Los Angeles SWAT officers Jack Traven and Harry Temple thwart an attempt by a bomber to hold an elevator full of people for a $3 million ransom. They corner the bomber, but he grabs Harry. Jack shoots Harry in the leg, forcing the bomber to release him. He turns and runs around a corner, apparently dying in an explosion. Jack and Harry are praised by their superior, Lieutenant "Mac" McMahon.
In Gotham City, Batman stops a hostage situation in a bank caused by Two-Face, the alter ego of the disfigured former district attorney, Harvey Dent. However, Two-Face escapes. Edward Nygma, a researcher at Wayne Enterprises, develops a device to beam television directly to a person's brain; Bruce Wayne—with whom Nygma is obsessed—rejects the invention, noting that it "raises too many questions", and Nygma angrily resigns from his position after killing his supervisor Fred Stickley, and forging his suicide note and footage. Everybody except Bruce is convinced it was a genuine suicide. During a news report, it shows how Harvey Dent became Two-Face: While he was prosecuting Sal Maroni, Maroni threw acid in Harvey's face; Batman tried to stop him but failed. After meeting Batman-obsessed psychiatrist Dr. Chase Meridian, Bruce invites her to a charity circus event. There, Two-Face and his henchmen storm the event in an attempt to discover Batman's secret identity, and in the process murder The Flying Graysons, a family of acrobats who attempt to stop him. The youngest member, Dick, survives and throws Two-Face's bomb into the river to detonate safely underwater but the rest of the family dies.
In an unnamed American city, soon-to-be-retiring Detective William R. Somerset (Freeman) is partnered with short-tempered-but-idealistic Detective David Mills (Pitt), who recently transferred to the department. Together, their first case leads them to believe that they are chasing a serial killer whose killings each reflect one of the seven deadly sins. First, they discover an obese man who was tied to a chair and forced to eat food, and eventually, his own vomit, until his stomach exploded (representing gluttony). Next, they investigate the fatal bloodletting of a rich attorney, from whom a pound of flesh has been extracted (representing greed). Two days later, fingerprints left at the crime scenes lead them to an apartment, where they find an emaciated man strapped to a bed. Though he initially appears to be dead, they find he has been kept alive and immobile by the killer for one year to that day; a drug dealer and child molester before his capture (representing sloth). Though unable to learn anything from the insensate man, the detectives agree the killer has planned these crimes for more than a year.
In 1941, SS colonel Hans Landa, the "Jew Hunter", interrogates French dairy farmer Perrier LaPadite as to the whereabouts of the last unaccounted-for Jewish family in the neighborhood. Under threat of continued harassment from the Germans, LaPadite reveals that the Dreyfus family is hidden under the floor. Landa orders SS soldiers to shoot through the floorboards and kill the family. All are killed except Shosanna, who escapes and flees through the field. Landa watches her go, deciding not to shoot her at the last second.
In Kraków during World War II, the Germans had forced local Polish Jews into the overcrowded Kraków Ghetto. Oskar Schindler, an ethnic German, arrives in the city hoping to make his fortune. A member of the Nazi Party, Schindler lavishes bribes on Wehrmacht (German armed forces) and SS officials and acquires a factory to produce enamelware. To help him run the business, Schindler enlists the aid of Itzhak Stern, a local Jewish official who has contacts with black marketeers and the Jewish business community. Stern helps Schindler arrange loans to finance the factory. Schindler maintains friendly relations with the Nazis and enjoys wealth and status as "Herr Direktor", and Stern handles administration. Schindler hires Jewish workers because they cost less, while Stern ensures that as many people as possible are deemed essential to the German war effort, which saves them from being transported to concentration camps or killed.
Dan Gallagher (Michael Douglas) is a successful, happily married New York attorney living in Manhattan when he meets Alexandra "Alex" Forrest (Glenn Close), an editor for a publishing company, through business. While his wife, Beth (Anne Archer), and daughter, Ellen (Ellen Hamilton Latzen), are out of town for the weekend, he has an affair with Alex. Though he thought it was understood to be a simple fling, she begins clinging to him.
In 1947, John Nash (Crowe) arrives at Princeton University. He is co-recipient, with Martin Hansen (Lucas), of the prestigious Carnegie Scholarship for mathematics. At a reception, he meets a group of other promising math and science graduate students, Richard Sol (Goldberg), Ainsley (Jason Gray-Stanford), and Bender (Rapp). He also meets his roommate Charles Herman (Bettany), a literature student.
In 1954, two U.S. Marshals - Edward "Teddy" Daniels and his new partner, Chuck Aule - travel to the Ashecliffe Hospital for the criminally insane on Shutter Island located in Boston Harbor as part of an investigation into the disappearance of patient Rachel Solando, incarcerated for drowning her three children. The sole clue is a note left by Solando, which reads: "The law of 4; who is 67?" Shortly after arrival, a storm prevents their return to the mainland for several days. Daniels finds the staff confrontational: the lead psychiatrist, Dr. John Cawley, refuses to hand over records of the hospital staff; Solando's doctor, Dr. Lester Sheehan, had left on vacation after her disappearance, and they are barred from searching Ward C and told that the lighthouse on the island has already been searched, so there is no need to search it. When a patient is being interrogated by Daniels, with a subterfuge she sends Aule away for a few seconds and scribbles "RUN" in Daniels' notepad.
Claire Spencer (Michelle Pfeiffer) is living in Vermont with her husband, renowned scientist Dr. Norman Spencer (Harrison Ford). One year previously, Claire had been involved in a serious car accident that leaves gaps in her memory. Combined with her daughter Caitlin's (Katharine Towne) departure for college, this leaves Claire profoundly affected.
In a Louisiana nursing home in 1999, Paul Edgecomb becomes nervous while watching the 1935 film Top Hat. He is with his elderly friend Elaine, who becomes concerned, and Paul tells her that the film reminded him of his past, when he was a prison officer in charge of death row inmates at the Cold Mountain Penitentiary during the summer of 1935. The scene shifts to 1935, where Paul works with fellow guards Brutus "Brutal" Howell, Harry Terwilliger, and Dean Stanton. Unlike the other guards, Paul is a very calm guard and is sympathetic with some inmates.
Kevin Wendell Crumb souffre d'un trouble dissociatif de l'identité. Il échange régulièrement avec sa psychiatre dévouée, le docteur Fletcher, qui a déjà pu distinguer vingt-trois personnalités différentes s'exprimer à tour de rôle durant leurs conversations. Selon Fletcher, Kevin aurait subi des maltraitances et des humiliations au cours de son histoire et une 24 e personnalité, plus sombre et plus menaçante que toutes les autres, nommée « la Bête », demeure encore enfouie. Le docteur Fletcher met en exergue le fait que son patient s'est forgé ces nombreuses personnalités différentes dans un besoin existentiel de se protéger des autres. La situation se complique lorsque Kevin enlève trois jeunes filles.
Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster) is pulled from her training at the FBI Academy at Quantico, Virginia by Jack Crawford (Scott Glenn) of the Bureau's Behavioral Science Unit. He assigns her to interview Hannibal Lecter, a former psychiatrist and incarcerated cannibalistic serial killer, whose insight might prove useful in the pursuit of a serial killer nicknamed "Buffalo Bill", who skins his female victims' corpses.
In 2084, Earthbound construction worker Douglas Quaid is having troubling dreams about Mars and a mysterious woman there. His wife Lori dismisses the dreams and discourages him from thinking about Mars, where the governor, Vilos Cohaagen, is fighting rebels while searching for a rumored alien artifact located in the mines. At "Rekall", a company that provides memory implants of vacations, Quaid opts for a memory trip to Mars as a secret agent fantasy. However, during the procedure, before the memory is implanted, something goes wrong, and the story diverges between the question of what is real and what is hallucination. Apparently, Quaid starts revealing previously suppressed memories of actually being a secret agent. The company sedates him, wipes his memory of the visit, and sends him home. On the way home, Quaid is attacked by his friend Harry and some construction coworkers; he is forced to kill them, revealing elite fighting-skills. He is then attacked in his apartment by Lori, who reveals that she was never his wife; their marriage was just a false memory implant and Cohaagen sent her as an agent to monitor Quaid. He is then attacked and pursued by armed thugs led by Richter, Lori's real husband and Cohaagen's operative.
David Dunn, l'homme « incassable », se lance à la poursuite de « La Bête », la personnalité surhumaine de Kevin Wendell Crumb. Elijah Price, le « Bonhomme qui casse », en hôpital psychiatrique depuis dix-neuf ans après avoir commis des attentats pour révéler les pouvoirs de Dunn, attend cet affrontement depuis sa cellule. Cependant, le docteur Ellie Staple veut les réunir pour les libérer de ce qu'elle considère comme un délire et les convaincre que leurs capacités surhumaines ne sont qu'une illusion.
Batman and Robin fail to stop Mr. Freeze from stealing a cache of diamonds. They learn that Freeze was once a scientist named Victor Fries, who became dependent on a diamond-powered subzero suit following an accident in a cryogenics lab while working to save his wife, Nora, from a terminal illness called MacGregor's Syndrome.