The film begins in Hollywood Los Angeles, when two friends, Jenny Tate and Becky Morton, are at a pier and decide to get their fortune told by Zela, asking about a boy. Zela foretells that they will suffer a horrible fate, but they don't believe her and walk away laughing. A little while later, Becky realizes Jenny has disappeared and can't find her on the pier.
Michael Myers has been in a coma for ten years since the explosion at Haddonfield Memorial Hospital and is being transferred to Smith's Grove Sanitarium by ambulance. Upon hearing that he has a niece, Michael awakens, kills the paramedics, and makes his way to Haddonfield to look for her. Dr. Sam Loomis (Donald Pleasence), Michael's former psychiatrist, who also survived the explosion, learns of Michael's escape and gives chase. He follows Michael to a small gas station and eatery, where Loomis finds Michael has killed a mechanic for his clothes, along with a clerk. Michael then escapes in a tow truck and causes an explosion, destroying Loomis's car in the process. Loomis is forced to catch a ride to Haddonfield to renew his search for Michael.
Barbara Lang paints a barrier around her living room to protect her telekinetic daughter, Rachel, from the devil. Barbara is soon institutionalized for schizophrenia.
In 1988, businessman Oh Dae-su (Choi Min-sik) is arrested for drunken behavior, missing his daughter's 4th birthday. After his friend, Joo-hwan (Ji Dae-han), picks him up from the police station, they go to a phone booth to call home to let Dae-su's family know of his whereabouts. While Joo-hwan is talking to Dae-su's wife on the phone, Dae-su is kidnapped. He wakes up in a solitary confinement in a hotel-like prison. Confined with no human contact or explanation for his kidnapping and frequently gassed with a possibly mind altering drug, Dae-su soon learns through news reports his wife has been murdered, and he is the prime suspect. Dae-su passes the time shadowboxing, planning revenge, and secretly attempting to tunnel out of his cell.
An unnamed widow lives alone with her only son, selling medicinal herbs in a small town in southern South Korea while doing unlicensed acupuncture to the town's women on the side. Her son Do-joon is shy, but prone to attack anyone who mocks his intellectual disability. She dotes on him and scolds him for hanging out with Jin-tae, a local ne'er-do-well.
Following the accidental death of his mother, Renee, during production of her latest film, thirteen-year-old Jeff Matthews and his father, Chase, a veterinarian, move to Ludlow, Maine. Jeff learns about the Creed family and the cursed Indian burial ground. His friend Drew's dog, Zowie, is shot by Drew's stepfather, Gus Gilbert, the town sheriff. Jeff and Drew bury Zowie at the burial ground in an attempt to bring him back to life. The dog returns from the dead, but is unusually fierce, and his eyes have an unnatural glow to them even in daylight. Gus grounds Drew because he thinks he was lying when he said he only missed school because he was burying Zowie. Zowie is treated for his gunshot wound by Chase, who finds that the wound is not healing and Zowie has no heartbeat. Chase sends a blood sample to a lab and learns that Zowie's cells have completely deteriorated and are no different from those of a dead canine.
Bastian Bux (Jonathan Brandis) is having troubles at home: his father Barney's (John Wesley Shipp) busy workload is keeping him from consoling Bastian's fear of heights. As such, he then heads to an old bookstore where he again meets Mr. Koreander (Thomas Hill), who proceeds to help find a book on courage. While waiting, Bastian rediscovers the Neverending Story's book, and is shocked to see its words disappear off its pages. Deciding to take the book instead, Bastian returns home and finds himself able to claim AURYN right off the book's cover while hearing the Childlike Empress (Alexandra Johnes) summon him to Fantasia.
Lincoln Hawk is a struggling trucker who arm wrestles on the side to make extra cash while trying to rebuild his life. Hawk's estranged wife Christina, who is very ill, asks that Hawk pick up their son Michael from military school so that the two of them can get to know each other; Hawk had left them ten years earlier. Michael's controlling grandfather Jason Cutler, a wealthy man who hates Hawk and disapproved of his daughter's relationship with him, believes that Hawk has no right to be in his grandson's life. Michael is very distrusting and bitter towards Hawk initially and treats him with contempt at every turn.
Shale (Berenger) is a mercenary and a Vietnam veteran who returns home to Miami after a botched covert operation in Cuba in which three men from his platoon were killed. He surprises his girlfriend, Jane Hetzko (Diane Venora) at her apartment and is warmly welcomed. On the outside, Jane is a schoolteacher at inner-city Columbus High School, an institution with a gang problem, complete with metal detectors and gates protecting its boundaries. She also clashes with Juan Lacas (Anthony), leader of the KOD ("Kings of Destruction") gang and has her leg broken in a beating while attacked on a morning jog. Jane and Shale believe this to be related to the KOD, which prompts the latter to go undercover as an Ivy League-educated, government-affiliated substitute teacher for his girlfriend's class.
Melanie was the whipping girls in her class. Today, she has remained an unattractive, overwhelmed by her boss and her neighbor, a little too sweet and indulgent. Naive and generous, she falls into the trap of her beautiful and wicked cousin Aurore in believing in Prince Charming. Determined to get revenge, Melanie becomes "naughty" and exploits her boss, made dirty tricks to Aurore's friends, and gives "tips" advised everyone, calculated in advance, of course.
Germain is a 45-year-old illiterate handyman who has not had much luck in his life so far. He was bullied at school, both by the teacher and the other pupils because he was a slow reader. His mother never gave him love and affection, and kept reminding him that he was clumsy and an unwanted child, the result of fling at the French national holiday. But he ks loyal, with a good heart, and still parks his trailer close to her house where he maintains his lovely vegetable garden. He earns some extra money by taking his vegetables to the weekly farmer's market, in the truck borrowed from the bar where he relaxes every day with his friends, joking and chatting. His girl friend Annette is a younger woman who drives the local bus, and very much in love with this sweet, simple and loving man.
An aircraft carrying young military school cadets returning home crash lands into the sea near a remote, uninhabited, jungle island in the Pacific Ocean. Among the survivors is the pilot, Captain Benson (Michael Greene), who is seriously injured and delirious. Meanwhile, on the beach, an overweight cadet, whose real name is never revealed, nicknamed “Piggy” (Danuel Pipoly), finds a conch seashell and takes it to the grouped cadets, who adopt it to signal the right to speak and be heard by the group. The senior cadet, and one of the elder boys, Cadet Colonel Ralph (Balthazar Getty), organizes a meeting to discuss surviving their predicament. Ralph and Jack (Chris Furrh) emerge dominant, with Ralph's seniority in rank making him the one in charge. They start a fire using Piggy's glasses to try and alert any passing craft. Tensions begin to grow between Ralph and Jack.
Pessimistic Richard Tyler (Macaulay Culkin) lives life based on statistics and fears everything. His exasperated parents (Ed Begley, Jr. and Mel Harris) have tried multiple ways to build up the courage of their son, but to little success. Richard is sent to buy a bag of nails for building a treehouse. However, Richard gets caught in a harsh thunderstorm and takes shelter in a library. He meets Mr. Dewey (Christopher Lloyd), an eccentric librarian who gives him a library card, despite Richard's protests he doesn't want a book, since he's only there to escape the storm. Searching for a phone, Richard finds a large rotunda painted with famous literary characters. He slips on some water dripping from his coat and falls down, knocking himself out. Richard awakens to find the rotunda art melting, which washes over him and the library, turning them into illustrations.
A young, naive boy named Billy Forrester (Luke Benward) has a weak stomach and vomits easily. He and his parents, Mitch (Tom Cavanagh), Helen (Kimberly Williams-Paisley), and his little brother, Woody (Ty Panitz), have just moved to a new town. Billy tells his mother that he doesn't want to go to school because he will be "the new kid". She assures him that he will make friends and everything will be okay. At school, however, he becomes the target of the school bully, Joe Guire (Adam Hicks), his two "toaders" named Plug (Blake Garrett) and Bradley (Philip Daniel Bolden), and the rest of his gang: Benjy (Ryan Malgarini), Techno-Mouth (Andrew Gillingham), Twitch (Alexander Gould), and Donny (Alexander Agate). They rudely stare at him and call him "Billy F." (which is how his name is written on his lunch box). Plug and Bradley steal his lunch box. He sits behind Erykka Tansy (Hallie Eisenberg), an unusually tall girl whom people make fun of (calling her "Erk").
Anton (Mikael Persbrandt) is a Swedish doctor who commutes between his home in Denmark and his work in a Sudanese refugee camp. In Sudan, he often treats female patients who are the victims of a sadistic warlord. Anton is married to Marianne (Trine Dyrholm), but they are separated, and struggling with the possibility of divorce over an affair that Anton had with another woman. They have two young sons, the older one being 12-year-old Elias (Markus Rygaard).