During Christmas 1955, an 11-year-old Hellboy is told a bedtime story by his adoptive father, Trevor Broom, involving an ancient war between man and magical creatures, started by man's greed. After defeat of the magical creatures' forces, the master of the goblin blacksmiths offers to build an indestructible mechanical army for the elven King Balor. Encouraged by his son Prince Nuada, Balor orders the building of this Golden Army. The humans are devastated by the army. Balor is ridden with guilt and forms a truce with the humans: Man will keep his cities and the magical creatures will keep their forests. Nuada does not agree with the truce and leaves in exile. The magical crown controlling the army is broken into three pieces, one going to the humans and the other two kept by the elves.
Six months after the events of the second film, humans have captured Selene during "The Purge", a global military crusade to exterminate vampires and lycans. Vampires have waged guerrilla warfare against the government, but the humans have overrun them, forcing the survivors to hide underground and resist the humans on their own.
In Upstate New York, a waste management firm loads barrels of toxic waste onto trucks, intending to illegally dispose of them. They are shown heading into a tunnel under the Hudson River between Lower Manhattan and Jersey City, New Jersey along with several other commuters, including struggling playwright Maddy Thompson (Amy Brenneman), some young offenders, a vacationing family, an elderly couple, and a mountain climber named Roy Nord (Viggo Mortensen). Meanwhile, a gang of diamond thieves in a stolen car try to escape the NYPD by racing into the tunnel. The gang force their way through the north tube traffic, spilling the diamonds all over the floor of the car. While a female thief tries to retrieve them, she pushes the gas pedal to the floor, causing the driver to lose control, smashing though a security booth and into one of the trucks, killing them instantly. The waste barrels explode, causing the other trucks to explode and setting off a chain reaction. The tunnel entrances cave in, and a devastating fireball sweeps through the tunnel, incinerating thousands of cars and people.
In post-Soviet Russia, civil war erupts as a result of armed conflict in Chechnya. Military units, loyal to Russian ultra-nationalist Vladimir Radchenko, have taken control of a nuclear missile installation and are threatening nuclear war if either the American or Russian governments attempt to confront him.
Thirty years after a nuclear apocalypse, Eli (Denzel Washington) travels on foot toward the west coast of the former United States. Along the way he demonstrates uncanny survival and fighting skills, hunting wildlife and swiftly defeating a group of desert bandits who try to ambush him. Searching for water, he arrives in a ramshackle town rebuilt and overseen by Carnegie (Gary Oldman). Carnegie dreams of building more towns and of controlling the people by using the power of a certain book. His henchmen scour the desolate landscape daily in search of it, but to no avail.
In 1959, student Lucinda Embry (Lara Robinson) hears whispers as she stares at the sun. When her class is chosen to contribute to the school's time capsule, each child is asked to draw what they believe the future will look like. Lucinda writes a page of seemingly random numbers and adds it to her elementary school's time capsule, which is set to be opened in 50 years. Lucinda's teacher calls for the pupils to finish but Lucinda continues before her teacher takes it off her desk unfinished. Lucinda then goes missing after the time capsule is dedicated, and is found by her teacher, Mrs. Taylor (Danielle Carter), in a utility closet scratching numbers into the door with her fingernails bleeding.
Over the two years since the death of Deacon Frost, Blade (Wesley Snipes), the Daywalker, a vampire unaffected by sunlight and who chooses to defend humans and fight other vampires, has been trying to find his mentor Whistler (Kris Kristofferson), who survived his suicide attempt in the first crisis. Blade has been sweeping across Russia and eastern Europe, enlisting the aid of a young man, Scud (Norman Reedus), to design him a new line of gadgetry and weaponry. Blade carves his way through a large gang of vampires, sparing one, Rush (Santiago Segura), when he promises to reveal Whistler's location. Blade tells Rush he will be back for him. Blade finds Whistler locked in a tank by a gang of vampires who were keeping him alive to torture. Blade rescues Whistler and brings him back to the lair, ridding the latter's vampirism with a cure developed by Dr. Karen Jenson.
Two firefighters of Engine 17 of the Chicago Fire Department, are brothers. Lt. Stephen "Bull" McCaffrey, the elder, is experienced, while Brian has labored under his brother's shadow all his life. He returns to firefighting after a number of other careers falter, though Stephen has doubts that Brian is fit to be a firefighter. As a child, Brian witnessed the death of their firefighting father, Dennis, when he accompanied him on a call.
Alice (Milla Jovovich) wakes up disoriented in a mansion. She wanders through the halls, where she defeats several obstacles, including a laser beam obstacle (from the first film) and a giant blade that falls from the ceiling. However, she is eventually killed by a miniature machine gun. Her body is dumped into a pit filled with hundreds of Alice clones. The camera zooms out to show a shack camouflaging the facility's above-ground entrance - with the rest of the facility located underground, surrounded by a high fence and thousands of zombies.
Returning from a Hong Kong business trip, Beth Emhoff has a layover in Chicago to have sex with a former lover before returning to her family in suburban Minneapolis. She appears to have contracted a cold during her trip. Her six-year-old son from a previous marriage, Clark, also becomes symptomatic and is sent home from school. Beth's condition worsens and two days later she collapses with severe seizures. Her husband, Mitch, rushes her to the hospital, but she dies of an unknown cause.
While shooting a documentary about a long-lost Indian tribe (including the legendary Joel Arkhurst), the Shirishamas, on the Amazon River, director Terri Flores (Jennifer Lopez) and members of her crew—including cameraman Danny Rich (Ice Cube), production manager Denise Kalberg (Kari Wuhrer), sound engineer Gary Dixon (Owen Wilson), visionary Warren Westridge (Jonathan Hyde), anthropologist Professor Steven Cale (Eric Stoltz), and captain of the boat Mateo (Vincent Castellanos)—come across stranded Paraguayan snake hunter Paul Serone (Jon Voight) and help him, believing he knows how to find the tribe they are searching for.
In the year 2058, Earth will soon be uninhabitable due to irreversible effects of pollution. The United Global Space Force prepares the first launch for the colonization of a distant planet much like our own. Meanwhile, a terrorist group, the Global Sedition, wants to interrupt the colonization to be able to take over the same planet themselves. Professor John Robinson, lead scientist of the Jupiter Mission, prepares to take his wife Maureen, daughters Judy and Penny and son Will on a 10-year mission in suspended animation to the nearby planet Alpha Prime, where they will build a companion "hypergate" to the one orbiting Earth. The project is accelerated after Global Sedition terrorists attack Earth's hypergate, but are stopped by fighter pilots, one of whom is Major Don West. When the pilot for the Jupiter Mission is murdered, West is assigned as his replacement.
In 2003, Maya, a young U.S. Central Intelligence Agency officer, has spent her entire brief career, since graduating from college and being recruited for the agency, focused solely on gathering intelligence related to Osama bin Laden, leader of al-Qaeda, following the terrorist organization's attack on the United States in 2001. She is reassigned to the U.S. embassy in Pakistan to work with a fellow officer, Dan. During the first months of her assignment, Maya often accompanies Dan to a black site for his continuing interrogation of Ammar al-Baluchi, a detainee with suspected links to several of the hijackers in the September 11 attacks. Dan subjects the detainee to approved interrogation techniques, i.e., stress positions, hooding, subjection to deafening noise, sleep deprivation, waterboarding, and humiliation. After failing to get al-Baluchi to give up information on an attack in Saudi Arabia, he and Maya eventually trick Ammar into divulging that an old acquaintance, who is using the alias Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti, is working as a personal courier for bin Laden. Other detainees corroborate this, with some claiming Abu Ahmed delivers messages between bin Laden and a man known as Abu Faraj al-Libbi. In 2005, Abu Faraj is apprehended by the CIA and local police in Pakistan. Maya is allowed to interrogate him, but he continues to deny knowing a courier with such a name. Maya interprets this as an attempt by Faraj to conceal the importance of Abu Ahmed.
In the late 2020s the world is in turmoil, with the United States fractured as a result of prolonged conflict and a pandemic of the "St. Mary's Virus" ravaging Europe. The United Kingdom is ruled as a fascist police state by the Norsefire Party. Political opponents, immigrants, Muslims, homosexuals and other "undesirables" are imprisoned in concentration camps. On November 4, a Guy Fawkes-masked vigilante identifing himself as "V" (Hugo Weaving) rescues Evey Hammond (Natalie Portman), an employee of the state-run British Television Network (BTN), from members of the "Fingermen" secret police while she is out past curfew. From a rooftop, they watch his demolition of the Old Bailey criminal court building, accompanied by fireworks and the 1812 Overture. Inspector Finch (Stephen Rea), Scotland Yard's Chief of Police, is tasked with investigating V's activities while BTN declares the incident an "emergency demolition". V interrupts the broadcast to claim responsibility and urges the people of Britain to rise up against their government. He asks them to meet him exactly one year later, on November 5, Guy Fawkes Night, outside the Houses of Parliament, which he promises to destroy. During the broadcast, the police attempt to capture V. Evey helps him escape but is knocked unconscious.