Chev Chelios lands in the middle of an intersection after falling out of a helicopter. He is scooped off the street by gangsters and removed from the scene. Chev wakes up in a makeshift hospital and sees doctors removing his heart while Johnny Vang watches. The doctors place an artificial heart in his chest. He wakes up later and escapes, noticing an external battery pack is attached to him. By interrogating a thug, he learns the location of Johnny Vang: the Cypress Social Club.

Chev calls Doc Miles, who says that Chev has been fitted with an AbioCor artificial heart. Miles informs Chev that once the external battery pack runs out, the internal battery will kick in and he will have 60 minutes before it stops working. Chev crashes his car, destroying the external battery pack. After getting directions from a driver, Chev has the driver use jumper cables on him to charge the internal battery. At the club, Chev loses Vang but picks up a prostitute named Ria, who sends him to a strip club where Vang is hiding out. In the club, Chev finds Eve, who is now working as a stripper. A group of Mexican mobsters, led by Chico, show up looking for Chev. After a gunfight, Chev learns that a mobster named "El Hurón" ("The Ferret") wants to kill him, but he doesn't find out why.

Chev commandeers a police cruiser with Eve and another stripper. The stripper tells Chev that he should look at the Hollywood Racetrack for Johnny Vang. Along the way, Chev meets Venus, the brother of Chev's deceased associate Kaylo. Wanting his help, Chev tells Venus that El Huron was involved in his brother's death. At the horse track Chev begins losing energy again. Another call to Doc Miles informs him that friction will cause static electricity to power the internal battery. Eve arrives and has sex with Chev on the racetrack, which generates enough friction to charge the heart. Chev spots Vang and leaves Eve behind. Vang escapes, and Chev is about to be subdued by security when Don Kim picks Chev up in a limo. He informs Chev that there is a prominent leader in the Triads named Poon Dong, who was in need of a heart transplant and chose Chev's to replace his. Chev kills Don Kim and his henchmen upon learning that Don Kim wishes to return him to Poon Dong for a reward. Meanwhile, Venus calls in Orlando to assist in tracking down El Huron.

While searching for Vang, Chev boards an ambulance and steals a battery pack for his artificial heart. Chev exits the ambulance upon seeing Johnny Vang on the street outside and a shootout ensues before Chev subdues Vang. Chev learns that his heart has already been transplanted into Poon Dong. Johnny Vang is shot and killed by Chico as Chev questions him, and Chev is knocked unconscious. Doc Miles uses his secretary, Dark Chocolate, to lure Poon Dong into his apartment to kill him and retrieve Chev's heart.

Chev is taken to Catalina Island where El Huron awaits. It is revealed that El Huron is the brother of Ricky and Alex Verona, both of whom Chelios killed. El Huron also reveals that Ricky Verona's disembodied head is being artificially kept alive long enough to watch El Huron kill Chelios. Orlando, Venus and Ria suddenly arrive with backup, and a shootout ensues, killing most of El Huron's men. Ricky Verona's head is killed during the melee. As he starts to slow down, Chev climbs a nearby electric pole and grabs a pair of live wires to recharge, being set on fire by the massive current. He returns fully powered and beats El Huron to death. Due to a hallucination caused by the electric currents, he sees Ria as Eve and kisses her, inadvertently setting her ablaze. Chev walks towards the camera and gives the audience the middle finger.

During the end credits, Doc Miles replaces Chev's heart. Chelios's eyes open and his heart monitor indicates normal activity.

An unnamed Driver works as a mechanic, a stunt double, a stunt driver, and a criminal-for-hire getaway car driver in Los Angeles, California. His jobs are all managed by auto shop owner Shannon, who persuades Jewish mobsters Bernie Rose and Nino to purchase a car for the Driver to race. Driver meets his new neighbor, Irene, and grows close to her and her young son, Benicio. Their relationship is interrupted when Irene's husband, Standard Gabriel, is released from prison. After initial awkwardness, Driver and Standard become friends.

Standard owes protection money from his time in prison and is assaulted by Albanian gangster Cook, who demands that Standard rob a pawnshop for $40,000 to pay off the debt. Cook forces Benicio to pocket a bullet as a symbol that he and his mother are in danger. Upon finding this out, Driver offers to act as the getaway driver for the pawnshop robbery.

While Driver is waiting outside the pawnshop with Cook's accomplice, Blanche, the store owner kills Standard. Driver and Blanche are then pursued by another car. Driver hides with Blanche in a motel where he learns that the pawnshop owner claims Standard was the sole perpetrator and no money was stolen. Driver threatens Blanche when she lies about being oblivious to the second car. She admits that the bag contains a million dollars, and she and Cook planned to re-steal the money for themselves using the car that chased them. While Blanche is in the restroom, she is killed with a shotgun by one of Cook's henchmen; Driver fatally stabs the gunman before killing another one with the shotgun.

At the auto shop, Shannon offers to hide the money, but Driver brushes him off. He hunts down Cook in a strip club, threatens to kill him, and force-feeds him the bullet that he had given to Benicio earlier. Cook reveals that Nino was behind the robbery. Driver calls him and Nino dismisses his offer of the money, instead sending a hitman to the Driver's apartment building. Driver tells an angry Irene about his involvement with her husband's death. When the pair enter an elevator, the Driver notices a hitman. Driver kisses Irene, and then brutally beats the hitman to death, leaving her horrified. Knowing that someone may have leaked Driver's whereabouts for Nino to know his address, the Driver confronts Shannon, who reveals that he also unwittingly mentioned Irene. Driver tells Shannon to flee.

At his pizzeria, Nino reveals to Bernie that a low-level Philadelphia wise guy from the "East Coast mob" stashed the money at the pawnshop with plans to use the money to set up a new operation. Since anyone tied to the robbery could lead the East Coast Italian Mafia to them, they need to kill everyone involved. Bernie warns Nino that nobody steals from the Italian Mob. Nino is angry because the Italian Mob has patronized and insulted him for being Jewish. He convinces Bernie to follow his plan. Bernie murders Cook, as he is the sole witness to their agreement. After Shannon refuses to divulge the whereabouts of the Driver at the auto shop, Bernie slashes his forearm with a straight razor, killing him.

Enraged at finding Shannon's corpse at the auto shop, Driver, disguising himself with a rubber stuntman's mask, follows Nino from the pizzeria to the Pacific Coast Highway and rams his car onto a beach; he chases Nino towards the ocean and drowns him. He phones Irene and tells her that he will not return, but the short period of knowing her and Benicio was the best part of his life. The Driver meets Bernie, who promises that Irene will be safe in exchange for the money. Upon giving him the money, Bernie stabs him in the stomach, before Driver brandishes his own knife and stabs Bernie to death. Driver survives and drives away, while Bernie lays in the parking lot next to the cash. Irene, having second thoughts, knocks on Driver's apartment door but no one answers. Since Bernie was the last living person to know of Irene's existence, she is now safe forever.

Los Angeles-based English hitman Chev Chelios works for a crime syndicate led by Don "Carlito" Carlos. Chelios is contracted by Carlito to kill mafia boss Don Kim as members of the Triads have been encroaching on Carlito's business. Chelios goes to Don Kim and apparently murders him.

However, ambitious small-time criminal Ricky Verona uses the opportunity to conspire with Carlito against Chelios: Verona will kill Chelios so the Triads do not retaliate, and then take Chelios's place as Carlito's new hired gun. The morning after Don Kim's death, while Chelios sleeps in his apartment, Verona, his brother Alex, and several henchmen break in and inject Chelios with a Chinese synthetic drug which inhibits the flow of adrenaline, slowing the heart and eventually killing the victim. Chelios wakes to find a recording left by Verona showing what he has done. Furious, Chelios smashes his TV and heads out.

Chelios phones Mafia surgeon Doc Miles, who informs Chelios that in order to survive he must keep his adrenaline pumping through constant excitement and danger, and he is unsure if the antidote exists. Chelios keeps his adrenaline up through risky and dangerous acts, which include picking fights with other gangsters, reckless driving and motorcycling, taking illegal drugs and synthetic epinephrine, fighting with the police, and having public sex with his girlfriend Eve.

Chelios visits Carlito at his penthouse and asks him to help find an antidote, as well as to find and kill Verona and his crew. Carlito says there is no antidote and only confirms that Carlito and Verona are working together. Carlito tells Chelios how he will use his death as a scapegoat against the Chinese. An angered Chelios leaves Carlito's penthouse to find Verona. Through Chelios' street contact, a transvestite named Kaylo, he finds Alex at a restaurant and unsuccessfully interrogates him about his brother's whereabouts before killing him. Chelios phones Verona through Alex's phone and tells him of his brother's death, prompting Verona to send thugs after Eve as a revenge. Chelios rushes to pick up Eve before Verona's thugs get to her. Chelios reveals his true profession to her and that he was planning to retire to spend more time with her.

Kaylo, who has been kidnapped by Carlito's men, is forced to call Chelios and tell him that Verona is at a Triad warehouse. Chelios goes there, finding Kaylo's corpse and the henchmen. They reveal that Carlito ordered them to kill Chelios. Eve, who has followed Chelios, unexpectedly arrives, but then escapes with Chelios after a shootout with Carlito's henchmen. Chelios and Eve go to Doc Miles's place, where Miles explains that he cannot cure Chelios. Knowing that he will die soon, Chelios decides to take his revenge on Verona and arranges a meeting with him at a downtown hotel.

Chelios goes to the rooftop of the hotel and meets with Verona, Carlito, and his henchmen. Carlito takes out a syringe, filled with the same poison used by Verona. As he is about to kill Chelios by injecting the second dose into him, Don Kim, revealed to be alive as Chelios spared him, arrives with his Triads to assist Chelios and a shootout follows. During the battle, several of Don Kim's and all of Carlito's men are killed. Carlito tries to escape with his private helicopter, but Chelios manages to catch up to him and holds him at gunpoint. Before Chelios can kill Carlito, Verona sneaks behind and injects Chelios with the syringe, after which Chelios collapses. Carlito himself is betrayed by Verona, who shoots him dead and tries to escape with his helicopter.

Chelios manages to stand up, boards the helicopter, and engages in a fight with Verona. After some struggle, Chelios manages to pull Verona out of the helicopter and while mid-air, Chelios proceeds to snap Verona's neck, killing him. While falling, Chelios calls Eve on his cell phone to apologize for not coming back. Chelios hits a car, bounces off it and lands right in front of the camera. In the last shot, it is implied that his adrenaline is indeed still flowing fast; his nostrils flare, he blinks, and two heartbeats are heard.

In the Chatham Islands, 1849, American lawyer Adam Ewing witnesses the whipping of a Moriori slave, Autua. Autua stows away on Ewing's ship and convinces him to advocate for Autua to join the crew as a free man. Autua saves Ewing's life before his doctor, Henry Goose, can poison him and steal his gold under the guise of treating him for a parasitic worm. In San Francisco, Ewing and his wife denounce her father's complicity in slavery and leave to join the abolition movement.

In 1936, English composer Robert Frobisher finds work as an amanuensis to aging composer Vyvyan Ayrs, allowing Frobisher to compose his own masterpiece, "The Cloud Atlas Sextet"; Frobisher reads Ewing's journal among the books at Ayrs's mansion. Ayrs demands credit for the sextet and threatens to expose Frobisher's bisexuality if he refuses. Frobisher shoots Ayrs and goes into hiding, using the name Ewing. He finishes the sextet and shoots himself before his lover Rufus Sixsmith arrives.

In San Francisco, 1973, journalist Luisa Rey meets Sixsmith, now a nuclear physicist. Sixsmith tips off Rey to a conspiracy to create a catastrophe at a nuclear reactor run by Lloyd Hooks, but he is killed by Hooks's hitman, Bill Smoke, before he can give her a report as proof; Rey finds Frobisher's letters to Sixsmith and tracks down Frobisher's sextet. Scientist Isaac Sachs passes her a copy of Sixsmith's report, but Smoke kills Sachs by blowing up his plane, and runs Rey's car off a bridge; she escapes, but the report is destroyed. With help from the plant's head of security, Joe Napier, Rey evades another assassination attempt, which results in Smoke's death. With a copy of the report from Sixsmith's niece, she exposes the plot and has Hooks indicted.

In London, 2012, gangster Dermot Hoggins murders a critic after a harsh review of his memoir, generating huge sales. Hoggins's brothers threaten the publisher, the aging Timothy Cavendish, for Hoggins's profits. Timothy's brother, Denholme, tells him to hide at Aurora House. On the way, Timothy reads a manuscript based on Rey's story. Believing Aurora House is a hotel, Timothy signs papers committing himself and discovers it to be a nursing home where all outside contact is prohibited; Denholme reveals that he sent Timothy there as revenge for an affair with his wife. Timothy escapes with three other residents, resumes his relationship with an old flame, and writes a screenplay about his experience.

In 2144, Sonmi-451 is a "fabricant", a human cloned for slave labor, kept as a fast food server in a dystopian Neo Seoul. She is exposed to ideas of rebellion by another fabricant, Yoona-939, who has obtained a clip of the movie about Timothy's involuntary institutionalization. After Yoona is killed, Sonmi is rescued by rebel Commander Hae-Joo Chang, who exposes Sonmi to the banned writings of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and the full film version of Cavendish's experience. Hae-Joo eventually introduces her to the leader of the rebel movement, and shows her that clones are recycled into food for the fast food diners. Sonmi makes a public broadcast of her revelations before the authorities attack, killing Hae-Joo and recapturing Sonmi. After recounting her story to an archivist, she is executed.

In 2321, the tribespeople of the post-apocalyptic Big Island of Hawaii worship Sonmi; their sacred text is taken from her recorded testimony. Zachry Bailey's village is visited by Meronym, a member of an advanced society called the Prescients who use remnants of high technology, but are dying from a plague. Meronym is searching for a communication station on Mauna Sol to send an SOS to off-world humans. In exchange for healing Zachry's niece, Catkin, Meronym is guided by Zachry to the station where Sonmi made her recording. Returning home, Zachry finds his tribe slaughtered by the cannibalistic Kona tribe; he kills the sleeping Kona chief and rescues Catkin before he and Meronym save each other from the arriving tribesmen. Zachry and Catkin join Meronym and the Prescients as their ship leaves Big Island. On a distant planet, Zachry is married to Meronym and recounts the story to his grandchildren.

Edo, 1630. Tsugumo Hanshirō arrives at the estate of the Ii clan and says that he wishes to commit seppuku within the courtyard of the palace. To deter him Saitō Kageyu (Rentarō Mikuni), the Daimyō's senior counselor, tells Hanshirō the story of another rōnin, Chijiiwa Motome – formerly of the same clan as Hanshirō.

Saito scornfully recalls the practice of ronin requesting the chance to commit seppuku on the clan's land, hoping to be turned away and given alms. Motome arrived at the palace a few months earlier and made the same request as Hanshirō. Infuriated by the rising number of "suicide bluffs", the three most senior samurai of the clan—Yazaki Hayato, Kawabe Umenosuke, and Omodaka Hikokuro—persuaded Saitō to force Motome to follow through and kill himself. Upon examining Motome's swords, his blades were found to be made of bamboo. Enraged that any samurai would "pawn his soul", the House of Ii forced Motome to disembowel himself with his own bamboo blade, making his death slow, agonizingly painful, and deeply humiliating.

Despite this warning, Hanshirō insists that he has never heard of Motome and says that he has no intention of leaving the Ii palace alive. After a suicide pavilion is set up in the courtyard of the palace, Hanshirō is asked to name the samurai who shall behead him when the ritual is complete. To the shock of Saitō and the Ii retainers, Hanshirō successively names Hayato, Umenosuke, and Hikokuro—the three samurai who coerced the suicide of Motome. When messengers are dispatched to summon them, all three decline to come, saying they are suffering from a life-threatening illness.

After provoking their laughter by calling bushido a facade, Hanshirō recounts his story to Saitō and the Ii retainers. He did, he admits, know Motome after all. In 1619, his clan was abolished by the Shōgun. His Lord decided to commit seppuku and, as his most senior samurai, Hanshirō planned to die alongside him. To prevent this, Hanshirō's closest friend performed seppuku and left a letter assigning to Hanshirō the guardianship of his teenage son—Motome. Despite Hanshirō's pleas, his Lord forbade him to kill himself.

In order to support Motome and his own daughter Miho, Hanshirō rented a hovel in the slums of Edo and was reduced to making paper umbrellas to make ends meet. Despite this, he retained a firm sense of personal and familial honor. Realizing the love between Motome and Miho, Hanshirō arranged for them to marry. Soon after, they had a son, Kingo.

When Miho fell ill with a fever, Motome could not bear the thought of losing her and did everything to raise money to hire a doctor. When Kingo also fell ill, Hanshirō was enraged when Motome claimed to have already sold everything of value. Motome, however, calmly explained that there was another way to raise money and that he would return very soon. For hours, Hanshirō and Miho anxiously awaited his return. Late that evening, Hayato, Umenosuke, and Hikokuro had brought Motome's mutilated body home. They explained how Motome had come to the Ii palace and had been forced to kill himself. They then displayed his bamboo blades in order to mock their victim before his family. After they left, Miho spent hours weeping inconsolably over her husband's body. Then, she returned to her sickbed next to Kingo. Having had no idea that Motome had sold even his sword blades to save Miho, a devastated Hanshirō implored his son-in-law's forgiveness for his own carelessness. Soon after, Kingo died from his illness. Having already lost the will to live, Miho followed after him the next day.

Completing his story, Hanshirō explains that his sole desire is to join Motome, Miho, and Kingo in the next world. He explains, however, that they have every right to ask whether justice has been exacted for their deaths. Therefore, Hanshiro asks Saito if he has any statement of regret to convey to Motome, Miho, and Kingo. He explains that, if Saito does so, he will die without saying another word.

Saitō, however, insists that Motome was "a despicable extortioner" who got exactly what he deserved. He boasts that all other suicide bluffs who come to the Ii palace shall be treated in the same fashion.

Hanshirō then reveals the last part of his story. Before coming to the Ii house, he had tracked down Hayato and Umenosuke, easily defeated them, and cut off their topknots. Hikokuro then came to Hanshirō's hovel and, with great respect, challenged him to a duel. After a brief but tense sword fight, Hikokuro suffers a double disgrace: his sword is broken and his topknot was taken as well. As proof of his story, Hanshiro removes their labelled topknots from his kimono and casts them upon the palace courtyard.

With deep contempt, Hanshiro reminds everyone that, for a samurai to lose his topknot is a disgrace so horrendous that even suicide can barely atone for it. And yet, the most revered samurai of the House of Ii —Hayato, Umenosuke, and Hikokuro— lack the fortitude to commit the suicide they would demand from anyone else. Instead, they are concealing their dishonor, feigning illness, and waiting for their hair to grow back. Hanshiro concludes that, despite the Ii clan's pride in its martial history, it seems that the Code of the Samurai is a facade even for them.

Having now lost face very badly, an enraged Saitō calls Hanshiro a madman and orders his remaining samurai to kill him. In a battle which rages through the palace, Hanshirō kills four samurai, wounds eight, and contemptuously throws down the antique suit of armor which symbolizes the glorious history of the House of Ii. In a final confirmation of the clan's Machiavellian ways, three Ashigaru arrive armed with matchlock guns—a weapon seen as beneath contempt. As Hanshirō begins seppuku, he is simultaneously shot by all three gunmen.

Terrified that the Ii clan will be abolished if word gets out that "a half starved ronin" killed so many of their retainers, Saito announces that all deaths caused by Hanshiro shall be explained by "illness". At the same time, a messenger returns reporting that Hikokuro had committed harakiri the day before, while Hayato and Umenosuke are lying about their illnesses. Saito angrily orders that Hayato and Umenosuke are to also commit seppuku as atonement for losing their topknots, and that a squad of soldiers are to be sent to their houses "to make sure they do it."

As the suit of armor is lovingly re-erected, the visitor's book of the House of Ii clan is heard in voiceover. Hanshiro, who was clearly mentally unstable, had to be forced, like Motome before him, to commit suicide. The Shōgun, it is said, has issued a personal commendation to the Ii clan for how they handled the suicide bluffs of Motome and Hanshiro. At the end of his letter, the Shōgun praises the House of Ii and their samurai as the perfection of the Code of Bushido. Janitors clean the grounds where the fighting had occurred, and a janitor finds one of the three severed top knots on the ground. He places it in a bucket.

Uncle Saddam is a satirical yet sobering look inside the world of Iraqi president Saddam Hussein. Award-winning filmmaker Joel Soler, who is still under Government protection, risked life and limb to shoot and smuggle this strange and captivating footage out of Iraq. Featuring narration written by Scott Thompson of "The Kids in the Hall" and the voice of Wallace Langham ("Mark" on ABC's "What About Joan?", "Josh" on NBC's "Veronica's Closet", "Phil" on HBO's Emmy Award-winning "Larry Sanders Show") the film has the feel of an episode of "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous" spotlighting, as is often the case, one of the world's most hated men.

Emily Jenkins (Renée Zellweger) is a social worker living in Oregon who is assigned to investigate the family of Lillith Sullivan (Jodelle Ferland), a troubled ten-year-old whose school grades have declined due to an emotional rift with her parents, Edward and Margaret Sullivan (Callum Keith Rennie and Kerry O'Malley). Emily suspects that the parents have been abusing Lillith for her lack of obedience and begins to investigate the family further, questioning Lillith about her parents and planning a visit at the family's home. When Lillith is interviewed by Emily's boss and is too intimidated to answer his questions honestly, Emily visits Lillith at her school and gives the girl her home phone number, telling her to call if she is being hurt or needs help.

Her suspicion is later confirmed when Lillith calls in Emily in the middle of the night, informing her that her parents are coming to kill her. With the help of Detective Mike Barron (Ian McShane), Emily intercepts and captures Edward and Margaret before they can incinerate Lillith by trapping her in their home oven and gassing her alive.

Lillith is originally going to be sent to the children's home, but she begs Emily to look after her instead, and with the agreement of the board, Emily is assigned to take care of Lillith until a suitable foster family comes along. Two weeks after Lillith moves in with Emily, a boy named Diego (Alexander Conti), another one of Emily's cases, brutally murders his parents in the middle of the night, and Detective Barron informs Emily that somebody phoned Diego the night before the crime, and that the call originated from her home.

As she is suspected of involvement in the incident, Lillith undergoes a psychiatric evaluation by Emily's best friend, Douglas J. Ames (Bradley Cooper). However, during the session, Lillith asks Douglas what his fears are and begins to subtly threatening him by turning the questions around and beginning to evaluate him. Douglas conveys his discomfort to Emily and says that he will call a specialist in the morning to help with Lillith's evaluation. During the night Douglas receives a strange phone call at his home. A mass of hornets, which Douglas had previously told Lillith that he was afraid of, begin to fly out of his body, and he grows hysterical and kills himself.

After speaking to Diego and attending Douglas' funeral Emily becomes more suspicious of Lillith than her parents, and visits the asylum where Edward and Margaret are being kept under custody for their attempted murder of Lillith. Margaret is hysterical and unable to see visitors but Edward reveals to her that Lillith is far from human and is actually a Succubus-like demon who feeds on emotion, and is capable of causing deadly hallucinations based on her victims' fears. Their attempt to kill her had been an attempt to save themselves and others, and that she is now feeding off of Emily's kindness and goodness and that Lillith will bleed her dry before moving on to her next victim.

Edward also informs Emily that the only way to kill Lillith is to get her to sleep, which she rarely does. Shortly after Emily leaves the asylum Margaret hallucinates that she is on fire and Edward is stabbed in the eye after attacking a fellow inmate who spoke to him in the voice of Lillith. After Detective Barron receives a strange phone call in his home from Lillith he arms himself to help Emily. However, as he is on his way to Emily, Lilith makes him hallucinate that he being attacked by dogs and he fatally shoots himself in the head with his shotgun.

After realizing that her closest colleagues have been eliminated and that the rest of her cases will be next, Emily serves Lillith tea spiked with a sedative and waits for her to fall asleep. While Lillith is asleep, Emily douses her home in gasoline and sets it ablaze, hoping to kill Lilith. However, Lillith, upon discovering Emily's plot, escapes unharmed.

A police officer offers to escort Emily and Lillith to a temporary place to sleep but as Emily is following the police cars, she suddenly takes a different route. Driving recklessly and at a high speed, to scare Lillith, the girl forces Emily to relive her childhood memory of her mother driving fast in a rainstorm and a truck overturning in their path. Emily fights the memory, telling herself that it is not real and the image fades, leaving Lillith herself confused that her illusions no longer scare Emily.

Emily crashes through a gate and drives the car off a pier into a lake. As the car sinks, Emily struggles to lock Lilith (now in full demon form) in the trunk by folding the rear seats back against her and drowning her. Emily exits the car and swims away but Lilith grabs her leg through a hole in the car's tail light section. Eventually Emily breaks free and Lilith lets go as the car continues to sink. Emily climbs back ashore and watches the water to assure she is really gone. The film ends with Emily smiling, relieved to finally be rid of Lilith.

During the summer of 2005, filmmaker Gordon Forbes spent three months embedded with the U.S. Marines 3rd Reconnaissance Battalion during their deployment to the Sunni Triangle in Iraq. He and his team documented the daily grind and struggles of the men in Alpha Company as they fought the War on Terror, thousands of miles away from home. While most networks send a crew to shoot only enough footage for a 90-second highlight piece, this three-part documentary covers several operations - from helicopter raids and mounted patrols to everyday interactions with the people of Iraq.

In the midst of an unspecified disaster, Dr. Wrenn visits John Trent, a patient in a psychiatric hospital, and Trent recounts his story:

Trent, a freelance insurance investigator, has lunch with a colleague, the owner of an insurance company, who asks Trent to work on his largest insured: investigating a claim by New York-based Arcane Publishing. During their conversation, Trent is attacked by a man wielding an axe who, after asking him if he reads Sutter Cane, is shot dead by a police officer before he can harm Trent. The man was Cane's agent, who went insane and killed his family after reading one of Cane's books.

Trent meets with Arcane Publishing director, Jackson Harglow, who tasks him with investigating the disappearance of popular horror novelist, Sutter Cane, and recovering the manuscript for Cane's final novel. He assigns Cane's editor, Linda Styles, to accompany him. Linda explains that Cane's stories have been known to cause disorientation, memory loss and paranoia in "less stable readers". Trent is skeptical, convinced the disappearance is a publicity stunt. Trent notices red lines on the covers of Cane's books, which, when aligned properly, form the outline of New Hampshire and mark a location alluded to be Hobb's End, the fictional setting for many of Cane's works.

They set out to find the town. Linda experiences bizarre phenomena during the late night drive, and they inexplicably arrive at Hobb's End in daylight. Trent and Linda search the small town, encountering people and landmarks described as fictional in Cane's novels. Trent believes it all to be staged, but Linda disagrees. She admits to Trent that Arcane Publishing's claim was a stunt to promote Cane's book, but the time distortion and exact replica of Hobb's End were not part of the plan.

Linda enters a church to confront Cane, who exposes her to his final novel, In the Mouth of Madness, which drives her insane; she begins embracing and kissing Cane passionately. A man approaches Trent in a bar and warns him to leave, then commits suicide. Outside the bar, a mob of monstrous-looking townspeople descend upon him. Trent drives away from Hobb's End, but is repeatedly teleported back to the center of town. After crashing his car, Trent awakens inside the church with Linda, where Cane explains that the public's belief in his stories freed an ancient race of monstrous beings which will reclaim the Earth. Cane reveals that Trent is merely one of his characters, who must follow Cane's plot and return the manuscript of In The Mouth of Madness to Arcane Publishing, furthering the end of humanity.

After giving Trent the manuscript, Cane tears a giant photograph of his face open, creating a portal to the dimension of Cane's monstrous masters. Trent sees a long tunnel that Cane said would take him back to his world, and urges Linda to come with him. She tells him she can't, because she has already read the entire book. Trent races down the hall, with Cane's monsters close on his heels. He trips and falls, then suddenly finds himself lying on a country road, apparently back in reality. During his return to New York, Trent destroys the manuscript. Back at Arcane Publishing, Trent relates his experience to Harglow. Harglow claims ignorance of Linda; Trent was sent alone to find Cane, and the manuscript was delivered months earlier. In the Mouth of Madness has been on sale for weeks, with a film adaptation in post production. Trent encounters a reader of the newly released novel, who is bleeding from his altered eyes, and murders him with an axe, being arrested for murder and sent to the asylum.

After Trent finishes telling his story, Dr. Wrenn judges it a meaningless hallucination. Trent wakes the following day to find the asylum abandoned. He departs as a radio announces that the world has been overrun with monstrous creatures, including mutating humans, and that outbreaks of suicide and mass murder are commonplace. Trent goes to see the In the Mouth of Madness film and discovers that he is the main character. As he watches his previous actions play out on screen, including a scene where he insisted to Linda "This is reality!" Trent begins laughing hysterically before breaking down crying; finally realizing he was a character in the book all along.

When two grade-school boys get into a fight in the park that results in one boy, Zachary Cowan, hitting the other, Ethan Longstreet, in the face with a stick, their parents meet in a Brooklyn apartment to discuss the matter. Zachary's parents, Alan (Christoph Waltz) and Nancy Cowan (Kate Winslet), visit the home of Michael (John C. Reilly) and Penelope Longstreet (Jodie Foster), Ethan's parents. Their meeting is initially intended to be short, but due to various circumstances, the conversation continues to draw out. In fact, Alan and Nancy begin to leave the apartment on two occasions, but are drawn back in to further discussion.

At first, the couples are friendly to each other, but their respective comments start to hurt feelings, making everyone argue with one another. Apart from fighting amongst themselves, the couples blame each other about who is responsible for the fight between their sons. Nancy calls the Longstreets "superficially fair-minded" and Penelope and Michael complain about Alan's arrogant and dull attitude. Everyone also gets irritated with Alan when he accepts endless business phone calls on his BlackBerry, interrupting the discussion, and showing he has more interest in his business problems than the matter at hand. Michael also receives many phone calls from his ailing mother, to his frustration.

Nancy accuses Michael of being a murderer because he, annoyed by the constant noise it made during the night, had earlier turned his daughter Courtney's pet hamster loose in the street. Penelope becomes emotional about the hamster and with everyone arguing with each other. Other issues include a risky drug Alan is working to defend and Michael's mother has been prescribed, and the question of idealism and responsibility that is part of Penelope's current work.

Michael offers everyone a glass of fine scotch. Penelope claims she doesn't "get drunk" and Nancy drinks way too many and finally stops Alan's phone calls by dropping his cellphone in Penelope's flower vase full of tulips and water. Penelope and Nancy both laugh uproariously while Michael and Alan try to blow-dry the BlackBerry.

The conversation continues to decay into personal attacks and opinionated statements and, eventually, epithets are uttered. Penelope is ranting, calling Nancy's son a 'snitch', and Nancy's true colors are revealed when she destroys the tulips and drunkenly and vulgarly states she is glad that her son beat up Penelope's and Michael's son. The couples realize the conversation is going nowhere. Alan's BlackBerry, lying on the coffee table, vibrates, and all four stare at it.

The film cuts to the hamster, alive and well in the park, where Ethan and Zachary are reconciling on their own.