A funeral service is held for the father of Aaron (Chris Rock) and Ryan (Martin Lawrence). Aaron, the older son, and his wife Michelle (Regina Hall) live at his parents' home. Aaron and Michelle have been trying to buy their own home and have children but have been unsuccessful. Aaron envies his brother because Ryan is a successful author, while Aaron has not yet had his novel published, and resents him because Ryan would rather spend money on a first class airline ticket than help him pay for the funeral expenses.

Aaron and Ryan's cousin Elaine (Zoe Saldana) and her fiancé Oscar (James Marsden) are on their way to pick up Elaine's brother Jeff (Columbus Short) before heading to the funeral. To ease Oscar's nerves, she gives him a pill from a bottle labeled as Valium. Jeff later reveals to Elaine that it is a powerful hallucinogenic drug he has concocted for a friend. Chaos ensues when Oscar hallucinates that the coffin is moving. He knocks it over, and the body falls out of the coffin.

Aaron is approached by an unknown guest named Frank (Peter Dinklage), who reveals himself to be the secret lover of his late father. Frank shows Aaron photos as proof and threatens to reveal them to Aaron and Ryan's mother Cynthia (Loretta Devine) unless he is paid $30,000. While in shock, Aaron relays the situation to Ryan, who suggests Aaron to pay the money because Ryan claims that he is in debt. When Aaron and Ryan meet with Frank to pay him, Frank starts to deride Aaron's ability as a writer and Aaron refuses to pay. Frank turns violent, but Aaron and Ryan subdue him, tying him up to prevent him from leaving. Family friend Norman (Tracy Morgan) enters the room, giving Frank several doses of what he also believes is Valium to try to calm him down. Jeff also enters the room, telling them that it is the same hallucinogen Oscar took earlier.

When Jeff and Norman, who are supposed to be watching Frank, get distracted by Uncle Russell (Danny Glover), Frank releases himself from his bonds and is knocked unconscious upon falling over and hitting his head on a table. With Aaron, Ryan, Jeff and Norman believing that Frank is dead, they plan to put him in the coffin. While everyone is outside watching Oscar, who is on the roof naked and threatening to jump off the roof because he has seen Elaine's ex-boyfriend Derek (Luke Wilson) kissing her, Aaron and Ryan put Frank in the coffin. Elaine tells Oscar that Derek forcibly kissed her and calms him down by revealing she is pregnant. With everyone back inside, they continue the eulogy. While Aaron awkwardly tries to give his speech, Frank starts banging on the coffin, then suddenly forces it open and emerges. The pictures fall out of Frank's pocket, while Cynthia sees the pictures and screams at Frank, attacking him. Aaron yells for everyone's attention as he delivers a moving and impromptu eulogy, saying that his father was a good man with flaws like everyone else.

Aaron and Ryan say goodbye while Ryan gets a ride to the airport from Martina (Regine Nehy), whom he had been trying to seduce all day. Aaron and Michelle are finally alone when Aaron asks where Uncle Russell is. Michelle tells him that she gave him what she believes is Valium to calm him down, shocking Aaron. Uncle Russell sits on the roof naked, like Oscar had been, complaining about how "everything is so green."

In England, Daniel (Matthew Macfadyen) and his wife Jane (Keeley Hawes) live with his parents, while Daniel's brother Robert (Rupert Graves) is a renowned novelist living in New York City. The story begins on the day of their father's funeral. Robert arrives, having flown first class, but declines to help finance the funeral, leaving Daniel to cover all the expenses. As guests begin to arrive, Daniel struggles to complete a eulogy, even though everyone expects Robert will be the one to deliver it.

Daniel's cousin Martha (Daisy Donovan) and her fiancé Simon (Alan Tudyk) are desperate to make a good impression on Martha's father Victor (Peter Egan). Their hopes for doing so are dashed when Martha, hoping to calm Simon's nerves, gives him what she believes is Valium but is actually a hallucinogenic designer drug manufactured by her brother Troy (Kris Marshall), a pharmacy student.

An American man named Peter (Peter Dinklage) introduces himself to Daniel, who is too busy to speak to him and suggests they talk later. The service begins and the hallucinating Simon, certain he sees the coffin moving, tips it over, causing the body to spill out onto the floor. During the ensuing chaos, Simon is told why he is acting as he is, so he panics and locks himself in the bathroom. Martha tries to persuade him to open the door while fending off the unwelcome advances of Justin (Ewen Bremner), with whom she once had a one-night stand that she would like to forget. Simon climbs onto the roof while naked and threatens to jump.

While most of the guests are watching Simon on the roof, Peter meets privately with Daniel and Robert and reveals he was their father's lover. Unhappy that he was left nothing in their father's will, Peter shows them compromising photographs, trying to blackmail the family for £15,000. The brothers panic, bind and gag Peter, and give him what they believe is Valium to calm him down. Peter manages to free himself, but falls and hits his head on a glass coffee table. Troy and germaphobic family friend Howard (Andy Nyman) believe Peter to be dead. Forced to dispose of the body as quickly and surreptitiously as possible, Daniel and Robert place it in the casket with their father. Martha tells Simon that she is pregnant and she takes him off the roof, much to everyone's relief.

Once everyone returns, the service resumes. Daniel's awkward eulogy is interrupted when the still-alive Peter leaps from the coffin and the photos fall out for everyone, including Daniel and Robert's mother Sandra (Jane Asher), to see. Daniel demands everyone to stay calm, declares his father was a good man, although clearly one with secrets, and finally proceeds to deliver an impromptu tribute.

In the evening, after all the mourners (including Peter) have gone, Robert tells Daniel that he plans on taking their mother to New York so that Daniel and Jane can finally buy their own flat. Their conversation is interrupted when Jane tells them that Uncle Alfie (Peter Vaughan) had a panic attack over Simon, so she gave him some "Valium". The film ends with Uncle Alfie on the roof naked, as Simon had been.

Will Atenton (Daniel Craig), a successful editor for a New York City publishing house, quits his job to focus on writing a book while spending more time with his wife Libby (Rachel Weisz) and their young daughters, Trish and Dee Dee. The family is initially happy to live in their Fairfield County "dream house" near the forest. Soon, however, they grow uneasy because of a series of unsettling events, including their daughters seeing a strange man lurking outside and teenagers gathering in the basement. It all seems to tie to a crime committed in the house five years earlier, when a man named Peter Ward apparently murdered his wife and two children and was committed to a mental hospital from which he has been recently released due to lack of evidence.

Will tries to enlist the help of the local police, but they appear strangely unwilling to assist. He also approaches his neighbour Ann (Naomi Watts), who seems apprehensive, while her estranged husband Jack (Marton Csokas) appears outright hostile to Will. Will decides to conduct his own investigations, visiting the facility where Peter Ward was housed, and in doing so he finds out that he actually is Peter Ward. Five years earlier, during the attack that claimed the lives of his wife and daughters, Peter was shot in the head, so he has no memories of the murders. In order to cope with the grief, he fabricated a delusion in which his family is still alive and a new identity for himself based on his inpatient ID band "W1-1L 8-10-10". Once dismissed, Peter moved back to his abandoned house, which is now condemned and covered in graffiti, but in Peter's disturbed mind, it's still unspoiled and inhabited by Libby and the girls.

Peter is forcibly removed from the dilapidated house and is taken in by Ann, who believes in his innocence and used to visit him at the facility. She encourages Peter to move on, but Peter eventually returns to the house to confront his memories, ultimately realising that he did not kill his wife and children. It was a local man named Boyce (Elias Koteas), who broke into the house and shot Peter's family, while Libby, trying to subdue the intruder, shot Peter inadvertently.

Peter and Ann are suddenly attacked by Jack, who reveals that he had hired Boyce to kill Ann so he could get revenge against her for divorcing him, as well as full custody of their daughter, Chloe. However, Boyce went to the wrong house and accidentally killed Peter's family instead. Still helped by Boyce, Jack decides to kill Ann and set the house on fire, framing Peter for her murder. He also shoots Boyce as punishment for his early failure. As Jack ignites a fire, Peter overpowers Jack and saves Ann with the help of his wife Libby who is revealed to be a spirit and not a mental projection. A wounded Boyce douses Jack in gasoline, but Jack shoots him in the head and tries to escape through the flames. Since he is covered in gasoline, he catches fire, and burns to death.

While Ann and Chloe reunite, Peter says goodbye to the spirits of his wife and children. Some time later, Peter has returned to New York and published a best-selling book called Dream House, in which he recounts his tragic experiences.

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.