Sophie, an eighteen-year-old hatter, is a responsible young woman who encounters a mysterious and powerful wizard named Howl on her way to visit her younger sister Lettie. The Witch of the Waste, who romantically pursues Howl, visits the hat shop only and insults Sophie, being refused service by her as a result. The Witch exacts revenge by cursing Sophie, transforming her into a ninety-year-old woman. Seeking a cure for the spell, Sophie travels into the Wastes and encounters a living scarecrow whom she names "Turnip Head," who leads her to Howl's castle. There, she meets Howl's young apprentice, Markl, and the fire-demon Calcifer, who is the source of the castle's energy and magic. Calcifer offers to break the witch's curse in exchange for Sophie's help in breaking the spell he's under, which keeps him bound to the house. When Howl appears, Sophie announces that Calcifer has hired her as a cleaning lady for the house.
Erin Gilbert (Wiig) and Abby Yates (McCarthy) are a pair of unheralded authors who write a book positing that ghosts are real. A few years later, Gilbert lands a prestigious teaching position at Columbia University, but her book resurfaces and she is laughed out of academia. Gilbert reunites with Yates and others when ghosts invade Manhattan and she and her team have to save the world.
In 1963 Jackson, Mississippi, Aibileen Clark (Viola Davis) is a black maid spending her life raising white children after the death of her only son from an industrial accident. She works for the Leefolt family, principally taking care of the children of Elizabeth Leefolt, a young woman gripped with postpartum depression who refuses to acknowledge her daughter except when disciplining her. Aibileen's best friend is Minny Jackson (Octavia Spencer), an outspoken black maid who has long worked for Hilly Holbrook's (Bryce Dallas Howard) mother, Mrs. Walters (Sissy Spacek), to the point that they are very comfortable with each other. Minny's stormy temper is tolerated due to respect for her great cooking skills. Eugenia "Skeeter" Phelan (Emma Stone) is an independent thinking young white woman returning to the family plantation after graduating from the University of Mississippi to find that her beloved childhood maid, Constantine (Cicely Tyson), has quit while she was away. She is perplexed as she believes Constantine would not have left without writing her, and she eventually learns that Constantine was fired by Skeeter's mother Charlotte (Allison Janney).
In the summer of 1963, Frances "Baby" Houseman (Jennifer Grey) is vacationing with her affluent Jewish American family at Kellerman's, a family friendly resort in the Catskill Mountains. The younger of two daughters, Baby is planning to attend Mount Holyoke College to study the economics of underdeveloped countries and then enter the Peace Corps. She was named after Frances Perkins, the first woman in the U.S. Cabinet. Her father, Jake (Jerry Orbach), is the personal physician and friend of Max Kellerman (Jack Weston), the resort's owner. Baby is befriended by Max's smart aleck grandson Neil (Lonny Price).
Brunhilde is a fish-girl who lives with her father Fujimoto, a once-human wizard/scientist who now lives underwater, along with her numerous smaller sisters. One day, while she and her siblings are on an outing with their father in his four-flippered submarine, Brunhilde sneaks off and floats away on the back of a jellyfish. After an encounter with a fishing trawler (the net of which is scraping the trash-strewn bottom of the harbor), she ends up stuck in a glass jar. She drifts to the shore of a small fishing town and is found and rescued by a small boy named Sōsuke. Shattering the jar open with a nearby rock, Sōsuke cuts his finger in the process. Brunhilde licks his wound when he picks her up and the wound heals almost instantly, much to his surprise. After taking a great liking to her, and thinking her merely a goldfish, Sōsuke renames her Ponyo and promises to protect her forever. Meanwhile, a distraught Fujimoto searches frantically for his taken daughter. Because of his own bad memories of the human world, he believes that Sōsuke has kidnapped her and is in great danger, he calls his wave spirits to recover her. After the wave spirits retrieve Ponyo from Sōsuke, he is heartbroken. He goes home with his mother, Lisa, who tries to cheer him up, to no avail.
Carly, an attorney, has just started a relationship with Mark, a man she had sex with eight weeks prior. She is upset when Mark tells her he has to go out of town but decides to go over to his house to seduce him. She is horrified to meet Kate, Mark's wife. While initially hostile, the two women befriend one another. Kate then discovers that Mark is seeing another woman, whom she initially believes to be Carly, but both she and Carly discover that Mark is seeing a third woman, Amber.
Ellen Ripley is rescued after drifting through space in stasis for 57 years. She is debriefed by her employers at the Weyland-Yutani Corporation over the destruction of her ship, the Nostromo; they are skeptical of her claims that an Alien killed the ship's crew and forced her to destroy the ship.
A woman in a wedding dress, the Bride, lies wounded in a church in El Paso, having been attacked by the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad. She tells their leader, Bill, that she is carrying his baby. He shoots her.
Laura Burney (Julia Roberts) lives in a beautiful home by the beach on Cape Cod with her husband, Martin Burney (Patrick Bergin), a charming, handsome and wealthy investment counselor who is also possessive, abusive, and controlling. It becomes apparent that he has obsessive-compulsive personality disorder (OCPD). Laura tries to abide his rules, but suffers under the strain of doing so. One day, Martin believes Laura has been flirting with an attractive neighbor, and he physically assaults her in a jealous rage. The abuse has been ongoing, and started immediately after their wedding. In an effort to escape Martin, Laura plans and fakes her own death at sea in a storm while the couple are boating. Because Laura had deliberately led Martin to believe that she could not swim, he believed she had died once she was lost overboard. However, Laura was able to swim safely to shore, because she had recently taken swimming lessons at the YWCA. Laura secretly returns home, retrieves some clothing and cash she had hidden away in preparation, disguises herself, and leaves home after flushing her wedding ring down the toilet.
In Muromachi period Japan, an Emishi village is attacked by a demon. The last Emishi prince, Ashitaka, kills the demon before it reaches the village, but its corruption curses his arm in the battle. The curse gives him superhuman fighting abilities, but will eventually kill him. The villagers discover that the demon was once a boar god, Nago, corrupted by an iron ball lodged in his body. The village's wise woman tells Ashitaka that he may find a cure in the western lands Nago was exiled from.
Jackie and Luke Harrison (Susan Sarandon and Ed Harris) are a divorced New York couple that are struggling to help their children Anna (Jena Malone) and Ben (Liam Aiken) be happy with this sudden change of lifestyle. This is far from easy, as Luke, an attorney, is living with his new girlfriend, Isabel Kelly (Julia Roberts), an NYU alumna and a successful fashion photographer several years his junior. Isabel tries very hard to make Anna and Ben feel comfortable and happy with her, but Anna repeatedly rejects her overtures while Ben, who loves Isabel (not as much as his actual mother), adds extra complication with his mischievous nature. Isabel behaves with contempt tempered by caution around Jackie, believing she overcompensates for her divorce by spoiling her children.
FBI Special Agent Sarah Ashburn (Sandra Bullock) is a very skilled and effective investigator in New York City, but is despised by her fellow agents for her arrogance and condescending attitude. In Boston, she meets Shannon Mullins (Melissa McCarthy), a skilled but foulmouthed and rebellious police officer with the Boston Police Department. Ashburn's by-the-book philosophy clashes with Mullins' rugged and violent style of police work. Under pressure from Hale (Demián Bichir), her FBI boss, Ashburn reluctantly agrees to team up with Mullins.
The pregnant Bride and her groom rehearse their wedding. Bill, the Bride's former lover, father of her child, and leader of the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad, arrives unexpectedly. On Bill's orders, the Deadly Vipers kill everyone at the wedding, but the Bride survives and swears revenge.
A boy named Sho/Shawn tells the audience he still remembers the week in summer he spent at his mother's childhood home with his maternal great aunt, Sadako/Jessica, and the house maid, Haru/Hara. When Sho/Shawn arrives at the house on the first day, he sees a cat, Niya, trying to attack something in the bushes but it gives up after it is attacked by a crow. Sho/Shawn gets a glimpse of Arrietty, a young Borrower girl, returning to her home through an underground air vent.