In the opening scene, Max Anderson (Jean-Michel Paré) is being pursued by a Giganotosaurus. Max then comes across a fissure vent. When he tries to jump across, he falls while calling out the name of his brother. Ten years later, Max's brother volcanologist Trevor Anderson (Brendan Fraser) is visited by Max's son/Trevor's 13-year-old nephew Sean Anderson (Josh Hutcherson). In a box of items that belonged to Max is a book, Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne. Notes written by Max are found inside the book.
Nim (Abigail Breslin) is an 11-year-old girl whose mother, Emily, has died. Nim's father, Jack Rusoe (Gerard Butler), a marine biologist, has told her that Emily was swallowed by a blue whale after it was scared by a ship called the Buccaneer. Nim lives with her father on a South Pacific island and has several local animals for company: Selkie the sea lion, Fred the bearded dragon, Chica the sea turtle, and Galileo the pelican. Jack takes the boat for a two-day scientific mission of to find Protozoa nim (a new species of plankton); he wants to take his daughter along, but she convinces him that she needs to stay to oversee the imminent hatching of Chica's eggs and can manage on her own; they will be able to communicate by satellite phone.
A berserk motorcycle gang member named Crawford "Nightrider" Montazano (Vincent Gil), having killed a rookie officer of an Australian highway patrol called the Main Force Patrol (MFP) while escaping from police custody, is attempting to outrun the other MFP officers in a stolen Pursuit Special. Though he manages to elude his initial pursuers, the MFP's top pursuit-man, Max Rockatansky (Mel Gibson), then engages the less-skilled Nightrider in a high-speed chase. During a sudden game of "chicken", the Nightrider breaks off first, his nerve suddenly broken in the confrontation with Max; he is unable to recover his wits, which leads to the Nightrider's death in a fiery crash.
The film chronicles the Battle of Midway, a turning point in World War II in the Pacific. The Imperial Japanese Navy had been undefeated until that time and out-numbered the American naval forces by four to one.
While scuba-diving near shipwrecks off Bermuda, vacationing couple David Sanders (Nick Nolte) and Gail Berke (Jacqueline Bisset) recover a number of artifacts, including an ampoule of amber-colored liquid and a medallion bearing the image of a woman and the letters "S.C.O.P.N." (meaning "Santa Clara, ora pro nobis" or "Saint Clara, pray for us") and a date, 1714. Sanders and Berke seek the advice of lighthouse-keeper and treasure-hunter Romer Treece (Robert Shaw) on the origin of the medallion, who identifies the item as Spanish and takes an interest in the young couple. The ampoule is noticed by the man who had rented diving equipment to Sanders and Berke, which in turn attracts the attention of Henri Cloche (Louis Gossett, Jr.), a local drug kingpin for whom the shop owner works, who unsuccessfully tries to buy the ampoule and then begins to terrorize the couple with Haitian black magic. The ampoule contains medicinal morphine from the Goliath, a ship that sank during World War II with a cargo of munitions and medical supplies. The wreck of the Goliath is considered dangerous and is posted as off-limits to divers due to the danger of explosions. Treece concludes that a recent storm has exposed her cargo of morphine and unearthed a much older wreck containing Spanish treasure.
The movie continues a few months after the end of the TV series. The main character Detective Sergeant Shunsaku Aoshima has worked his way back up into the investigative division of the Wangan Precinct of the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department, after being demoted back to patrol duty for insubordination.
Rebecca (Olivia DeJonge) and Tyler (Ed Oxenbould) prepare for a week-long stay with their grandparents, John (Peter McRobbie) and Doris (Deanna Dunagan), while their mother, Paula (Kathryn Hahn), goes on a cruise with her new boyfriend. The two kids, who have never met their grandparents, intend to film a documentary about their visit. Paula has not seen her parents in 15 years, after she eloped with her high-school teacher, Robert, who has since left her. She tells Rebecca little about the disagreement she had with her parents, suggesting that Rebecca ask them for more details.
U.S. Army Private Witt (Jim Caviezel) goes AWOL from his unit and lives among the easy-going and seemingly carefree Melanesian natives in the South Pacific. He is found and imprisoned on a troop carrier by his company First Sergeant, Welsh (Sean Penn), who notices Witt's indifference to the war. The men of C Company, 1st Battalion, 27th Infantry Regiment, 25th Infantry Division have been brought to Guadalcanal as reinforcements in the campaign to secure Henderson Field and seize the island from the Japanese. As they wait in the holds of a Navy transport, they contemplate their lives and the impending invasion. On deck, battalion commander Lieutenant Colonel Tall (Nick Nolte) talks with his commanding officer, Brigadier General Quintard (John Travolta) about the invasion and its importance. Tall's voice-over reveals that he has been passed over for promotion and this battle may be his last chance to command a victorious operation.
Sawyer Nelson (Nathan Gamble), a lonely 11-year-old, has fallen behind in school since being abandoned by his father five years earlier. His only friend is his cousin Kyle (Austin Stowell), a champion swimmer who hopes to compete in the Olympics. Kyle leaves to spend time in the army.
Ben Randall (Kevin Costner) is the top rescue swimmer at the United States Coast Guard's Aviation Survival Technician (AST) program. Jake Fischer (Ashton Kutcher) is a hot-shot candidate for AST, who was ranked as a top competitive swimmer in high school with scholarships to every Ivy league college, but he opted to enlist in the Coast Guard. The film's title is introduced by a mythic tale: people lost at sea often claim they feel a presence lifting them to the surface, breathing life into their bodies while they are waiting for help to arrive. They call this presence "The Guardian".
On Saturday, December 13, 1941 at 7:01 a.m., a woman goes swimming somewhere on the California coast, only to find a Japanese submarine surfacing beneath her. The submarine crew believes they have arrived in Hollywood, and the vessel submerges while the woman swims to safety.
In 1820, the whaling ship Essex is crewed by the Captain George Pollard, Jr., first officer Owen Chase, second officer Matthew Joy, and cabin boy Thomas Nickerson. During their voyage, the ship is sunk when it is rammed and split in half by a very large and enraged bull sperm whale, ultimately leaving its crew shipwrecked at sea for 90 days and more than a thousand miles from land. After the attack, the crew sails for South America and is forced to resort to cannibalism.
In the final stages of the Bosnian War in December 1995, United States Navy flight officer Lieutenant Chris Burnett (Owen Wilson) and pilot Lieutenant Jeremy Stackhouse (Gabriel Macht), who are stationed on an aircraft carrier in the Adriatic Sea, are assigned a reconnaissance mission by their commanding officer, Admiral Reigart (Gene Hackman). The mission goes smoothly until they spot suspicious activity in the demilitarized zone where NATO aircraft and the warring factions are prohibited from engaging in military activity. Burnett persuades Stackhouse to fly their F/A-18 Hornet off-course to get a close look and photograph the target. They are unaware that they photographed mass graves, and Serb soldiers see the jet. The local Bosnian Serb paramilitary commander, General Miroslav Lokar (modelled on Arkan and his Tiger militia, and played by Olek Krupa), is conducting a secret genocidal campaign against the local Bosniak population. Not wanting the mass graves to be discovered, Lokar orders the jet be shot down.
Fred Wilson (Charles Grodin), an executive of the Petrox Oil Company, forms an expedition based on infrared imagery which reveals a previously undiscovered Indian Ocean island hidden by a permanent cloud bank. Wilson believes the island has a huge deposit of oil. Jack Prescott (Jeff Bridges), a primate paleontologist who wants to see the island for himself, stows away on the expedition's vessel. Prescott reveals himself when he warns the crew the cloud bank may be caused by an unknown beast. Wilson orders Prescott locked up, claiming that he is really a spy from a rival oil company. While escorted to lock-up, Prescott spots a life raft which carries the beautiful and unconscious Dwan (Jessica Lange). Wilson conducts a thorough background check on Prescott and realizes he is telling the truth. He appoints Prescott the expedition's official photographer and requests that he be present when Dwan revives because of his medical background. Upon waking, Dwan says she is an aspiring actress who was aboard a director's yacht which suddenly exploded.
James Hunt and Niki Lauda are two highly skilled racing car drivers who first develop a fierce rivalry in 1970 at a Formula Three race at the Crystal Palace circuit in Britain, when both their cars spin out and Hunt eventually wins the race. Hunt is a brash, young Englishman with a tendency to vomit before every race, while Lauda is a cool, calculating Austrian technical genius who relies on precision. After a falling out with his father, Lauda takes a large bank loan and buys his way into the British Racing Motors Formula One team, meeting teammate Clay Regazzoni for the first time. Meanwhile, Hesketh Racing, the fledgling racing team Hunt drives for, enters Formula One as well. Lauda then joins Scuderia Ferrari with Regazzoni and wins his first championship in 1975. Hesketh closes shop after failing to secure a sponsor, but Hunt joins McLaren when Emerson Fittipaldi leaves the team. During this time, Hunt marries supermodel Suzy Miller, while Lauda develops a relationship with German socialite Marlene Knaus.