A news story unfolds from 21 October 2015, about a shark cage diving boat in Australia that capsized; after several confirmed fatalities and others rescued, a search is underway for the last three missing passengers, tourists from Laguna Beach, California. One week later: A diver is swimming along a reef and finds an underwater camera wedged in some coral with its SD card preserved. The diver is interviewed by the filmmakers, explaining he uploaded the footage to social media after finding it belonging to the three Americans, Josh, his brother Jeff, Jeff's girlfriend Megan, eventually getting ahold of Greg, who lives in Sydney. 18 October 2015: The trio arrive in Sydney, and meet Josh and Jeff's cousin Greg, who is hosting them for a few days before they fly to Adelaide for their shark cage dive. Over the course of their time together it is revealed Megan is having an affair with Josh.

Daniel Kintner and Susan Watkins are frustrated that their hard-working lives do not allow them to spend much time together. They decide to go on a scuba-diving vacation to help improve their relationship. On their second day, they join a group scuba dive. A head count is taken and the passenger total is recorded as 20. Daniel and Susan decide to separate briefly from the group while underwater. Half an hour later, the group returns to the boat; two members of the group are inadvertently counted twice, so the dive master thinks that everyone is back on board and the boat leaves the site. However, Daniel and Susan are still underwater, unaware that the others have returned to shore. When they resurface, the boat has gone. They believe that the group will soon return to recover them.

A group of friends, Amy (Susan May Pratt), James (Richard Speight, Jr.), Zach (Niklaus Lange), Lauren (Ali Hillis), Dan (Eric Dane), and Dan's new girlfriend, Michelle (Cameron Richardson), go for a weekend cruise on Dan's new yacht. Amy and James also bring their infant daughter, Sarah.

Jeanne, a young working-class woman hungry for culture and pleasure, uses her intelligence and allure to rise step by step to the highest levels of society. She becomes the favourite of King Louis XV who regains through her his appetite for life. They fall madly in love and, against all propriety and etiquette, Jeanne moves to Versailles, where her relationship with the king scandalizes the court

Sheryl Hoover is an overworked mother of two living in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Her gay brother, Frank, an unemployed scholar of Proust, is temporarily living with the family after having attempted suicide. Sheryl's husband Richard is striving to build a career as a motivational speaker and life coach. Dwayne, Sheryl's Nietzsche-reading teenage son from a previous marriage, has taken a vow of silence until he can accomplish his dream of becoming a fighter pilot. Richard's foul-mouthed father, Edwin, lives with the family after being evicted from a retirement home for snorting heroin. Olive, the daughter of Richard and Sheryl and the youngest of the Hoover family, is an aspiring beauty queen who is coached by Edwin.

Best friends since high school, Sonny and Huck stopped meeting up every year on Huck's birthday 15 years ago when Sonny had a near death experience.

Now Sonny is a stay-at-home dad, putting all of his focus on his family. Huck contacts him, as he does every year, for the annual celebration. Not wanting to attend, Sonny finds himself with some "me time" for the first time in years while his wife and kids are away.

In 1997, Luke Glanton is a motorcycle stuntman with a traveling carnival. In Schenectady, he meets his ex-lover Romina Gutierrez, who is now with another man, Kofi Kancam. Luke discovers that he unknowingly fathered Romina's baby Jason the previous year. He leaves the carnival to stay near mother and son.

During the collapse of Nazi Germany in the city of Falkenheim,[a] ten-year-old Johannes "Jojo" Betzler joins the Deutsches Jungvolk, the junior section of the Hitler Youth (HJ). Heavily indoctrinated with Nazi ideals, he has an imaginary friend named Adolf, a buffoonish version of Adolf Hitler. The local HJ training camp is run by the conflicted Captain Klenzendorf. Though a fanatic, Jojo is nicknamed "Jojo Rabbit" after refusing to kill a rabbit to prove his worthiness. Pepped up by Adolf, he returns to prove himself, throwing a Stielhandgranate by himself that explodes at his feet, leaving him scarred and limping. His mother Rosie insists to the now-demoted Klenzendorf that Jojo still be included, giving him small tasks like spreading propaganda leaflets and collecting scrap for the war effort.

Contemplating suicide, depressed Craig Gilner seeks help at a hospital. He tells a doctor named Dr. Mahmoud that he needs immediate help, so he is registered for five days at the hospital's psychiatric floor.

At the official closing of the British Empire Exhibition at Wembley Stadium, Prince Albert, Duke of York, the second son of King George V, addresses the crowd with a strong stammer. His search for treatment has been discouraging, but his wife, Elizabeth, persuades him to see the Australian-born Lionel Logue, a non-medically trained Harley Street speech defects therapist. "Bertie", as he is called by his family, believes the first session is not going well, but Lionel, who insists that all his patients address him as such, has his potential client recite Hamlet's "To be, or not to be" soliloquy while hearing classical music played on a pair of headphones. Bertie is frustrated at the experiment but Lionel gives him the acetate recording that he has made of the reading as a souvenir. After Bertie's father, King George V, broadcasts his 1934 Royal Christmas Message, he explains to Bertie that the wireless will play a significant part in the role of the royal family, allowing them to enter the homes of the people, and that Bertie's brother's neglect of his responsibilities make training in it necessary. The attempt at reading the message himself is a failure, but that night Bertie plays the recording Lionel gave him and is astonished at the lack of stutter there. He therefore returns for daily treatments to overcome the physical and psychological roots of his speaking difficulty.