A joint mission of the American FBI and the Russian MVD leads to the death of the younger brother of an Azerbaijani mobster (David Hayman). In retaliation, the mobster hires an enigmatic assassin known only by the pseudonym "The Jackal" (Bruce Willis) to kill an unseen target. The Jackal demands $70 million for the job, to which the mobster reluctantly agrees. Meanwhile, the MVD capture one of the mafia's henchmen. During interrogation by torture, the henchman reveals the name "Jackal". This, coupled with the documents recovered from the henchman's briefcase, leads the FBI and MVD to assume the target for the retaliatory hit is FBI Director Donald Brown (John Cunningham).
In Arizona, 17-year-old high school student Sean Boswell (Lucas Black) and Clay (Zachery Ty Bryan) race their cars to win Clay's girlfriend Cindy (Nikki Griffin). When Sean cuts through a structure and catches up to Clay, Clay hits Sean's car repeatedly until a high speed turn which causes the pair to both crash; Clay's wealthy family helps him escape punishment, but Sean's numerous past racing activities causes his mother to send him to live with his father in Tokyo, who is stationed there for the U.S. Navy.
Cole Trickle is a young racer from Glendale, California, with years of experience in open-wheel racing winning championships in the Indycar Series. His goal was to win the Indianapolis 500 but realises that "You can't win at Indy without a great car and my name isn't Andretti or Unser". He is recruited by Chevrolet dealership tycoon Tim Daland to race for his team in the NASCAR Winston Cup Series. Daland also convinces former crew chief and car builder Harry Hogge to come out of retirement and lead Cole's pit crew. After Trickle sets a fast time in a private test at Charlotte, Hogge builds him a new Chevrolet Lumina to drive in the Winston Cup, though the season has already started.
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.
Phil and Claire Foster (Steve Carell and Tina Fey) are a married couple from New Jersey with two children and whose domestic life has become boring and routine. Phil is a tax lawyer while Claire is a realtor. They are motivated to reignite their romance after learning that their best friends, Brad and Haley (Mark Ruffalo and Kristen Wiig), are planning to divorce to escape the married-life routine and to have more excitement in their lives.
Since winning the Wings Around the Globe race in the first film, Dusty Crophopper has a successful career as a racer. Unfortunately, his engine's gearbox becomes damaged due to being regularly forced over its limits. With that particular model of gearbox now out of production and none available anywhere, Dusty's mechanic Dottie fits a warning light to his control panel to ensure he doesn't damage his gearbox any further. No longer able to race and faced with the possibility of returning to his old job as a crop-duster, Dusty goes on a defiant flight and tests his limits. In doing so, Dusty exceeds his limits and makes a forced landing at Propwash Junction airport, causing a fire.
Major Vic "Deak" Deakins (John Travolta) and Captain Riley Hale (Christian Slater) are pilots in the United States Air Force. After a sparring match, the pilots are assigned to a top secret evening exercise over Utah, flying a B-3 Stealth Bomber (a fictional iteration of the B-2 Spirit stealth bomber) with two B83 nuclear bombs on board.
A narrator (Rex Allen, Jr.) introduces Charlie Baileygates (Jim Carrey), an 18-year veteran Rhode Island State Police trooper who has been taken advantage of by people throughout most of his life.
The story follows Jerry Welbach (Brad Pitt) as he travels through Mexico to find a valuable antique gun, The Mexican, and smuggle it into the United States. Five years earlier, Welbach had caused a traffic accident in which he hit the car of local mobster Arnold Margolese (Gene Hackman), who was jailed for five years after the police searched his car following the crash, finding someone tied up in his trunk. In compensation for the jail time, Welbach has been sent on various errands by Margolese's second-in-command, Bernie Nayman (Bob Balaban). Retrieving the gun will be his final errand. Welbach has a girlfriend, Samantha (Julia Roberts), whom he argues with constantly and who leaves Jerry prior to the trip over his lack of commitment to their relationship.
In 1948, Mrs. ("Miss") Daisy Werthan (Jessica Tandy), a 72-year-old wealthy, white, Jewish, widowed, retired school teacher, lives alone in Atlanta, Georgia, except for a black housemaid named Idella (Esther Rolle). When Miss Daisy wrecks her car, her son, Boolie (Dan Aykroyd), hires Hoke Coleburn (Morgan Freeman), a black chauffeur who drove for a local judge until he recently died. Miss Daisy at first refuses to let Hoke drive her, but gradually starts to accept him.
Maggie Peyton (Lohan) is an aspiring race car driver. Maggie's family includes her brother, Ray Jr., and her father, Ray Sr., who are members of their namesake's racing team. Herbie, a Volkswagen Beetle, is towed to a junkyard after losing several races, and Ray Sr. takes Maggie to the junkyard to buy her a car as a college graduation present. After Maggie selects Herbie, he takes her against her will to the garage where her boyfriend Kevin works as a mechanic. Kevin has Maggie take Herbie to a car show to buy parts for Herbie, but when they arrive, Herbie tricks Maggie into disguising herself in a racing suit and helmet and challenging NASCAR champion Trip Murphy to an impromptu race, which Herbie wins by a second.
In early September, 1962, recent high school graduates and longtime friends, Curt Henderson and Steve Bolander, meet John Milner and Terry "The Toad" Fields at the local Mel's Drive-In parking lot. Despite receiving a $2,000 scholarship from the local Moose lodge, Curt is undecided if he wants to leave the next morning with Steve to go to the northeastern United States to begin college. Steve lets Toad borrow his 1958 Chevrolet Impala for the evening and while he's away at college. Steve's girlfriend, Laurie, who also is Curt's sister, is unsure of Steve's leaving, to which he suggests - to Laurie's surprise - they see other people while he is away to "strengthen" their relationship. She is not happy with his proposal.
Rick Jarmin (Mel Gibson) helped convict a drug-dealing FBI agent named Eugene Sorenson (David Carradine) and was placed in the witness protection program. Fifteen years later his former fiancée Marianne Graves (Goldie Hawn) crosses paths with him at a gas station in Detroit, Michigan. Rick refuses to recognize Marianne as the witness protection program does not allow contact with people from the witness' previous life. If she recognizes him it may lead to Sorenson finding and killing him.
Alice Sutton (Julia Roberts) is a lawyer working for the U.S. government at the Justice Department. Jerry Fletcher (Mel Gibson), a conspiracy-theory obsessed New York City taxi driver, continually expounds his ideas to her. Alice humors him because he once saved her from a mugging, but does not know he has been spying on her at home. Her own obsession is to solve the mystery of her father's murder.
In 1963 Texas, convicts Robert "Butch" Haynes (Kevin Costner) and Jerry Pugh (Keith Szarabajka) escape from the state penitentiary in Huntsville. Fleeing, the pair stumble into a house where eight-year-old Phillip Perry (T.J. Lowther) lives with his devout Jehovah's Witness mother and two sisters. Needing a hostage to aid their escape, Butch grabs the boy, who meekly accompanies them. The trio's journey starts off on an unpleasant note as Butch shoots Jerry, following the latter's attempt to molest the child. With his partner out of the way, the convict and his young victim take to the Texas highway in a bid to flee from the pursuing police.