. Robinson refuses to divulge any information about the wedding, he races back to Berkeley and learns that the ceremony will take place in Santa Barbara. Arriving at the church as the final vows are being spoken, he screams Elaine's name over the heads of the startled guests. Elaine sees her parents' anger toward Ben, and realizing what their influence has done, she fights off her mother and Carl and races to Ben. After locking the congregation in the church by jamming a crucifix through the door handles, the couple leaps aboard a passing bus and rides away.

During the Depression in the early 1930s, Bonnie Parker meets Clyde Barrow when he tries to steal her mother's car. Intrigued by his brazen manner and bored with her job as a waitress, she decides to become his partner in crime. Together they stage a series of amateur holdups that provide them with excitement but little monetary reward. Eventually they take on C. W. Moss, a dimwitted garage mechanic, who serves as their getaway driver. Finally they are joined by Clyde's brother Buck, recently released from prison, and his wife, Blanche, a whining preacher's daughter. As they add bank robbery and murder to their list of crimes, the quintet quickly becomes the object of statewide manhunts. While holed up in a rented apartment in Joplin, Missouri, they make the first of their incredible escapes from the police. Fascinated by the legendary reputation growing around them, they brag about their exploits, take pictures of each other, and, on one occasion, force a Texas Ranger to pose with them. Through it all a love relationship develops between Bonnie and Clyde that endures despite Clyde's impotence. After a visit with Bonnie's mother, the gang is surrounded in Dexter, Iowa. Buck dies with half of his face shot away, Blanche is blinded and captured, and Bonnie is wounded in the shoulder. The three survivors find a temporary hideout with C. W.'s father in a Louisiana town, and there Bonnie and Clyde finally consummate their love. Bonnie recovers from her wounds, and they plan to move on again; but C. W.'s father, hoping to lighten his son's punishment, has cooperated with the police in setting a trap. In May of 1934, Bonnie and Clyde ride into a police ambush and die as their bodies are riddled with a thousand rounds of ammunition.

Forrest Gump, a middle-aged man seated on a bus bench in Savannah, Georgia, offers a chocolate to an African-American nurse beside him. He tells the nurse an old saying of his mother’s: “Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re gonna get.” Forrest explains that he was named after an ancestor, General Nathan Forrest, who started the Ku Klux Klan, a racist organization. By naming her son "Forrest," Mrs. Gump wanted him to remember that people sometimes do things that don’t make any sense. Decades earlier, in Greenbow, Alabama, young Forrest lives with Mrs. Gump, his single mother, in a large, rural house where she rents out rooms to travelers. Born with a crooked spine, Forrest is made to wear a pair of leg braces to straighten his back. One day, a school administrator, Mr. Hancock, tells Mrs. Gump that Forrest cannot attend public school because his intelligence quotient of seventy-five is too low, but Mrs. Gump changes Hancock’s mind by having sex with him. Later, while a musician houseguest plays his guitar, Forrest dances, moving awkwardly due to his leg braces. Afterward, Mrs. Gump and Forrest spot the houseguest on television – it is Elvis Presley, a famous rock n’ roll musician, emulating Forrest’s style of dancing. On his first day of school, Forrest is shunned by all the kids on the school bus except by Jenny, a young girl who is abused by her alcoholic father. Forrest and Jenny become close friends, and, one day, when bullies throw rocks at Forrest, Jenny instructs him to run. Forrest runs so fast that the braces come off of his legs. From that day forward, Forrest runs everywhere he goes and eventually his athletic abilities earn him a football scholarship to the University of Alabama. When Forrest visits Jenny at her all-girl college, he embarrasses her by interrupting a date with a young man. Later that night, Jenny places Forrest’s hand on her breast, and he apologizes after ejaculating inside his pants. When he is selected for the All-American football team, Forrest meets President John F. Kennedy at the White House in Washington, D.C. Upon graduation, Forrest joins the United States Army and befriends Bubba Blue, another recruit who hails from a long line of shrimp fishermen. One night, a soldier hands Forrest a Playboy magazine with nude pictures of Jenny. On leave, Forrest goes to the topless bar where Jenny is working in Memphis, Tennessee, and when a man splashes Jenny with his drink, Forrest hits him and carries Jenny offstage. Afterward, she reprimands Forrest for trying to save her. Forrest tells Jenny he loves her, but she replies that he doesn’t know what love is. After they are sent to fight in the Vietnam War, Bubba suggests to Forrest that they start a shrimp fishing business when they return home. Sometime later, Forrest’s troop is ambushed in the jungle and Forrest saves several injured men, including his troop leader, Lieutenant Dan, by carrying them to safety. Although he is shot in the buttocks, Forrest heads back into the line of fire to find Bubba. Discovering that his friend is fatally injured, Forrest cradles Bubba in his arms as he dies. In the Army hospital, Forrest convalesces next to Lieutenant Dan, who has lost both his legs and resents Forrest for saving his life. Meanwhile, Forrest receives a stack of letters that were returned, unopened, from Jenny’s address in Greenbow. When he is awarded a Congressional Medal of Honor, Forrest returns to the White House and meets President Lyndon B. Johnson. During an anti-war protest outside the Washington Monument, Forrest is invited onto the stage to talk about the war, but an Army official unplugs the speaker system so that Forrest’s speech is inaudible. Spotting Forrest from the crowd, Jenny runs into the Reflecting Pool where Forrest joins her. Jenny takes Forrest to the headquarters of the Black Panthers, an African-American militant group, and one of the members lectures Forrest on the Vietnam War. When her boyfriend slaps Jenny across the face, Forrest attacks him. Later, Forrest tells Jenny that he would never hit her, saying he would like to be her boyfriend. However, after walking around with Forrest all night, Jenny returns to her abusive boyfriend. As she and the boyfriend board a bus, Forrest gives Jenny his Medal of Honor. Forrest, who spent countless hours playing ping-pong during his convalescence, travels to Army hospitals and teaches wounded soldiers how to play. Upon winning an international ping-pong championship in China, Forrest becomes a celebrity in the United States and is interviewed on The Dick Cavett Show alongside John Lennon of the famous rock n’ roll band, The Beatles. Leaving the show, Forrest runs into Lieutenant Dan who is now a bitter, wheelchair-bound alcoholic. After spending Christmas together, Forrest and Lieutenant Dan celebrate New Year’s Eve at a bar in New York City. Forrest daydreams about Jenny, who is in California, sneaking away from yet another abusive boyfriend. Traveling with the U.S. Ping-Pong Team, Forrest meets President Richard Nixon, and Nixon recommends that Forrest stay at the Watergate Hotel. There, Forrest notices flashlights inside the adjacent Watergate office complex one night and calls security, thus uncovering the infamous Watergate break-in. After he is discharged from the Army, Forrest receives $25,000 for endorsing a ping-pong paddle and uses the money to start a shrimp fishing business called Bubba Gump Shrimp Company, in honor of Bubba. Forrest names his boat Jenny and hires Lieutenant Dan to be his first mate, raising Dan’s spirits. Elsewhere, Jenny takes drugs and contemplates suicide. Although Forrest and Lieutenant Dan initially encounter obstacles at sea, their luck changes when a hurricane washes in an abundance of shrimp, making Bubba Gump an overnight success. One day on the boat, Forrest learns that Mrs. Gump is sick and he rushes home. Shortly after his return, Mrs. Gump dies from cancer. Since Lieutenant Dan invested Bubba Gump money into Apple Computers, Forrest receives windfall profits and gives his money away to churches, hospitals, and Bubba’s family. Forrest moves back into his mother’s house and cuts the grass at Greenbow’s high school football field for free. One day, Jenny arrives, and Forrest provides her with a room. First, she sleeps for a very long time, and after that, they walk around Greenbow together. When they come upon her father’s old house, Jenny becomes angry, throwing things and crying. On the Fourth of July, Forrest asks Jenny to marry him, but she refuses, saying he doesn’t want to marry her. Later that night, however, Jenny declares her love for Forrest, and they make love. The next morning, Jenny leaves without saying goodbye. Lonely in her absence, Forrest puts on a pair of running shoes that Jenny gave him and runs from his house. He doesn’t stop running and eventually reaches California, where he turns around and heads back East. Forrest runs cross-country multiple times, and after he receives attention from the press, other runners begin to follow him. Jenny sees Forrest on television and sends him a letter, asking him to visit Savannah, where she now works as a waitress. While still waiting for the bus in Savannah, Forrest learns from another passenger that he can walk to Jenny’s house. Finally, he leaves the bench where he first spoke to the nurse. At her apartment, Jenny apologizes for how she has treated Forrest, saying she was “messed up.” Forrest meets Jenny’s son, also named Forrest, and learns that he is the father. Forrest panics, asking if the child is smart, and Jenny assures him that he is. At a playground, Jenny tells Forrest that she is sick with a virus that has no cure. Forrest invites her and their son to stay with him in Greenbow, promising to take care of her. Jenny asks Forrest to marry her and he agrees. After they are married in Greenbow, she dies, and Forrest has her father’s house razed. Forrest continues to live in his mother’s house, sending his son to school on the same bus where he first met Jenny.

Ray Kinsella recalls his late father, John, a one-time minor league baseball player and devoted fan of the sport. After Ray’s mother died, John Kinsella took care of his son, but Ray ultimately clashed with him and went to college in Berkeley, California, far away from their home in New York City. Ray joined the hippie movement, then married his college sweetheart, Annie, just before his father died. The young couple had a daughter, Karin, and when Ray turned thirty-six, Annie convinced him to buy a farm in Iowa. Ray claims he never did anything crazy until he heard “the voice.” One day, walking through the cornfields on his farm, Ray hears a voice whisper repeatedly, “If you build it, he will come.” Later, the voice wakes him up and Ray responds by asking what he should build. The next day, as the voice speaks to him, Ray hallucinates a baseball field and the late “Shoeless Joe” Jackson, an outfielder who was ousted from the Major Leagues after his team, the Chicago White Sox, were found guilty of conspiring to lose the 1919 World Series. Back in the house, Ray tells Annie the voice wants him to build a baseball field so Shoeless Joe can play again, and she responds that it is the craziest idea she ever heard. However, Ray fears becoming like his father, who aged too quickly and never followed his dreams. Annie offers to support him, even though he must plow down a large portion of their corn to build the field. Neighbors watch in disbelief as Ray begins plowing. His daughter, Karin, joins him as he recounts the story of Shoeless Joe, who earned his nickname when he removed an uncomfortable pair of spikes during the middle of a game and played barefoot. Recalling the 1919 World Series controversy, Ray insists there was no evidence that Shoeless Joe conspired to lose, given his exemplary performance in the games. Ray tells Annie that his father once saw Shoeless Joe playing in the minor leagues under a different name, and Annie notices Ray is smiling. She says it is the first time she has seen her husband look happy when talking about his father. The baseball field is completed, but Shoeless Joe does not appear for some time. One night, Annie tallies the bills and announces that the farm is losing money due to the lost acreage. She also reminds Ray that they spent all of their savings on the field, which they should now replant with corn. Karin interrupts, saying a man is standing outside. Ray finds a young Shoeless Joe standing on his baseball field and greets him in disbelief. He hits balls for the outfielder to catch, then pitches to him. After hitting a homerun, Shoeless Joe comments about how much he misses baseball. Annie and Karin come to greet their guest, but he cannot walk past the border of the baseball field. He mentions that seven other players would like to join him next time, and Ray says they are welcome. Before he disappears into the cornfield, Shoeless Joe asks if he is in heaven, and Ray responds, “No, it’s Iowa.” Later, Annie’s brother, Mark, informs Ray that he is going to lose his farm and offers to buy the property before the bank forecloses on it. Karin announces that “the game is on,” and Ray leaves the room with her. Mark follows, and sees them watching Shoeless Joe and his seven companions warming up on the field. However, Mark cannot see the players and mocks Ray as he leaves. When the voice speaks to Ray again, it says, “Ease his pain.” Confused by the instruction, Ray attends a Parent Teachers Association (PTA) meeting with Annie, where a concerned mother named Beulah discusses her desire to ban 1960s counterculture books written by Terence Mann. Annie defends Mann and convinces the majority of the crowd to side with her before Ray drags her out of the meeting, announcing that he has had an epiphany. He reminds Annie that Mann is his favorite author as well as hers, and believes the voice was telling him to ease Mann’s pain. The novelist, now a recluse, once gave an interview in which he described a recurring dream of playing baseball at Ebbets Field with Jackie Robinson. Thus, Ray thinks he must bring Mann out of hiding to attend a baseball game. Annie forbids him going on a trip because they cannot afford it, but when she remembers the dream she had the night before in which Ray attended a Boston Red Sox game with Mann, he reveals he had the same dream. Changing her mind, Annie offers to help him pack. In Boston, Massachusetts, Ray bribes a mechanic for Mann’s home address and goes to the author’s apartment. There, he informs Mann of his mission and persuades him to attend a Red Sox game at Fenway Park, even though the author denies having had a recurring dream about Ebbets Field. At the game, Ray sees the statistics of 1922 New York Giants player Archibald “Moonlight” Graham on the Jumbotron. Graham, who only played one game and never went to bat, was from Chisolm, Minnesota. Ray deduces that he must go to Chisolm, and offers to take Mann home early, apologizing that he was not needed after all. However, just after Ray drops him off, Mann blocks the car and reveals that he also saw the message about Graham. He joins Ray on the trip to Chisolm, where they learn that Graham, who became a doctor and devoted husband, died in 1972. That night, Ray takes a walk in town and realizes he has been transported back to 1972. He sees Graham walking down the street and follows him to his office, where he tries to convince the doctor to come to Iowa with him for another chance to play baseball. However, Graham refuses to leave his wife, even for a short trip. Ray calls home to Annie, who reports that Mark has taken over the loan on their house and will foreclose if they do not agree to sell to him. Rushing back to Iowa, Ray is joined by Mann and a young hitchhiker, who turns out to be a younger version of Graham who calls himself “Archie” and aspires to play baseball. When Archie falls asleep, Ray tells Mann that he played baseball as a child but quit at age fourteen when he read Mann’s novel, The Boat Rocker, and decided to rebel against his father’s wishes, including the desire for him to play baseball. Ray laments that he left home at seventeen after telling his father he could never respect a man who idolized a criminal like Shoeless Joe. For years he did not speak to his father, too ashamed to apologize, and the next time he saw him was at his funeral. That night, they arrive at the farm and discover Shoeless Joe on the field with two full teams. Mann and the Kinsellas watch as Archie joins the seasoned players for a game. The next day, Mark arrives to find Ray and the Kinsellas on the sidelines, watching another game. Karin announces that her father will not have to sell the farm because people will pay to watch the game. Believing the girl is delusional, Mark shakes her, causing her to fall from the bleachers and lose consciousness. Annie goes to call for help, but Ray stops her, certain that Archie can aid their daughter. Archie approaches, and at the edge of the field, transforms into the older Dr. Graham, who discovers Karin is choking and slaps her back to dislodge a hot dog. Having witnessed the rescue, Mark changes his mind and agrees that Ray should keep the farm. When the baseball players retire for the day, Shoeless Joe invites Mann to join them. Ray wants to come too, but Mann reminds him he has a family and claims this is an opportunity for him to write a new story. Mann finally admits he did dream about playing at Ebbets Field, and Shoeless Joe reminds Ray, “If you build it, he will come,” before leaving the field. One last player remains, and Ray realizes it is his father. Upon Annie’s encouragement, he introduces John to his wife and daughter, but does not reveal that he is his son. John compliments the beauty of the field and says it is a “dream come true.” The men discuss whether or not it is heaven or simply Iowa, and Ray finally calls him “Dad” when he asks him to play catch.

In the 1910s, young Henry Lou Gehrig, the son of German immigrants, yearns to play baseball, but his mother, who is a cook at Columbia University, wants him to become an engineer. Years later, when Lou is enrolled at Columbia, he is popular with other students and excels in all sports, even though he must work as a waiter in his fraternity house. When sports writer Sam Blake observes Lou's excellence at baseball, he begins to write about him. One day, Sam goes to the fraternity to see if Lou is interested in playing ball for the New York Yankees. Because some of the other boys had just played a trick on him, Lou thinks that Sam is part of the ruse and throws him out. Later, when he learns that Sam is genuine, Lou is pleased by the offer, but sheepishly declines, saying that he is going to be an engineer. One night, Lou's mother becomes gravely ill and must go to the hospital. Worried that his mother will not get the care she needs in a charity ward, Lou secretly signs with the Yankees to earn enough money to keep her in a private hospital. While she recovers, Lou and his father let her believe that he has enrolled at Harvard, when he actually is playing for the Yankees' farm team in Hartford. Lou soon becomes known for his hard work and consistent performance on the diamond, and within a short time is recalled by the Yankees. Mrs. Gehrig is at first angry and disappointed when she learns the truth, because she wants Lou to take advantage of other opportunities that America offers, but soon accepts her son's decision. The shy, but affable Lou eventually becomes the team's first baseman, and Sam, who is his strongest supporter, becomes his roommate on the road and tells rival sportswriter Hank Hannemann that Lou epitomizes what is best about baseball and America. In Chicago, Lou meets Eleanor Twitchell, the daughter of a wealthy hot dog manufacturer, and is smitten when she playfully dubs him "Tanglefoot" after he trips on some bats. When the team next travels to Chicago, Lou asks Eleanor out and soon the two fall in love. Despite Mrs. Gehrig's jealousy over not remaining Lou's "best girl," he proposes to Eleanor. Although at first Lou's mother tries to usurp Eleanor's position, Lou smooths things over and assures Eleanor that she is the manager of their team. As the years pass, the "Iron Horse," as the sports writers call Lou, remains happy in his career and marriage. In 1938, shortly after Lou is honored for playing in his 2,000th consecutive game, he begins to notice a strange weakness in his arms. His playing and coordination worsen, and by the 1939 season, his performance has become so poor that he is benched for the first time in his career. Lou goes for medical tests and learns that he must give up baseball, and when he asks "is it three strikes?" the doctor confirms Lou's fears. Lou does not want Eleanor to know that his illness is fatal, and although she guesses the truth, she maintains the pretense that he will recover. With his career over, Lou is honored at a special ceremony held at Yankee Stadium. In front of thousands of fans, and standing beside former teammates, Lou delivers a humble speech praising his family and colleagues. He ends by saying, "People all say that I've had a bad break. But today--today, I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth."

In Los Angeles, California, a Terminator humanoid “cyborg” arrives from the twenty-first century, and attacks a group of young delinquents for their clothing. Elsewhere in the city, soldier Kyle Reese arrives through the same time portal. The accompanying atmospheric disturbance attracts police, who chase Kyle into a clothing store. After evading his pursuers, Kyle dons contemporary clothing, steals a police rifle, and searches a telephone directory for the address of Sarah J. Connor. In the morning, the Terminator steals a car and robs a gun shop of several automatic weapons. He discovers three listings for “Sarah Connor” in the telephone directory and kills the first two. Certain that Sarah J. Connor will be the next victim, police detective Hal Vukovich telephones her apartment and leaves a message. However, Sarah’s roommate, Ginger Ventura, is in the bedroom, making love with her boyfriend, Matt, and does not hear the warning. Sarah learns of the murders and enters a nightclub to evade Kyle, who appears to be stalking her. She telephones her apartment, unaware that the Terminator has already killed both Ginger and Matt. Hearing her voice, the cyborg realizes that his intended victim is still at large. He memorizes Sarah’s face from a photograph, and makes his way to the nightclub. Sarah telephones the police department and Lieutenant Ed Traxler offers protective custody. Seconds later, Kyle aids Sarah’s escape while the Terminator sprays the club with bullets. Pursuing his victims, the cyborg commandeers a police car and rallies several officers to join the chase. After taking refuge in a parking structure, Kyle calms the hysterical Sarah, explaining that he was sent from the year 2027 to protect her from the Terminator, a creature devoid of emotion and impervious to conventional weapons, despite its exterior of flesh and blood. Ignoring Sarah’s skepticism, Kyle recounts a series of events in the near future, beginning with a nuclear war started by defense network computers. The machines will perceive all humans as a threat and herd them into concentration camps for extermination. Sarah’s unborn son, John Connor, will save humanity by teaching the prisoners how to fight and ultimately win. The machines have responded by sending the Terminator to kill Sarah, ensuring that John Connor will never be born. Following another encounter with the Terminator, Sarah and Kyle are taken into police custody. While Lt. Traxler comforts Sarah, psychiatrist Dr. Peter Silberman interviews Kyle, certain that the soldier suffers from psychosis. Meanwhile, the Terminator attends to his damaged body, and dons sunglasses to hide the sight mechanism exposed by a missing eye. He attacks the police station, killing most of the officers while Kyle and Sarah escape to the city outskirts. The soldier delivers a verbal message to Sarah from John, thanking her for the values she instilled in him, and reminding her that his life depends on her survival. Kyle describes the world of 2017, in which humans are forced to hide during the day, but have some freedom at night, despite the presence of roving “hunter-killer” devices. Realizing their robotic soldiers were too easily identified, the machines created Terminators to infiltrate and kill their human enemies. He recalls an incident in which he narrowly survived a Terminator attack that killed many in his underground bunker. In the morning, they rent a motel room and make pipe bombs from common household items. Using information from Sarah’s address book, the Terminator invades her mother’s home and intercepts a telephone call. He replicates Mrs. Connor’s voice and convinces Sarah to reveal her location. At the motel, Kyle admits to falling in love with Sarah after seeing a photograph given to him by her son. Sarah reciprocates and they make love. The Terminator appears that evening and pursues the couple through the streets, while Kyle throws pipe bombs in his path. The chase ends with Kyle and Sarah trapped inside their overturned car. The cyborg commandeers a tanker truck, intending to crush his enemies. Kyle places a bomb in the vehicle, causing its flammable contents to explode. He embraces Sarah, believing their ordeal is over, until the cyborg’s mechanical skeleton rises from the flames. It follows the couple into a factory building, where Kyle attempts to destroy it with a pipe bomb. The ensuing explosion leaves Kyle dead, the skeleton in pieces, and Sarah with a shrapnel wound to the leg. As she mourns Kyle, the upper half of the skeleton crawls toward her. She leads it into a hydraulic press and crushes it until its glowing red eyes go dark. Sometime later, Sarah drives through the Mexican desert, pregnant with Kyle’s son, John. She stops at a gas station, where a young boy photographs her. She buys the photograph, recognizing it as the same one Kyle carried with him. The boy warns of a storm on the horizon, but Sarah continues her journey.

In 1925, in Tampico, Mexico, down-and-out Fred C. Dobbs is hired to work in an oil field, where he meets another American named Curtin. After the job is finished, Dobbs and Curtin head for a flophouse for the night. There, Howard, an old prospector, talks about men who succumbed to gold fever and lost everything, and Dobbs swears that would never happen to him. Having learned that Pat McCormick, the man who hired them, has a reputation for defaulting on the money he owes his men, Dobbs and Curtin demand that he pay them immediately. McCormick puts up a fight, but Dobbs and Curtin overpower him and take their money. They then ask Howard to help them prospect for gold. Using their pay and the money from Dobbs's winning lottery ticket, the three men head toward the Sierra Madre mountains. When their train is attacked by bandits, the Americans help fight them off, but a sudden motion of the train prevents Dobbs from killing their leader, Gold Hat. Later, in a small village, the men buy burros and supplies and head for undiscovered territory. Just as the exhausted Dobbs and Curtin decide to quit, Howard informs them that they have located a rich lode of gold. After a while, Dobbs begins to suspect the others of cheating him and suggests that they divide up the gold as they go along. Just as Howard had warned, the men become suspicious of each other. When Dobbs is caught in a cave-in, Curtin briefly considers leaving him to die, in order to get a larger share of the treasure. One day, when Curtin goes into the valley for supplies, he encounters Cody, a Texan, who questions him closely about the territory because he is sure that there is gold in the surrounding mountains. Although Curtin lies about his business, Cody follows him to the camp site and suggests that they make him a partner. Secretly, the others decide to kill Cody, but before they can take action, the camp is attacked by bandits, led by Gold Hat. Although the bandits are scared off by the appearance of federal soldiers, Cody is killed in the crossfire. The gold streak thins out and the men leave the camp. When Curtin suggests that they give a fourth of their gold to Cody's widow, Howard agrees, but Dobbs greedily refuses. Later, Howard helps revive an Indian child after he falls in the water and is forced to visit their village to allow them to repay their debt to him. Dobbs and Curtin continue on to Durango and, while in the desert, Dobbs, who has become obsessed with the gold, urges Curtin to steal Howard's share. When Curtin refuses, Dobbs accuses him of conspiring with Howard to get rid of him. Fearing for his life, Curtin tries to stay awake all night, but when he finally falls asleep, Dobbs shoots him and leaves him for dead. Curtin manages to crawl away and is found by Indians and brought to the village where Howard is being honored. When Howard learns what transpired, he and Curtin ride after Dobbs. Meanwhile, Dobbs is attacked by Gold Hat's bandits, who kill him and steal his boots and burros. They do not recognize the dust as gold-laden and, assuming that it is sand used to make the hides that cover it weigh more, dump it in the desert. In Durango, the bandits are captured when they try to sell the burros and are shot. Howard and Curtin are later taken to the place where Dobbs was murdered and, as they search for whatever remains of the gold, a storm blows the dust back toward the Sierra Madre mountains. Laughing at the irony of their situation, Howard decides to return to the Indians and spend the rest of his life as their medicine man, while Curtin plans to go to Dallas and visit Cody's widow.

One summer evening in late June on the New England island of Amity, teenager Chrissie Watkins invites a drunken fellow student, Cassidy, to skinny dip in the ocean. Although enthused, Cassidy passes out a few feet from the shore, while Chrissie strips and dives into the sea only to be brutally attacked from underwater. The next morning, police chief Martin Brody meets Cassidy, who has reported Chrissie missing, on the beach just as Deputy Hendricks discovers the mutilated remains of a female body. Suspecting that Chrissie was a victim of a shark attack, Brody hurries to his office to make out a report and consult with the town physician. Determined to close the beaches when the doctor confirms his fears, Brody sets off to Amity Bay, but is intercepted by Mayor Larry Vaughn, two city council members and the doctor. Vaughn reminds Brody that closing the beaches requires a signed city ordinance and that the Fourth of July weekend is about to begin. When the doctor reluctantly admits that the body may have been mutilated by a motorboat blade and Vaughn insists they do not want to start a pointless panic, Brody grudgingly agrees to keep the beaches open. The next day, an uneasy Brody oversees the crowded beach, accompanied by his wife Ellen and their two young sons, Michael and Sean. Dozens of children and young people thrash about in the surf and a dog repeatedly fetches a stick thrown in the water by his owner. Moments later, however, the dog disappears and a group of people suddenly notice a pool of bloody red foam in the sea. As the swimmers and waders run to the beach in a panic, a mangled raft washes to shore while vacationer Mrs. Kintner searches in vain for her young son, Alex. After Mrs. Kintner posts a three thousand dollar reward to kill the shark that killed Alex, Brody and the Amity city board meets with local businesses, fisherman and townspeople to quell their mounting alarm. When Brody acknowledges that he must close the beaches, Vaughn reassures the dismayed business owners that the closure will last only twenty-four hours. The meeting is interrupted by local professional fisherman and shark hunter, Quint, who vows to capture the shark single-handedly for $10,000, which Vaughn agrees to consider. The following morning, Brody is horrified to find Amity harbor teaming with boats and people from Connecticut, Rhode Island and New Jersey who have responded to Mrs. Kintner’s reward offer. Struggling to control the crowds who bear everything from dynamite to guns to small fishing reels, Brody is relieved when Matt Hooper from the Oceanographic Institute arrives. At police headquarters, Hooper examines Chrissie’s remains and declares that the wounds are from a sizeable shark. That afternoon a group of fishermen triumphantly return to Amity harbor with the carcass of a ten-foot shark which they proudly display for reporters and locals. Although Vaughn is delighted by the exhibition, Hooper insists the bite radius of a Tiger shark is too small to be the same shark that killed Chrissie. As Brody remains doubtful, Mrs. Kintner arrives and demands to know why he allowed the beaches to remain open after Chrissie’s death. That evening, Hooper visits the brooding Brody at home and reaffirms that the captured shark is not the one that killed Chrissie, and presses the chief to allow him to cut open the captured dead shark to explore its digestive remains. After Hooper determines that the shark caught by the fishermen has no human remains inside it, Brody realizes that he must close the beaches, but Hooper insists they immediately go in search of the killer shark in his high-tech exploration boat, the Aurora. Despite Brody’s frank admission that he fears the water, Hooper forces the chief to accompany him. With the aid of the Aurora's powerful spotlights, Brody and Hooper soon come upon a half-sunken dinghy showing unusual signs of damage and Brody recognizes the boat as belonging to an islander. Donning scuba gear, Hooper goes underwater to inspect the little boat’s hull and pulls an enormous shark tooth embedded in the planking. When the mangled remains of a torso abruptly float by a gapping hole in the boat, the startled Hooper drops the tooth. The next morning, Brody and Hooper met Vaughn on the beach to excitedly report that the shark attacks were made by a Great White. Without the tooth as evidence, however, the mayor remains skeptical and insists the beaches remain open the next day, which is the Fourth of July. The holiday dawns to hordes of vacationers packing the beaches. Hooper abandons a commitment to an eighteen-month research project in order to search for Amity’s Great White shark, while Brody, Hendricks and backup deputies with helicopter support observe the waters. Distressed that no one has actually gotten into the water, Vaughn appeals with a family to do so and soon the surf is teaming with people. When Brody’s son Michael asks permission to take his new sailboat out to sea, Brody pleads with him to go into the nearby estuary. While Vaughn cheerfully gives an interview to a television reporter, swimmers are suddenly terrified to see a large fin cutting across the water. As the panicked crowd returns en masse to the beach, Brody’s assistants reveal the fin to be a hoax perpetrated by two local teenage boys. Meanwhile, a young woman standing between the sea and the pond sees a massive underwater form head into the relatively shallow estuary where Michael and his friends are struggling to raise their sail. Nearby, a man in a dinghy calls advice to the boys just as the underwater creature smashes into his boat. The subsequent swell overturns Michael’s small sailboat and, as the boys thrash about, Michael witnesses the man being bitten in half by the enormous shark and faints. Meanwhile, the young woman’s continued cries alert Brody who races toward the pond as Michael’s friends pull him safely to shore. Later, at the hospital, where Michael is declared fine, a stunned Vaughn wonders if he can be held accountable for keeping the beaches open, but an angry Brody forces him to sign a contract hiring Quint. The next day, Brody and Hooper meet Quint at his pier-side office where Brody officially charters the fisherman’s boat, the Orca. Although Quint chafes about the college educated Hooper joining them, Brody insists that the oceanographer and much of his technical equipment be taken on board. Over the next couple of days, the Orca roams far out to sea in search of the shark. One afternoon Quint’s thick cable fishing line is bitten in two, but otherwise their quarry remains elusive. Soon after, as a grumpy Brody resumes shoveling bloody crum out to sea to lure the shark, the creature breaks the surface of the water, its massive mouth gapping. Stunned by the enormity of the shark, Brody staggers into the cabin and tells Quint that he will need a bigger boat. As Quint and Hooper excitedly watch the shark circle the Orca, the older man declares the creature is at least twenty-five feet long and three tons. While Quint prepares to shoot a cable line attached to a flotation barrel into the shark, Hooper attaches a radio tracking device to the barrel. After striking the shark with the harpoon and cable, the Orca follows the racing barrel, but Quint is taken aback when the shark easily pulls the air-filled keg underwater and disappears. Night falls with no further sign of the shark and the men sit in the tiny cabin drinking and talking. Quint reveals that in World War II, he served on board the U.S.S. Indianapolis which was sunk by a Japanese submarine and nearly eight hundred of its surviving crew was lost to shark attacks while waiting for rescue in the open sea. The men fill the subsequent tense silence with songs, when the shark surfaces in the dark and rams into the hull, damaging the boat’s shaft. Despite Quint firing several rounds at the shark, it remains unaffected, but disappears for the remainder of the night. The next morning, Quint and Hooper struggle to repair the battered rudder and engine housing, when the shark surfaces and Quint shoots another cable and barrel into it, then ties the cables lines to the transom cleats. As the shark, now hooked to two floatation barrels, races further out to sea, Quint pushes the rough running engine of the Orca in pursuit, ignoring Brody’s argument to turn back toward land. Later the shark appears to have vanished, only to surface suddenly and attack the cable lines. Panicked, Brody attempts to radio the Coast Guard, but Quint smashes the radio with a bat. Quint then calmly shoots another line and a third barrel into the shark, but when the shark heads to sea again towing the Orca, Quint is forced to cut the taunt cable lines, fearing that the transom will be pulled off. As the battered and listing Orca begins taking on water, the men watch incredulously as the barrels turn toward them, then submerge and go beneath the boat. Moments later, the shark rams the keel. The ship’s stressed engine bearings begin to smoke, and Quint, masking his concern, pushes the engine as the shark begins pursuing them. Upon reaching the boat, the great shark rises up, biting into the transom. The violence of the creature’s attack finishes the Orca's weakened engine. The shark disappears as Brody and Hooper realize that the Orca is sinking by the stern. Handing Brody a lifejacket, Quint asks Hooper about the shark cage and other equipment he has brought on board. When Hooper reveals that he has a large syringe full of strychnine nitrate, Quint declares the syringe will never penetrate the shark’s tough skin. Hooper nevertheless volunteers to go underwater in the cage and attempt to shoot the syringe into the shark’s mouth with the harpoon gun. Despite Brody’s protests, Hooper dons scuba gear and oxygen, and is lowered in the cage into the water. Within moments the shark appears and rams the cage from behind Hooper, then grabs the bars and shakes the cage, causing the terrified Hooper to drop the harpoon gun, unfired. Fleeing the shark’s crazed attack through the mangled cage bars, Hooper swims to the sea bottom. Meanwhile the shark, momentarily trapped between the cage and the side of the Orca, thrashes violently as Quint struggles to crank the winch. The bent ginpole gives way as the shark extricates itself and Quint and Brody are horrified when the battered, empty cage surfaces. The shark reappears at the stern and again lunges at the Orca's deck, tilting the boat sharply, causing Quint and Brody to tumble and slide toward the maddened creature. Brody hangs on to the cabin doorframe, but Quint, unable to maintain his grip on Brody’s legs, slides directly into the shark’s jaws. When the shark submerges with Quint’s bloodied corpse, Brody casts about for a weapon and spots Hooper’s remaining oxygen tank. When the shark attacks again, Brody manages to wedge the tank into its mouth. Taking Quint’s rifle, Brody climbs out onto the bridge mast, which is now almost parallel with the water, and as the shark comes at him, fires repeatedly until a bullet strikes the oxygen tank, causing it to explode and blow off the creature’s head. As blood and flesh rain down on Brody and the nearly submerged Orca, the shark’s other half falls slowly through the water. Moments late, Brody is amazed when Hooper surfaces. The men laugh weakly in relief and, after Hooper learns of Quint’s demise, the men use the remaining floatation barrels as support and paddle their way toward land.

In Fort de France, Martinique, in the summer of 1940, shortly after the fall of France to the Germans, an American named Johnson hires professional fisherman Harry Morgan to take him fishing on Morgan's boat. Johnson complains about the cost of the expedition and the onboard presence of Eddie, a drunk, and Horatio, a native. Refusing to listen to Harry's instructions, Johnson loses a rod and reel belonging to Harry. Fed up with Johnson, Harry cancels the rest of the trip and insists that Johnson pay him for the lost equipment as well as his fees for the past week. Johnson promises to pay what he owes after the banks open the next morning. Back in Fort de France, bartender Gerard, commonly known as Frenchy, asks Harry to rent him his boat for one night to transport some members of the resistance underground, but Harry refuses to become involved in Frenchy's political activities. Later, in the hotel bar, Harry sees attractive young Marie Browning pick Johnson's pocket, and when she leaves the bar, he follows her and demands that she return the wallet. Harry checks the wallet and is surprised to see that it contains enough money in traveler's cheques to pay his fees and that Johnson's plane leaves early the next morning before the banks open. After Marie, whom Harry has dubbed Slim, returns the wallet to the indignant Johnson, Harry insists that he sign some of the cheques, but before Johnson can complete this task, he is killed by gunshots from the street directed at Frenchy's allies. The police detain some of the customers, including Frenchy, Marie and Harry, for questioning. Later that night, Marie tells Harry that she is tired of her footloose life and would like to settle down. In order to earn enough money to put himself back in business and help Marie, Harry agrees to pick up Frenchy's friends. Before he leaves, he buys Marie a ticket on the plane leaving that afternoon for the United States. After picking up Helene and Paul De Bursac, Harry is spotted by a patrol boat, and Paul is wounded before they escape. Harry is surprised to find that Marie stayed in Martinique to be with him. At Frenchy's request, Harry removes the bullet from De Bursac's shoulder and learns that the De Bursacs have been assigned to help a man escape from Devil's Island. De Bursac asks for Harry's assistance, but Harry turns him down. Later, the police, who recognized Harry's boat the previous night, reveal that they have Eddie in custody and will coerce him to tell the truth about the boat's cargo. At gunpoint, Harry forces the police to arrange for Eddie's release and sign harbor passes, so that he can take the De Bursacs to Devil's Island. After Eddie returns, he, Harry and Marie leave Martinique for a more committed life together.

In 1977, University of Chicago students Sally Albright and Harry Burns arrange to share a ride to New York City, where Sally plans to study journalism and Harry will attend law school. While Sally waits impatiently in her car, Harry and his girl friend, Amanda Reese, engage in a prolonged goodbye kiss. Harry finally gets into Sally’s car and begins to snack on grapes. He mistakenly assumes the window is rolled down, spits out a grape seed, and it hits the glass. Disgusted, Sally refuses his offer of a grape, explaining that she does not eat between meals. As they get to know each other, Harry reveals his dark outlook on life, and they disagree over the ending of the film Casablanca. Sally insists that Ingrid Bergman’s character made the right choice by leaving Casablanca at the end of the movie, asserting that all women prefer stability over romance. The two stop for dinner, and Harry is amused by Sally’s picky way of ordering food. He compliments her on her good looks, but she takes offense, reminding him that he is dating her friend, Amanda. Returning to the car, Sally suggests that she and Harry become friends. However, Harry does not believe men and women can be friends, as “the sex part always gets in the way.” Sally laments that Harry was the only person she would have known in New York, and shakes his hand when they part ways in the city. Five years later, Sally kisses her boyfriend, Joe, at the airport. Harry interrupts, recognizing Joe from law school, but he cannot place Sally. She and Harry board the same flight, and he finagles the seat beside her after finally remembering her from the University of Chicago. Harry guesses that Sally and her boyfriend, Joe, are at an early stage in their relationship, and claims he would never take a girl friend to the airport to avoid setting a precedent. Sally is surprised to hear that Harry is engaged to a lawyer named Helen Hillson, with whom he claims to be madly in love. When they land, Harry invites Sally to dinner, but she reminds him of his theory that men and women cannot be friends. Harry argues that a friendship would work since they are both involved with other people, but contradicts himself by predicting their significant others would become jealous. The two part ways. Five years later, Sally meets her friends Marie and Alice for lunch and announces that she and Joe have broken up. The women are impressed by how well Sally is handling the heartbreak, but when Marie suggests setting her up on a date, Sally refuses. Elsewhere, at a football stadium, Harry tells his friend, Jess, that his wife, Helen, just left him for another man. Harry runs into Sally at a bookstore, and the two commiserate over their breakups. Sally asks him to dinner, and he asks, “Are we becoming friends now?” Soon, Harry and Sally’s friendship blossoms, and they begin to rely on each other for emotional support. When discussing their dating lives, Harry reveals that he sleeps with women even if he dislikes them, and Sally is appalled. At a batting cage, Harry’s friend, Jess, asks if he is attracted to Sally and likes to spend time with her, and Harry says yes. Jess does not understand why Harry refuses to become romantically involved with Sally, but Harry claims the friendship is helping his personal growth. At a delicatessen, Sally criticizes Harry’s casual approach to sex. He responds that the women he sleeps with have a good time, implying that they achieve orgasms when they are with him. Sally counters that women fake orgasms all the time, and when he does not believe her, she pretends to have one at the table. Moaning, shouting, and pounding on the tabletop, Sally draws everyone’s attention and prompts an older female patron to order whatever Sally is having. On New Year’s Eve, Harry and Sally go to a party, and Harry vows that if they are still single next year, he will be her date again. At midnight, they watch other couples kiss and give each other an awkward peck on the lips. Later, Harry and Sally set each other up with Marie and Jess on a double blind date. However, Marie prefers Jess over Harry, and vice versa, and the two hop into a cab together after dinner, leaving Harry and Sally alone. Four months later, while shopping for a housewarming gift for Marie and Jess, Harry and Sally run into Harry’s ex-wife, Helen. Upset by the encounter, Harry takes out his anger on Marie and Jess as they bicker over a coffee table in their new apartment. Sally leads Harry outside and discourages him from expressing every emotion he feels whenever he feels it. Harry accuses Sally of burying her emotions and reminds her that she has not slept with anyone since her ex-boyfriend, Joe. Hurt by the accusations, Sally tells Harry he sleeps with too many women, and he quickly apologizes, offering her a hug. Sometime later, Sally calls Harry in tears, relaying the news that Joe is getting married. Harry rushes over to Sally’s apartment. She cries on his shoulder, and he gives her a friendly kiss. She kisses him back, and the two make love. Afterward, Sally nuzzles Harry, while he lies nervously in her bed. In the morning, she wakes up to find him getting dressed. Before hurrying out, Harry asks Sally to dinner that night. The two spend the day fretting over what happened, and Sally announces at dinner that they made a mistake sleeping together. Harry is relieved. Later, Harry tells Jess that he and Sally must have passed a point in their relationship when it became too late to have sex. Weeks pass, and Harry and Sally are reunited at Marie and Jess’s wedding. Harry attempts to apologize, telling Sally he did not plan to make love to her when he went to her apartment, but he did not know how else to comfort her. She shouts at him for suggesting that he took pity on her and slaps him. Over Christmas, Sally ignores Harry’s phone calls. One day, he sings a song on her answering machine and she picks up. Harry apologizes, but Sally refuses to be his “consolation prize” when he asks her to be his date for New Year’s Eve. Sally goes to the New Year’s Eve party with Marie and Jess, but she cannot face the idea of being alone at midnight and decides to leave the party early. Meanwhile, Harry walks around the city, ruminating over his relationship with Sally. He runs to the party and finds Sally on her way out. Harry tells Sally he loves her, but she assumes he is only saying it because he is lonely. Harry lists off the personality traits that have endeared him to Sally and tells her that he wants to spend the rest of his life with her. Sally shouts that she hates Harry, then kisses him. Sometime later, Harry and Sally discuss their wedding, which took place three months later, and recall the coconut wedding cake served with chocolate sauce on the side, per Sally’s instructions.

During World War II, Casablanca, Morocco is a waiting point for throngs of desperate refugees fleeing Nazi-occupied Europe. Exit visas, which are necessary to leave the country, are at a premium, so when two German couriers carrying letters of transit signed by General DeGaulle are murdered and the letters stolen, German Major Strasser and Louis Renault, the prefecture of police, are eager to find the documents. Strasser is particularly concerned that the letters not be sold to Victor Lazlo, the well-known Czech resistance leader, who is rumored to be on his way to Casablanca. That night, Renault and Strasser search for the killer at Rick's Café Americain, a popular nightclub run by the mysterious American expatriate Richard Blaine. Earlier, Ugarte, a shady dealer in exit visas, had asked Rick to hold the stolen letters temporarily, explaining that he has a buyer for them and with the money from their sale, he plans to leave Casablanca. Although Rick fought on the side of the loyalists in Spain, he has grown cynical, and when Renault advises him not to interfere with Ugarte's arrest, Rick replies "I stick my neck out for nobody." He makes a bet with Renault, however, that Lazlo will manage to leave Casablanca despite German efforts to stop him. After Ugarte is arrested, Lazlo and his companion, Ilsa Lund, arrive at Rick's. Ilsa recognizes Sam, the piano player, and while Lazlo makes covert contact with the underground, Ilsa insists that Sam play the song "As Time Goes By." Reluctantly, Sam agrees, and a furious Rick, who had ordered him never to play the song again, emerges from his office to stop him. Rick is taken aback when he sees Ilsa, whom he knew in Paris. Later, after the café is closed, Rick remembers his love affair with Ilsa: After a brief happy time together, the Nazis invade Paris and, worried that Rick will be in danger because of his record, Ilsa advises him to leave the city. He refuses to go without her, and she agrees to meet him at the train station. Instead of coming, though, she sends him a farewell note, and Sam and Rick leave just ahead of the Nazis. Rick's thoughts return to the present with Ilsa's arrival at the café. She tries to explain her actions, but when a drunken Rick accuses her of being a tramp, she walks out. The following day, Lazlo and Ilsa meet with Renault and, there they learn that Ugarte has been killed while in police custody. After Rick helps a young Romanian couple win enough money at roulette to allow them to leave the country, Lazlo, suspecting that Rick has the letters, asks to buy them. Rick refuses and, when Lazlo asks his reasons, suggests that he ask Ilsa. Angered when Rick allows his orchestra to accompany a rousing rendition of "La Marseillaise," Strasser orders the closing of the Café. That night, while Lazlo attends an underground meeting, Ilsa meets Rick and explains that she stayed behind in Paris because, on the day Rick left Paris she had learned that Lazlo, her husband, whom she had married in secret and thought dead, was alive. Now realizing that they still love each other, Ilsa tells Rick that he must made decisions for both of them. Meanwhile, the police break up the underground meeting, and Lazlo takes refuge at Rick's. Before he is arrested, he begs Rick to use the letters to take Ilsa away from Casablanca. The next day, Rick sells the café to his competitor Ferare, the owner of the Blue Parrot, and tricks Renault into releasing Lazlo from prison. They head for the airport, but Renault has managed to alert Strasser, who hurries after them. At the airport, Rick tells Ilsa, who thought that she would be staying with him, that she is to leave with Lazlo because she gives meaning to his work. He then tells Lazlo that he and Ilsa loved each other in Paris, and that she pretended she was still in love with him in order to get the letters. Lazlo, who understands what really happened, welcomes Rick back to the fight before he and Ilsa board the plane. Strasser arrives just as the airplane is about to take off and when he tries to delay the flight, Rick shoots him. Renault then quickly telephones the police, but instead of turning in Rick, he advises them to "round up the usual suspects," and the two men leave Casablanca for the Free French garrison at Brassaville. It is, Rick says, "the beginning of a beautiful friendship."

In 1861, Scarlett O'Hara, the headstrong sixteen-year-old daughter of wealthy Georgia plantation-owner Gerald O'Hara, is sick of hearing talk about going to war with the North. She much prefers to have beaux like Brent and Stuart Tarleton talk about the next day's barbecue at Twelve Oaks, the neighboring Wilkes plantation. When the twins reveal the “secret” that Ashley Wilkes is planning to marry his cousin Melanie Hamilton from Atlanta, Scarlett refuses to believe it because she is in love with Ashley herself. Her father later confirms the news when he returns home to Tara, the O'Hara plantation, and advises Scarlett to forget about the serious-minded Ashley, because “like should marry like.” At the barbeque, Scarlett acts coquettish with all of the young men, hoping to make Ashley jealous, then, during an afternoon rest, sneaks into the library to see him. He says that he will marry Melanie because they are alike, but leads Scarlett to believe that he loves her instead of Melanie. When he leaves, Scarlett angrily throws a vase and is startled to discover Rhett Butler, a notorious rogue from Charleston, who has been lying unnoticed on a couch the entire time. She is angry at his seeming indifference to the seriousness of her feelings for Ashley and annoyed by his frank appreciation of her physical beauty. Later, when news arrives that war has broken out between the North and the South, Scarlett is stunned to see Ashley kiss Melanie goodbye as he leaves to enlist, and in a daze accepts the impulsive proposal of Melanie's brother Charles. Just after Ashley and Melanie marry, Scarlett and Charles marry as well, delighting Melanie, who tells Scarlett that now they will truly be sisters. Some time later, Scarlett receives word that Charles has died of the measles, and she is forced to don widow's black clothing and refrain from going to the parties she loves. Her understanding mother Ellen decides to let her go to Atlanta to stay with Melanie and her Aunt Pittypat, hoping that Scarlett will feel less restless there. At an Atlanta fundraising bazaar, Scarlett is so bored watching other girls dance, that when Rhett bids for her in a dance auction, she enthusiastically leads the Virginia Reel with him, oblivious to the outrage of the shocked local matrons. Rhett, who has become a successful blockade runner, continues to see Scarlett over the next few months and brings her presents from his European trips. As the war rages, Melanie and Scarlett receive word that Ashley will be returning home on a Christmas leave. Atlanta is now suffering the privation of a long siege, but the women manage to give Ashley a small Christmas feast. Before he returns to the front, Ashley tells Scarlett that the South is losing the war and asks her to stay by the pregnant Melanie. Melanie goes into labor as Atlantans leave the city before Northern troops arrive. When Aunt Pitty leaves for Charleston, Scarlett desperately wants to go with her, but remembers her promise to Ashley, and remains with Melanie. Because Melanie's labor is difficult and the doctor is too busy attending wounded soldiers to come to her aid, Scarlett must attend her alone. After the baby is born, Scarlett sends her maid Prissy for Rhett, who reluctantly arrives with a frightened horse and a wagon. Though he thinks that Scarlett is crazy when she insists upon returning to Tara, he risks his life to drive the women and the infant through the now-burning city. Outside Atlanta, as Rhett and Scarlett see the decimated Southern army in retreat, he feels ashamed and resolves to join them for their last stand. Scarlett is furious with him, even after he admits that he loves her and gives her a passionate kiss before leaving. When the women finally arrive at Tara, the plantation is a shambles and the house has been looted. Scarlett's mother Ellen has just died of typhoid and her father's mind is gone. Desperate for something to eat, Scarlett first tries drinking whiskey, then goes into the fields. After choking on a radish, she vows that if she lives through this she will never go hungry again. [An Intermission divides the story at this point.] Soon Scarlett bullies her sisters and the remaining house slaves into working in the fields. After she kills a Yankee scavenger and, with Melanie's help, hides the body, the contents of his wallet provide them with some money for food. When the war ends, Ashley returns and Scarlett goes to him for advice when Pork, one of the former slaves who has remained with the family, tells her that $300 in taxes are owed on Tara. Ashley offers no solution to her problem, but admits once again that he loves her, even though he will never leave Melanie. More determined than ever to obtain the money after Jonas Wilkerson, a ruthless Yankee who was once Tara's overseer, says that he is going to buy Tara when it is auctioned off for taxes, Scarlett decides to ask Rhett for the money. With no proper clothes to wear, Scarlett and her old governess, Mammy, use material from Tara's velvet drapes for a new dress. In Atlanta, they discover that Rhett has been imprisoned by the Yankees, but has charmed his way into their good graces. Scarlett tries to pretend that everything is fine at Tara, but Rhett soon sees her roughened hands and realizes what her situation is. Because he is under arrest and his money is all in an English bank, Rhett cannot help Scarlett, so she leaves, infuriated. That same day, she runs into Frank Kennedy, her sister Suellen's beau, and sees that he has become a successful merchant. Scarlett tricks Frank into marrying her by telling him that Suellen loves someone else, and is thus able to use his money to save Tara. Scarlett then moves to Atlanta to work at Frank's shop and to make his fledgling lumber business a success. She also uses an unwitting Melanie to help make Ashley come to work at the lumber mill. One day, Scarlett is attacked by scavengers while driving her carriage near a shanty town, but is saved by Big Sam, a former Tara slave. Scarlett is not physically harmed, but that night Frank, Ashley and some of the other men band together to “clear out” the shanty. While Scarlett, Melanie and the other women wait at Melanie's house, Rhett arrives to warn them that the Yankees are planning an ambush. Melanie tells him where the men have gone, and some time later, he prevents their arrest by pretending to the Yankees that they have all been drinking with him at the notorious Belle Watling's bordello. Ashley is wounded, but Frank has died on the raid. A few weeks later, Scarlett, who is drinking heavily, is visited by Rhett, who proposes to her and offers to give her everything she wants. Though she says that she does not love him, she agrees to marry him, and on their expensive honeymoon, he vows to spoil her to stop her nightmares of the war. A year later, Scarlett gives birth to a daughter, whom Melanie nicknames “Bonnie Blue.” Though Rhett has never cared about Atlanta society, he now wants to ensure Bonnie's future. He begins to acquire respectability, and within a few years his charitable contributions and sincere devotion to Bonnie impresses even the hardest of Atlanta's matrons. Meanwhile, Scarlett still longs for Ashley and has told Rhett that she no longer wants him to share her bedroom. One day, Ashley's sister India and some other women see Scarlett and Ashley in an embrace. Though nothing improper happened, Scarlett is afraid to attend Melanie's birthday party for Ashley that night. A furious Rhett forces her to attend, though, then leaves. Melanie's open affection to her makes Scarlett ashamed, and when she returns home she sneaks into the dining room to drink. There she finds Rhett drunk and a violent quarrel erupts. After Scarlett calls Rhett a drunken fool, he grabs her and carries her upstairs, angrily telling her that this night there will not be “three in a bed.” The next morning, Scarlett is happy, but when Rhett scoffs that his behavior was merely an indiscretion, her happiness turns to anger. Rhett then leaves for an extended trip to England and takes Bonnie with him. Some months later, because Bonnie is homesick, Rhett returns to Atlanta and discovers that Scarlett is pregnant. She is happy to see Rhett, but his smirk of indifference and accusation about Ashley enrages her so that she starts to strike him and falls down the stairs. She loses the baby, and although she calls to him during her delirium, Rhett does not know and thinks that she hates him. After she recovers, he suggests that the anger and hatred stop for Bonnie's sake, and Scarlett agrees, but as they are talking, the headstrong Bonnie tries to make her pony take a jump and she falls and breaks her neck. Both are shattered by Bonnie's death, especially Rhett, who refuses to let her be buried because Bonnie was afraid of the dark. Only Melanie, to whom Rhett has always felt a closeness, convinces him to let the child go. After her talk with Rhett, Melanie, who has become pregnant despite the danger to her health, collapses and suffers a miscarriage. On her deathbed, Melanie asks Scarlett to take care of Ashley, but when Scarlett sees how much the distraught Ashley loves Melanie, she finally realizes how wrong she has been for years and knows that it is Rhett she truly loves. She rushes back home and tries to prevent him from leaving her, but he will not stay because it is too late for them. Scarlett tearfully asks him what she will do and as he leaves he answers, “Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn.” Through her sobs, Scarlett begins to think of Tara, from which she has always gained strength, and determines that she will return there and will think of a way to get Rhett back. She resolves to think about it tomorrow for, “