In 1905, Tevye, a poor Jewish milkman living in the Russian village of Anatevka, explains to the audience what keeps the Jews of Anatevka going is the balance they achieve through following their ancient traditions, comparing their precarious circumstance to a fiddler on a roof: trying to scratch out a pleasant tune, while not breaking their necks. The fiddler appears throughout the film as a metaphoric reminder of the Jews' ever-present fears and danger, and also as a symbol of the traditions Tevye is trying to hold on to as his world changes around him. While in town, Tevye meets Perchik, a radical Marxist from Kiev. Tevye invites Perchik to stay with him and his family, and as a deal, offers him food, in exchange for Perchik tutoring his daughters.
In 1558, the Roman Catholic Queen Mary (Kathy Burke) dies of a cancerous tumour in her uterus, leaving her Protestant half-sister Elizabeth (Cate Blanchett) as queen. Elizabeth had previously been jailed for a supposed conspiracy to murder Mary but has now been freed for her coronation. The film shows Elizabeth being courted by suitors, including Henry, Duc d'Anjou (Vincent Cassel), the future King Henry III of France and Poland, whom she rejects, and urged by William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley (Richard Attenborough) to marry, which, as he states, would secure her throne. Instead, she has a secret affair with her childhood sweetheart, Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester (Joseph Fiennes). The affair is, however, no secret from Cecil, who makes it clear that a monarch has no private life. Elizabeth deals with various threats to her reign, including Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk (Christopher Eccleston); her Catholic cousin, Mary, Queen of Scots, who conspires to have her murdered; Mary's mother, Mary of Guise (Fanny Ardant), who brings French troops into Scotland to attack Elizabeth's forces when they invade.
Shortly after the dawn of the new millennium, during construction on the London Underground, workers penetrate an underground cave. A huge dragon emerges from hibernation, incinerating the workers with its flaming breath. The only survivor is a boy, Quinn Abercromby (Ben Thornton), whose mother Karen (Alice Krige) is the construction crew chief; Karen is crushed to death while protecting Quinn as the dragon climbs to the surface. It flies out of the Underground and more dragons appear, multiplying rapidly. Shown in newspaper clippings and a voiceover, scientists discover that dragons are a lost species responsible for the extinction of the dinosaurs by incinerating them and eating their ash, as well as ice ages. The dragons are speculated to hibernate after destroying most of the Earth's creatures until the planet repopulates. After the dragons' awakening humanity resists militarily, including a 2010 use of nuclear weapons; this, however, hastens the destruction and within a few years humans are nearly extinct.
In a temple in an unknown location in northeastern Nepal, a young boy with mystical abilities — the Golden Child — receives badges of station and demonstrates his power to the monks of the temple by reviving a dead eastern rosella, which becomes a constant companion. However, a band of villains led by a mysterious man, Sardo Numspa (Charles Dance), breaks into the hidden temple, slaughters the monks and abducts the boy.
The film opens with a scene left off from Paranormal Activity 3 where Katie and Kristi are watching Dennis getting his spine crushed by a mysterious force. Grandma Lois takes the girls upstairs while an unseen force takes the camera with them. They all go into a dark room while a man encounters the girls and talks to them about "Toby" and how they are critically important to his plan.
On May 12, 1984, two beings from the year 2029 arrive in Los Angeles: one is a Terminator T-800 Model 101, a cyborg assassin programmed to kill a young woman named Sarah Connor; the other is Kyle Reese, a soldier sent to protect her from the T-800. After the Terminator kills a gang member, a gun-shop manager, the two other women named "Sarah Connor" listed in the telephone directory, Sarah's roommate Ginger, and her partner, it tracks its target to the Technoir, a nightclub. Kyle arrives and saves Sarah from the Terminator. The two steal a car and escape, while the Terminator steals a police car and pursues them.
A centuries long war between humans and vampires has devastated the planet's surface and led to a theocracy under an organization called The Church. They constructed giant walled cities to protect mankind and developed a group of elite warriors, the Priests, to turn the tide against the vampires. The majority of the vampires were killed, while the remainder were placed in reservations. With the war over, the Clergy disbanded the Priests. Outside the walled cities, some humans seek out a living, free from the totalitarian control of the Church.
The film opens with a bloodied and terrified priest slowly making his way across the bodies of thousands of dead soldiers. There are many crows and hyenas roving around the bodies. The priest reaches the dead body of another priest and tries take a small demon idol of the head of Pazuzu from his hand, but, suddenly, the dead priest briefly comes back to life and stops the living priest from taking it. The camera pulls back to reveal that the entire valley is littered with dead soldiers, many have been crucified upside down. The movie then cuts to Cairo, Egypt in 1949, where the young Father Lancaster Merrin (played by Skarsgård, who played the same part in Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist) has taken a sabbatical from the Church and devoted himself to history and archaeology as he struggles with his shattered faith. He is haunted especially by an incident in a small village in the occupied Netherlands during World War II, where he served as parish priest: near the end of the war, a sadistic Nazi SS commander, in retaliation for the murder of a German trooper, forces Merrin to participate in arbitrary executions in order to save a full village from slaughter.
As an old man nearing the end of his life, Adso, youngest son of the Baron of Melk recounts how, as a young novice in 1327, he accompanied his mentor, the Franciscan friar William of Baskerville to a Benedictine abbey in Northern Italy. The abbey had been chosen as the site for a theological debate between the Franciscan order and the Pope on the poverty of Christ. The abbey is already home to a famed scriptorium where scribes copy, translate or illuminate books. The mysterious recent death of the monk Adelmo of Otranto - a young but famous illuminator - has stirred fears among the abbey's devout inhabitants. The Abbot seeks help from William, known for his deductive powers. The illuminator's death cannot be dismissed as a suicide because the body was found at the foot of a tower having only a window which cannot be opened. William is reluctant to involve himself, though he is persuaded not only because of the intellectual challenge, but also because of his desire to disprove fears of a demonic culprit in Adelmo's death. William is also motivated to act by his fears that the Abbot will summon officials of the inquisition if the mystery remains unsolved.
In April 1938, a voice representing Death (Roger Allam) tells about how the young Liesel Meminger (Sophie Nélisse) has piqued his interest. Liesel is traveling on a train with her mother (Heike Makatsch) and younger brother when her brother dies. At his burial she picks up a book that has been dropped by his graveside (a gravedigger's manual). Liesel is then delivered to foster parents Hans (Geoffrey Rush) and Rosa (Emily Watson) Hubermann because her mother, a Communist, is fleeing Germany. When she arrives, Liesel makes an impression on a neighboring boy, Rudy Steiner (Nico Liersch).
Casey Beldon has nightmarish hallucinations of strange-looking dogs in the neighbourhood and an evil child with bright blue eyes following her around. While babysitting Matty, her neighbor's son, she finds him showing his infant sibling its reflection in a mirror. Matty attacks Casey, smashing the mirror on her head, and tells her: "Jumby wants to be born now". She puts him to bed and leaves in shock.
Barrow, Alaska is preparing for its annual "30 Days of Night", a period during the winter when there is a month-long polar night. As the town gets ready, a stranger rows ashore from a large ship. Once ashore, he sabotages the town's communications and transport, destroying all means of communication with, and travel to, the outside world. Barrow's sheriff, Eben Oleson, investigates. Eben learns that his ex-wife, Stella Oleson, missed the last plane and must stay the 30 days. Although they try to avoid one another, when Eben confronts the stranger in the town diner, Stella helps to subdue him and take him to the station house.
Pete Sandich (Dreyfuss) is an aerial firefighter, flying a war-surplus A-26 bomber dropping fire retardant slurry to put out forest wildfires. His excessive risk taking in the air deeply troubles his girlfriend, Dorinda Durston (Hunter), a pilot who doubles as a dispatcher, and is also of concern to his best friend, Al Yackey (Goodman), a fellow fighter. On one flight, Pete makes one extra drop, runs out of fuel, and barely manages to glide onto the runway.
Set in Burleson, Texas, in 2011, the film centers on a 12-year-old girl named Anna (Kylie Rogers), daughter of Christy Beam (Jennifer Garner). Anna is suffering from a pseudo-obstruction motility disorder and is unable to eat, using feeding tubes for nutrition. One day she has a near-death experience after falling from a tree. She is subsequently cured from her disease in the Boston Children's Hospital.
Tony (T.C. Stallings) and Elizabeth Jordan (Priscilla Shirer) have a big house, a beautiful daughter, and plenty of money. Despite their apparent success, they face a strained marriage. Tony, a pharmaceutical salesman, is almost never there for his daughter, Danielle (Alena Pitts), has been verbally abusive with Elizabeth, and has thoughts about cheating on his wife with other women he has been looking at.