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The story primarily concerns the difficult relationship between two women, Helen Francine Peters (referred to as Francine throughout the series) and Katina Marie ("Katchoo") Choovanski, and their friend David Qin. Francine considers Katchoo her best friend; Katchoo is in love with Francine. David is in love with Katchoo (a relationship which Katchoo herself is deeply conflicted over). The love triangle (which later expands into a love rectangle with the introduction of Casey Bullock, who marries Francine's ex-boyfriend Freddie Femur and later divorces him, in order to pursue both David and Katchoo) alternates with the mystery and intrigue regarding Katchoo's past as an underage lesbian hooker and the Parker Crime Syndicate. Run by David's lesbian sister Darcy, the "Parker Girls" work for the shadowy 'Big Six' organization, an international crime syndicate with influence over the world of politics. "Parker Girls" are highly trained women used by organized crime to control, manipulate, spy upon, and ultimately kill men and women in positions of power and authority, for the Big Six. 

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A boy named Stuart is born to an ordinary family in New York City. He is normal in every way except that he is only just over two inches high and looks exactly like a mouse. At first the family is concerned with how Stuart will survive in a human-sized world, but by the age of seven, he speaks, thinks, and behaves on the level of a human of sixteen and shows surprising ingenuity in adapting, performing such helpful family tasks as fishing his mother's wedding ring from a sink drain. The family's cat, Snowbell, dislikes Stuart because while he feels a natural instinct to chase him, he is aware that Stuart is a member of the human family and thus off- limits. On a cold winter's day, the family discovers a songbird named Margalo half-frozen on their doorstep. Margalo is taken in and spends the winter in the family, where she befriends Stuart; Stuart in turn protects her from Snowbell. The bird repays his kindness by saving Stuart when he is trapped in a garbage can and shipped out to sea for disposal. In the spring, when she is set free from the house, she continues to visit Stuart, infuriating Snowbell, who now finds himself with two small animals he is not allowed to eat. Snowbell makes a deal with the Angora cat to eat Margalo to get rid of one of his temptations (reasoning that it's only wrong if he eats her). Margalo is warned in advance and flees in the middle of the night. Stuart is heartbroken but becomes determined to find her. He first goes to the local dentist, Dr. Carey, who is a friend of Stuart. The dentist's patient, Edward Clydesdale, suggests that Margalo may have flown to Connecticut, and Dr. Carey loans Stuart his motorized, gas-powered toy car for the long journey. Stuart travels from adventure to adventure and finds himself in the town of Ames Crossing, where he takes work as a substitute teacher. There he learns that living in Ames Crossing is a fifteen-year-old girl named Harriet Ames who is the same size as Stuart but looks like a human being. Stuart purchases a miniature souvenir canoe, prepping it to make it comfortable and waterproof, and invites Harriet out on a boating date. However, when the two arrive for the date, the canoe has been discovered and played with by local children, who have ruined it. Harriet tries to be polite but is put-off by Stuart's sulking over his broken boat. Stuart decides to leave Ames Crossing and continue on his quest to find Margalo. He sets off once more in his car, thinking that he will never see her again. 

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Lugosi and Rossitto The film opens with the disclosure by morgue examiners that a beautiful woman has literally died of fright. The plot reveals how she reached the fatal stage of terror. The woman is married to the son of a doctor, the proprietor of a private sanatorium, where she is under unwilling treatment. Both the son and the doctor indicate they want the marriage dissolved. Arriving at the scene is a mysterious personage (Bela Lugosi) identified as the doctor's cousin who had been a stage magician in Europe. He is accompanied by a threatening dwarf (Angelo Rossitto). After it is apparent that the wife is terrified of the foreigners, it is disclosed that she is the former wife and stage partner of a Paris magician known as René, who was believed to have been shot by the Nazis. Attempts to draw a confession that she had betrayed her magician husband and had collaborated with the Nazis led to the use of a device employing a death mask of the supposedly dead patriot, which literally frightens her to death. Although the young newspaperman hero and his sweetheart guess the answer to the story, they allow the diagnosis "scared to death" to stand. 

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Sally Hardesty, her paraplegic brother Franklin, and their friends, Jerry, Kirk, and Pam visit the grave of the Hardestys' grandfather to investigate reports of vandalism and grave robbing. Afterwards, they decide to visit the old Hardesty family homestead. Along the way, they pick up a hitchhiker, who talks about his family who worked at the old slaughterhouse. He borrows Franklin's pocket knife and cuts himself, then takes a single Polaroid picture of Franklin, for which he demands money. When they refuse to pay, he burns the photo, and slashes Franklin's left arm with a straight razor. The group forces him out of the van and drive on. They stop at a gas station to refill their vehicle, but the proprietor tells them that the pumps are empty. They continue toward the homestead, intending to return to the gas station once it has received a fuel delivery. When they arrive, Franklin tells Kirk and Pam about a local swimming-hole, and the couple go to find it. They stumble upon a nearby house, and Kirk calls out for gas, entering through the unlocked door, while Pam waits outside. Leatherface, a large mute man wearing a mask made from human skin, suddenly appears and kills Kirk with a hammer. Pam enters soon after, and trips into a room filled with furniture made from human bones. She attempts to flee, but Leatherface catches her, and impales her on a meathook, making her watch as he butchers Kirk with a chainsaw. Jerry heads out to look for Pam and Kirk at sunset. He sees the house and finds Pam, still alive, inside a freezer. Before he can react, Leatherface kills him. With darkness falling, Sally and Franklin set out to find their friends. As they near the neighboring house and call out, Leatherface lunges from the darkness and kills Franklin with a chainsaw. Sally runs toward the house, and finds the desiccated remains of an elderly couple upstairs. She escapes from Leatherface by jumping through a second-floor window, and flees to the gas station. The proprietor calms her with offers of help, but then ties her up, gags her, and forces her into his truck. He drives to the house, arriving at the same time as the hitchhiker, now revealed as Leatherface's brother. The hitchhiker recognizes Sally, and taunts her. The men torment the bound and gagged Sally while Leatherface, now dressed as a woman, serves dinner. Leatherface and the hitchhiker bring down one of the desiccated bodies from upstairs, that of their Grandpa. He is revealed to be alive when he sucks blood from a cut on Sally's finger. They decide that Grandpa, the best killer in the old slaughterhouse, should kill Sally. He tries to hit her with a hammer, but he is too weak. In the ensuing struggle, she breaks free, leaps through a window, and flees to the road. Leatherface and the hitchhiker give chase, but the latter is run over and killed by a passing truck. Leatherface attacks the truck with his chainsaw, and when the driver stops to help he knocks Leatherface down with a pipe wrench, causing the chainsaw to cut his leg. The driver flees, and Sally escapes in the back of a passing pickup truck as Leatherface maniacally flails his chainsaw in the air in anger and defeat. 

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A group of rogue U.S. Force Recon Marines, led by disenchanted Brigadier General Frank Hummel and his second-in- command Major Tom Baxter, storm a heavily guarded naval weapons depot and steal a stockpile of deadly VX gas-armed M55 rockets, losing one of their own men in the process. The next day, Hummel and his men, along with newly- recruited Marine Captains Frye and Darrow, seize control of Alcatraz Island, taking eighty-one tourists hostage. Hummel threatens to launch the rockets against San Francisco unless the U.S. government pays him $100 million from a military slush fund, which he will distribute to his men and the families of Recon Marines who died on clandestine missions under his command but whose deaths were not compensated. The Pentagon and FBI develop a plan to retake the island with a U.S. Navy SEAL team led by Commander Anderson, enlisting the FBI's top chemical weapons specialist, Dr. Stanley Goodspeed. FBI Director James Womack is forced to offer a pardon to federal prisoner John Mason in return for information. Mason, a 60-year-old Scottish national imprisoned without charges for two decades, is the only Alcatraz inmate ever to escape the island. After being set up in a hotel, Mason escapes, resulting in a car chase with Goodspeed through the streets of San Francisco. While Mason seeks out his estranged daughter, Jade, Goodspeed arrives, but he covers for Mason by telling Jade that Mason is aiding the FBI. Goodspeed, Mason, and the SEALs infiltrate Alcatraz but Hummel's men are alerted to their presence and ambush them in a shower room. All the SEALs, including Anderson, are killed, leaving only Mason and Goodspeed alive. Mason sees his chance to escape custody and disarms Goodspeed, but is convinced to help defuse the rockets after the Marines use explosive devices to flush them out. They eliminate several teams of Marines and disable twelve of the fifteen rockets by removing their guidance chips. Hummel threatens to execute a hostage if they do not surrender and return the guidance chips; instead, Mason destroys the chips and surrenders to Hummel to try and reason with him as well as buy Goodspeed some time. Though Goodspeed disables another rocket, the Marines capture him. With the incursion team lost, the military initiates their backup plan: an airstrike by F/A-18s with thermite plasma, which will neutralize the poison gas and kill everyone on the island. Mason and Goodspeed escape, after which the former explains why he was held prisoner: he was a British SAS Captain who stole a microfilm containing details of the United States' most closely guarded secrets, refusing to give it up when captured because he knew he would be killed if he did. When the deadline for the transfer of the ransom passes, Hummel is urged by his men to fire one of the rockets; at first he does this, but then redirects it to detonate at sea. Hummel, confronted by Frye and Darrow, declares the mission is over, explaining that it was all an elaborate bluff as he never had any intention of harming innocent lives. Hummel orders them to exit Alcatraz with a few hostages and the remaining rocket to cover their retreat while he assumes blame. Frye and Darrow rebel upon realizing they will not be paid their $1 million apiece, killing Baxter and mortally wounding Hummel—who tells Goodspeed where the last rocket is before dying. Darrow and Frye proceed with the plan to fire on San Francisco. Goodspeed seeks out the rocket while Mason deals with the remaining Marines. As the jets approach, Goodspeed disables the rocket before killing both Darrow and Frye. He signals that the threat is over just as one jet drops a bomb; though no hostages are injured, Goodspeed is thrown into the sea by the blast and Mason rescues him. Goodspeed and Mason part ways after Mason reveals the location of the microfilm; Goodspeed fakes Mason's death by telling Womack that he was killed in the bomb explosion. Sometime later, Goodspeed and his newlywed wife Carla are seen stealing the microfilm from a church and driving away. 

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The Time Machine was reprinted in Two Complete Science-Adventure Books in 1951 The book's protagonist is a Victorian English scientist and gentleman inventor living in Richmond, Surrey, identified by a narrator simply as the Time Traveller. Similarly, with but one exception (a man named Filby) none of the dinner guests present are ever identified by name, but rather by profession (for example, "the Psychologist") or physical description (for example, "the Very Young Man"). The narrator recounts the Traveller's lecture to his weekly dinner guests that time is simply a fourth dimension and demonstrates a tabletop model machine for travelling through the fourth dimension. He reveals that he has built a machine capable of carrying a person through time, and returns at dinner the following week to recount a remarkable tale, becoming the new narrator. In the new narrative, the Time Traveller tests his device. At first he thinks nothing has happened but soon finds out he went five hours into the future. He continues forward and sees his house disappear and turn into a lush garden. The Time Traveller stops in A.D. 802,701, where he meets the Eloi, a society of small, elegant, childlike adults. They live in small communities within large and futuristic yet slowly deteriorating buildings, and adhere to a fruit-based diet. His efforts to communicate with them are hampered by their lack of curiosity or discipline. They appear happy and carefree but fear the dark, and particularly moonless nights. Observing them, he finds that they give no response to mysterious nocturnal disappearances, possibly because the thought of it alone frightens them into silence. He speculates that they are a peaceful society. After exploring the area around the Eloi's residences, the Time Traveller reaches the top of a hill overlooking London. He concludes that the entire planet has become a garden, with little trace of human society or engineering from the hundreds of thousands of years prior. Returning to the site where he arrived, the Time Traveller is shocked to find his time machine missing and eventually concludes that it has been dragged by some unknown party into a nearby structure with heavy doors, locked from the inside, which resembles a Sphinx. Luckily, he had removed the machine's levers before leaving it (the time machine being unable to travel through time without them). Later in the dark, he is approached menacingly by the Morlocks, ape-like troglodytes who live in darkness underground and surface only at night. Exploring one of many "wells" that lead to the Morlocks' dwellings, he discovers the machinery and industry that makes the above-ground paradise of the Eloi possible. He alters his theory, speculating that the human race has evolved into two species: the leisured classes have become the ineffectual Eloi, and the downtrodden working classes have become the brutal light-fearing Morlocks. Deducing that the Morlocks have taken his time machine, he explores the Morlock tunnels, learning that due to a lack of any other means of sustenance, they feed on the Eloi. His revised analysis is that their relationship is not one of lords and servants but of livestock and ranchers. The Time Traveller theorizes that intelligence is the result of and response to danger; with no real challenges facing the Eloi, they have lost the spirit, intelligence, and physical fitness of humanity at its peak. Meanwhile, he saves an Eloi named Weena from drowning as none of the other Eloi take any notice of her plight, and they develop an innocently affectionate relationship over the course of several days. He takes Weena with him on an expedition to a distant structure dubbed "The Palace of Green Porcelain", which turns out to be a derelict museum. Here, the Time Traveller finds a fresh supply of matches and fashions a crude weapon against Morlocks, whom he must fight to get back his machine. He plans to take Weena back to his own time. Because the long and tiring journey back to Weena's home is too much for them, they stop in the forest for the night. They are then overcome by Morlocks in the night, whereby Weena faints. The Traveller escapes when a small fire he had left behind them to distract the Morlocks catches up to them as a forest fire; Weena and the pursuing Morlocks are lost in the fire and the Time Traveller is devastated over his loss. The Morlocks open the Sphinx and use the time machine as bait to capture the Traveller, not understanding that he will use it to escape. He reattaches the levers before he travels further ahead to roughly 30 million years from his own time. There he sees some of the last living things on a dying Earth: Menacing reddish crab-like creatures slowly wandering the blood-red beaches chasing enormous butterflies, in a world covered in simple lichenous vegetation. He continues to make jumps forward through time, seeing Earth's rotation gradually cease and the sun grow larger, redder, and dimmer, and the world falling silent and freezing as the last degenerate living things die out. Overwhelmed, he goes back to the machine and returns to his own time, arriving at the laboratory just three hours after he originally left. He arrives late to his own dinner party, whereupon, after eating, the Time Traveller relates his adventures to his disbelieving visitors, producing as evidence two strange white flowers Weena had put in his pocket. The original narrator then takes over and relates that he returned to the Time Traveller's house the next day, finding him preparing for another journey and promising to return in a short time. However, the narrator reveals that he has waited three years before writing and stating the Time Traveller has not returned from his journey. 

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After earning his bachelor's degree from an East Coast college, Benjamin Braddock returns to his parents' Pasadena, California home. He cringes as his parents deliver accolades during his graduation party and retreats to his bedroom until Mrs. Robinson, the wife of his father's law partner, insists that he drive her home. Once there, she tries to seduce him. He resists her advances but later invites her to the Taft Hotel, where he registers under the pseudonym "Mr. Gladstone." Benjamin spends the summer relaxing in his parents' pool by day and meeting Mrs. Robinson at the hotel by night. During one of their trysts, Mrs. Robinson reveals that her loveless marriage resulted when she accidentally became pregnant with her daughter, Elaine. When Benjamin jokingly suggests that he date Elaine, Mrs. Robinson angrily forbids it. After his parents relentlessly pester him, Benjamin reluctantly takes Elaine on a date. When he sees how upset Mrs. Robinson is, Benjamin attempts to sabotage his date by ignoring Elaine, driving recklessly, and taking her to a strip club. She flees the club in tears, but Benjamin, feeling remorseful, runs out after her, apologizes, and kisses her. They eat at a drive-in restaurant, where they bond over their shared uncertainty about their future plans. After they visit the Taft Hotel for a late-night drink and the staff greet Benjamin as "Mr. Gladstone," Elaine deduces that Benjamin is having an affair with a married woman. Benjamin swears that the affair is over and makes plans for another date with Elaine for the following day. To prevent Benjamin from dating Elaine, Mrs. Robinson threatens to tell Elaine about their affair. To thwart this, Benjamin reveals to Elaine that the married woman is her mother. Elaine is so upset that she refuses to see Benjamin again and returns to school at Berkeley. Benjamin follows her to Berkeley hoping to regain her affections. Elaine is aghast because her mother told her that Benjamin raped her when she was drunk. After Benjamin explains what really happened and apologizes, Elaine forgives him and they rekindle their relationship. He asks her to marry him, but she is uncertain despite her feelings for him. Later, an angry Mr. Robinson arrives to Berkeley and confronts Benjamin in his boarding room, where he informs him that he and his wife will be divorcing soon and threatens to have Benjamin jailed if he continues to see Elaine. He then forces Elaine to leave college to marry Carl Smith, a classmate whom she briefly dated. Benjamin drives back to Pasadena and breaks into the Robinson home in search of Elaine. Instead, he finds Mrs. Robinson who calls the police and claims that her house is being burglarized. She then tells Benjamin that he cannot prevent Elaine's marriage to Carl. Before the police can arrest him, Benjamin flees the Robinson home and drives back to Berkeley. There, he visits Carl's fraternity and discovers from one of Carl's fraternity brothers that the wedding will take place in Santa Barbara that day. He rushes to the church and arrives just as the ceremony ends. Overlooking the sanctuary, he bangs on the glass separating him from the wedding and shouts Elaine's name. After surveying the angry faces of Carl and her parents, Elaine shouts "Ben!" and flees the sanctuary. Benjamin fights off Mr. Robinson and repels the wedding guests by swinging a large wooden cross, which he uses to barricade the church doors, trapping them inside. Elaine and Benjamin elope aboard a bus and sit among startled passengers. Their ecstatic expressions change to looks of uncertainty as the bus drives away. 

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On Saturday, March 24, 1984, five students at the fictional Shermer High School report at 7:00 a.m. for all-day detention. Each comes from a different clique: Claire Standish, a snobbish beauty; Brian Johnson, a brainiac; Andrew Clark, a wrestler; John Bender, a rebel; and Allison Reynolds, a shy Goth. They gather in the school library, where Assistant Principal Richard Vernon instructs them not to talk, move from their seats, or sleep until they are released at 4:00 p.m. He assigns them a thousand-word essay, in which each must describe "who you think you are". He leaves, returning only occasionally to check on them. John, who has an antagonistic relationship with Vernon, ignores the rules and riles up the other students. John spends most of his time bullying and harassing Claire, Andrew, and Brian, but they all eventually feel sorry for him after seeing how he interacts with abusive adults like Vernon, who gives John eight weekends' worth of additional detention and eventually locks him in a storage closet, but he escapes and returns to the library. The students pass the hours by talking, arguing, and, at one point, smoking marijuana (except Allison who does not smoke with the others). Gradually, they open up and reveal their secrets: Claire has many experiences of peer pressure, John comes from an abusive household, Allison is a compulsive liar, Andrew can't think for himself, and Brian contemplated suicide over a bad grade. They discover they all have poor relationships with their parents: Claire's parents use her to get back at each other during arguments, John's parents physically and verbally abuse him as well as each other, Allison's parents are neglectful, Andrew's father pushes him to the limit, especially in wrestling, and Brian's parents pressure him to earn the highest grades possible. The students realize that, despite their differences, they face similar problems. Claire gives Allison a makeover, which sparks romantic interest from Andrew. Claire decides to break her "pristine" innocent appearance by kissing John and giving him a hickey. Although they suspect their new relationships will end along with their detention, they believe their mutual experiences will change the way they look at their peers. As the detention nears its end, the group requests that Brian complete the essay for everyone, and John returns to the storage closet to fool Vernon into thinking he never left. Brian leaves the essay in the library for Vernon to read after they leave. As the students part ways, Allison and Andrew kiss, as do Claire and John. Allison rips Andrew's state champion patch from his jacket to keep, and Claire gives John one of her diamond earrings, which he puts on. Vernon reads the essay, in which Brian states that Vernon has already judged who they are using stereotypes, and that Vernon is crazy if he thinks they'll let him tell them who they are; he correspondingly states that "each one of us is a brain, an athlete, a basket case, a princess, and a criminal. Does that answer your question?" He signs off the essay with "Sincerely yours, the Breakfast Club." John is last seen raising his fist while walking through an empty football field. 

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The novel shows a dystopian early 21st-century America dominated by computer networks, and is considered by some critics to be an early ancestor of the cyberpunk genre.Dani Cavallaro (2000). Cyberpunk and Cyberculture: Science Fiction and the Work of William Gibson. Athlone Press (London). p. 11. . The hero, Nick Haflinger, is a runaway from Tarnover, a government program intended to find, educate and indoctrinate highly gifted children to further the interests of the state in a future where quantitative analysis backed by the tacit threat of coercion has replaced overt military and economic power as the deciding factor in international competition. In parallel with this, the government has become a oligarchy whose beneficiaries are members of organised crime. Nick's talent extends to programming the network using only a touch- tone telephone. One of his handlers at Tarnover explains that this is like a classical pianist being able to play entire sonatas and concertos from memory. However, Nick also has some personality flaws, amounting almost to a deathwish. These become manifest in exhibitions of his abilities, revealing his identity to his pursuers. The background to the story includes a massive earthquake laying waste to the San Francisco Bay Area in California. Millions die and millions more are left to live on government handouts. The subsequent economic depression, coupled with the rootlessness enabled by access to online data and strong social pressure to be flexible (the results of corporations wanting highly mobile workforces without strong local ties), results in a fragmentation of society along religious, ethnic, and a variety of class markers, what Toffler called "subcults", including what would in 2010 be described as gangs. The equitable distribution of data access and data privacy is a prominent theme in the book; characters who have access to information which is nominally secret enjoy demonstrable economic advantages over others lacking access to such data. In the novel, data privacy is reserved for corporate entities and individuals, who may then conceal wrongdoing; by contrast, normal citizens do not enjoy significant privacy. The world described in the book is dystopian, with laissez-faire economics portrayed as leading to disaster as greed trumps long-term planning. The educational system is dysfunctional, with teachers unable to perform their jobs due to strictures. The only functional educational system seen in the book is portrayed as an enclave, the tightly-controlled Tarnover school. Communities are either walled enclaves of privilege or largely lawless areas entirely lacking protection from corrupt civil authorities. Infrastructure has been allowed to crumble, and characters who reside within "paid avoidance zones" receive compensation from the government in lieu of actual services. 

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Travis Bickle is a lonely, depressed 26-year-old honorably discharged U.S. Marine and Vietnam War veteran living in isolation in New York City. Travis takes a job as a night shift taxi driver to cope with his chronic insomnia, driving passengers around the city's boroughs. He frequents the porn theaters on 42nd Street and keeps a diary in which he consciously attempts to include aphorisms, such as "you're only as healthy as you feel." Travis becomes infatuated with Betsy, a campaign volunteer for senator and presidential candidate Charles Palantine. After watching her interact with fellow worker Tom through her window, Travis enters to volunteer as a pretext to talk to her, then takes her out for coffee. Betsy agrees to go on another date with him, during which he takes her to see a pornographic film. A disgusted Betsy leaves. Travis attempts to reconcile with her, to no avail. Enraged, he storms into the campaign office where she works and berates her, before he is ordered to leave by Tom. Travis concedes that she is "just like the others". Travis is disgusted by the sleaze, dysfunction, and prostitution that he witnesses throughout the city, and struggles to find meaning for his existence. Travis confides in fellow taxi driver Wizard about his thoughts, which are beginning to turn violent; however, Wizard assures him that he will be fine, leaving Travis to his own destructive path. In an attempt to find an outlet for his frustrations, Travis begins a program of intense physical training. A fellow taxi driver refers him to a black market gun dealer, "Easy" Andy, from whom Travis buys four handguns. At home, Travis practices drawing his weapons, and modifies one to allow him to hide and quickly deploy it from his sleeve. He also begins attending Palantine's rallies to scope out their security. One night, Travis enters a convenience store moments before an attempted armed robbery, and kills the robber. On his trips around the city, Travis regularly encounters Iris, a child prostitute. He fantasizes about saving her from her life of exploitation. Travis solicits her and tries to convince her to stop prostituting herself and go home to her parents, and gives her money to start a new life. Soon after, Travis cuts his hair into a mohawk, and attends a public rally where he plans to assassinate Palantine. However, he is chased away by Secret Service agents who see him drawing his gun. That evening, Travis drives to the brothel where Iris works. He confronts Iris's pimp, "Sport", outside of the brothel, and shoots him with his gun. He enters the building and engages in a shootout with Sport, the bouncer, and Iris's client, and is shot several times. Travis manages to kill the three men, before slumping on a couch next to a sobbing Iris. He attempts to kill himself, but is out of bullets. As police report to the scene, a delirious Travis imitates shooting himself in the head. Travis goes into a coma due to his injuries. He is heralded by the press as a heroic vigilante, and is not prosecuted for the murder of the men. He receives a letter from Iris's father, thanking him for saving her. After recovering, Travis returns to work, where he encounters Betsy as a fare. Travis drives her home, and allows her to leave without paying her fare, departing with a smile. As Travis drives off, he becomes suddenly agitated after noticing something in his rear-view mirror. 

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Clarice Starling is pulled from her FBI training at the Quantico, Virginia FBI Academy by Jack Crawford of the Bureau's Behavioral Science Unit. He assigns her to interview Hannibal Lecter, a former psychiatrist and incarcerated cannibalistic serial killer, whose insight could prove useful in the pursuit of a serial killer nicknamed "Buffalo Bill", who kills young women and then removes their skin. At the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane, Dr. Frederick Chilton makes a crude pass at Starling before escorts her to Lecter's cell. Although initially pleasant and courteous, Lecter grows impatient with Starling's attempts at "dissecting" him and rebuffs her. As she is leaving, a prisoner named Miggs flicks semen at her. Lecter, who considers this an "unspeakably ugly" act, calls Starling back and tells her to seek out his old patient. This leads her to a storage facility, where she discovers a jar containing a man's severed head. She returns to Lecter, who says the man is linked to Buffalo Bill. He offers to profile Buffalo Bill on condition he be transferred away from Chilton, whom he detests. Soon after, another Buffalo Bill victim is found who has a death's head moth lodged in her throat. Buffalo Bill abducts Catherine Martin, a U.S. Senator's daughter. Crawford authorizes Starling to offer Lecter a fake deal, promising a prison transfer if he provides information that helps them capture Buffalo Bill and rescue Catherine. Instead, Lecter demands a quid pro quo from Starling, offering clues about Buffalo Bill in exchange for personal information. Starling tells Lecter about her father's murder when she was ten years old. Chilton secretly records the conversation and reveals Starling's deceit before offering Lecter a deal of Chilton's own making. Lecter agrees and is flown to Memphis, where he meets and verbally torments Senator Martin, then gives her misleading information on Buffalo Bill, including the name "Louis Friend". Starling works out that "Louis Friend" is an anagram of "iron sulfide"—fool's gold. She visits Lecter, who is now imprisoned in a cage-like cell in a Tennessee courthouse, and requests the truth. Lecter says all the information she needs is contained in the Buffalo Bill case file, then insists on continuing their quid pro quo. She recounts a traumatic childhood incident of hearing spring lambs being slaughtered on a relative's Montana farm, causing her to run away. Lecter speculates that Starling hopes saving Catherine will end the recurring nightmares she has of lambs screaming. Lecter returns the Buffalo Bill case files to Starling just as Chilton arrives and has the police escort her from the building. Later that evening, Lecter kills his guards, escapes his cell, and disappears. Starling analyzes Lecter's file annotations and deduces that Buffalo Bill knew his first victim, Frederika Bimmel. Starling travels to her Ohio hometown and discovers both she and Buffalo Bill were tailors. At Frederika's home, she notices unfinished dresses and dress patterns identical to the patches of skin removed from the victims. She phones Crawford and says Buffalo Bill is making a "suit" with human skin. Crawford is already en route to make an arrest, having cross-referenced Lecter's notes with hospital archives and finding a man named Jame Gumb, who both smuggled death’s head moths into the U.S. and applied for and was refused sex-change operation, mistakenly believing he was transsexual. Starling continues interviewing Frederika's friends while Crawford and an FBI HRT storm Gumb's address in Illinois, finding the house empty. Meanwhile, Starling goes to interview another person who knew Frederika. At the house, she meets "Jack Gordon", but realizes he is Jame Gumb after spotting a death's head moth flying loose. She pursues him into a cavernous basement where she finds Catherine trapped in a dry well. In a completely dark room, Gumb stalks Starling with night-vision goggles, but reveals himself by cocking his revolver. Starling reacts quickly and shoots Gumb dead. At the FBI Academy graduation party, Starling receives a phone call from Lecter, who is at a Bimini airport. He wishes her well, and says he must hang up because he is, "having an old friend for dinner". He then trails a newly-arrived Chilton, before disappearing into the crowd. 

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At an abandoned hotel within a major city, a woman (later revealed to be Trinity) is cornered by a police squad but overpowers them with superhuman abilities. She flees, pursued by the police and a group of mysterious suited Agents capable of similar superhuman feats. She answers a ringing public telephone and vanishes an instant before the Agents crash a truck into the booth. Computer programmer Thomas Anderson, known in the hacking scene by his alias "Neo", feels something is wrong with the world and is puzzled by repeated online encounters with the phrase "the Matrix". Trinity contacts him and tells him a man named Morpheus has the answers he seeks. A team of Agents and police, led by Agent Smith, arrives at Neo's workplace searching for him. Despite Morpheus's attempt to guide Neo to safety via telephone, Neo is captured and coerced into helping the Agents locate Morpheus, whom they regard as a "known terrorist". Undeterred, Neo later meets Morpheus, who offers him a choice between two pills; red to reveal the truth about the Matrix, and blue to return him to his former life. After Neo swallows the red pill, his reality falls apart, and he awakens in a liquid-filled pod among countless others attached to an elaborate electrical system. He is retrieved and brought aboard Morpheus's flying ship, the Nebuchadnezzar. As Neo recuperates from a lifetime of physical inactivity, Morpheus explains the truth. In the early 21st century, there was a war between humans and intelligent machines. When humans blocked the machines' access to solar energy, the machines harvested the humans' bioelectric power, keeping them pacified in the Matrix, a shared simulated reality modeled after the world as it existed at the end of the 20th century. The machines have taken over the world; the city of Zion is the last refuge of free humans. Morpheus and his crew are a group of rebels who hack into the Matrix to "unplug" enslaved humans and recruit them; their understanding of the Matrix's simulated nature enables them to bend its physical laws. Morpheus warns Neo that death within the Matrix kills the physical body, and the Agents he met are powerful sentient computer programs that eliminate threats to the system, while machines called Sentinels destroy rebels in the real world. Neo's prowess during virtual combat training lends credibility to Morpheus's belief that Neo is "the One", an especially powerful human prophesied to free humanity and end the war. The group enters the Matrix to visit the Oracle, the prophet who predicted the emergence of the One. She suggests to Neo that he is not the One and warns that he will have to choose between Morpheus's life and his own. The group is ambushed by Agents and tactical police, tipped by Cypher, a disgruntled crew member who betrays Morpheus in exchange for a comfortable life in the Matrix. Morpheus allows himself to be captured so the rest of the crew can escape. Cypher exits the Matrix first and murders several crew members as they lie defenseless in the real world. Before he can kill Neo, Cypher is killed by Tank, a crewman whom he only wounded. In the Matrix, the Agents interrogate Morpheus to learn his access codes to the mainframe computer in Zion. Tank proposes killing Morpheus to prevent this, but Neo resolves to return to the Matrix to rescue Morpheus, as prophesied by the Oracle; Trinity insists she accompany him. While rescuing Morpheus, Neo gains confidence in his abilities, performing feats comparable to the Agents'. Morpheus and Trinity exit the Matrix, but Smith ambushes and kills Neo before he can leave. As a group of Sentinels attack the Nebuchadnezzar, Trinity whispers to Neo that he cannot be dead, because she loves him and the Oracle told her she would fall in love with the One. She kisses Neo and he revives with newfound power to perceive and control the Matrix. He effortlessly defeats Smith, and leaves the Matrix just in time for the ship's electromagnetic pulse to disable the Sentinels. Later, Neo makes a telephone call inside the Matrix, promising the machines that he will show their prisoners "a world where anything is possible". He hangs up and flies into the sky. 

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The A-Team is a naturally episodic show, with few overarching stories, except the characters' continuing motivation to clear their names, with few references to events in past episodes and a recognizable and steady episode structure. In describing the ratings drop that occurred during the show's fourth season, reviewer Gold Burt points to this structure as being a leading cause for the decreased popularity "because the same basic plot had been used over and over again for the past four seasons with the same predictable outcome". Similarly, reporter Adrian Lee called the plots "stunningly simple" in a 2006 article for The Express (UK newspaper), citing such recurring elements "as BA's fear of flying, and outlandish finales when the team fashioned weapons from household items". The show became emblematic of this kind of "fit-for-TV warfare" due to its depiction of high-octane combat scenes, with lethal weapons, wherein the participants (with the notable exception of General Fulbright) are never killed and rarely seriously injured (see also On-screen violence section). As the television ratings of The A-Team fell dramatically during the fourth season, the format was changed for the show's final season in 1986–87 in a bid to win back viewers. After years on the run from the authorities, the A-Team is finally apprehended by the military. General Hunt Stockwell (Robert Vaughn), a mysterious CIA operative, propositions them to work for him in exchange for which he will arrange for their pardons upon successful completion of several suicide missions. To do so, the A-Team must first escape from their captivity. With the help of a new character, Frankie "Dishpan Man" Santana, Stockwell fakes their deaths before a military firing squad. The new status of the A-Team, no longer working for themselves, remained for the duration of the fifth season while Eddie Velez and Robert Vaughn received star billing along with the principal cast. The missions that the team had to perform in season five were somewhat reminiscent of Mission: Impossible, and based more around political espionage than beating local thugs, also usually taking place in foreign countries, including successfully overthrowing an island dictator, the rescue of a scientist from East Germany, and recovering top secret Star Wars defense information from Soviet hands. These changes proved unsuccessful with viewers, however, and ratings continued to decline. Only 13 episodes aired in the fifth season. In what was supposed to be the final episode, "The Grey Team" (although "Without Reservations" was broadcast on NBC as the last first-run episode in March 1987), Hannibal, after being misled by Stockwell one time too many, tells him that the team will no longer work for him. At the end, the team discusses what they were going to do if they get their pardon, and it is implied that they would continue doing what they were doing as the A-Team. The character of Howling Mad Murdock can be seen in the final scene wearing a T-shirt that says, "Fini". 

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As a teenager, Mort has a personality and temperament that makes him unsuited to the family farming business. Mort's father Lezek takes him to a local hiring fair in the hope that Mort will land an apprenticeship; not only would this provide a job for his son, but it would also make his son's propensity for thinking into someone else's problem. Just before the last stroke of midnight, Death arrives and takes Mort on as an apprentice (though his father thinks he has been apprenticed to an undertaker). Death takes Mort to his domain, where he meets Death's elderly manservant Albert, and his adopted daughter Ysabell. Mort later accompanies Death as he travels to collect the soul of a king, who is due to be assassinated by the scheming Duke of Sto Helit. After Mort unsuccessfully tries to prevent the assassination, Death warns him that all deaths are predetermined, and that he cannot interfere with fate. Later on, Death assigns Mort to collect the soul of Princess Keli, daughter of the murdered king, but he instead kills the assassin the Duke had sent after her. Keli lives, but shortly after the assassin's death people begin acting as if something had happened without knowing why such as a solemn song being played. She soon finds that the rest of the world no longer acknowledges her existence at all unless she confronts them and even then only in a confused manner which is forgotten immediately after. She subsequently employs the wizard Igneous Cutwell, who is able to see her as he is trained to see things that are invisible to normal people (like death) to make her existence clear to the public. Mort eventually discovers that his actions have created an alternate reality in which Keli lives, but he also learns that it is being overridden by the original reality and will eventually cease to exist, killing Keli. While consulting Cutwell, Mort sees a picture of Unseen University's founder, Alberto Malich, noting that he bears a resemblance to Albert. Mort and Ysabell travel into the Stack, a library in Death's domain that holds the biographies of everyone who has ever lived, in order to investigate Albert, eventually discovering that he is indeed Malich. They further learn that Malich had feared monsters waiting for him in the afterlife, and performed a reversed version of the Rite of AshkEnte in the hope of keeping Death away from him. However, the spell backfired and sent him to Death's side, where he has remained in order to put off his demise. During this time, Death, yearning to relish what being human is like, travels to Ankh-Morpork to indulge in new experiences, including getting drunk, dancing, gambling and finding a job. Mort in turn starts to become more like Death, adopting his mannerisms and aspects of his personality, while his own is slowly overridden. Death's absence forces Mort to collect the next two souls, who are both located on separate parts of the Disc, and due to die on the same night that the alternate reality will be destroyed. Before he and Ysabell leave to collect the souls, Mort uses the part of Death within him to force Albert to provide a spell that will slow down the alternate reality's destruction. After Mort and Ysabell leave, Albert returns to Unseen University, under the identity of Malich. His eagerness to live on the Disc is reinvigorated during this time, and he has the wizards perform the Rite of AshkEnte in the hope of finally escaping Death's grasp. The ritual summons both Death and the part of Death that had been taking Mort over, restoring him to normal. Unaware of Albert's treachery, Death takes him back into his service, the Librarian preventing the wizard's escape. Mort and Ysabell travel to Keli's palace, where the princess and Cutwell have organised a hasty coronation ceremony in the hope that Keli can be crowned queen before the alternate reality is destroyed. With the reality now too small for Albert's spell, Mort and Ysabell save Keli and Cutwell from being destroyed with the alternate reality. They return to Death's domain to find a furious Death waiting for them, the latter having learned of Mort's actions from Albert. Death dismisses Mort and attempts to take the souls of Keli and Cutwell, but Mort challenges him to a duel for them. Though Death eventually wins the duel, he spares Mort's life and sends him back to the Disc. Death convinces the gods to change the original reality so that Keli rules in place of the Duke, who was inadvertently killed during Death and Mort's duel. Mort and Ysabell – who have fallen in love over the course of the story – get married, and are made Duke and Duchess of Sto Helit by Keli, while Cutwell is made the Master of the Queen's Bedchamber. Death attends Mort and Ysabell's reception, where he warns Mort that he will have to make sure that the original Duke's destiny is fulfilled, and presents him with the alternate reality he created, now shrunk to the size of a large pearl, before the two part on amicable terms. 

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In the 1950s, Robert Scott Carey, known as "Scott", is on vacation with his wife, Louise, when a strange mist covers him. Six months later, Scott notices his clothes are too large. Scott finds himself continuing to shrink, and seeks medical advice. At first dismissive, Scott's doctor confirms his shrinking with an X-ray. Scott is referred to a medical research institute, where it is determined Scott's exposure to the mist, combined with his later exposure to a pesticide, rearranged his molecular structure, causing him to shrink. Scott tells Louise in light of his predicament she is free to leave him. Louise promises to stay as Scott's wedding ring falls off his finger. Scott's condition makes him a national curiosity. Media attention forces Scott into seclusion inside his home. Scott is advised to sell his story and he begins keeping a journal of his experiences. Scott feels humiliated and lashes out at Louise. An antidote is found to arrest Scott's shrinking, but doctors advise he will never return to his former size. Emotionally broken, Scott leaves home and meets a dwarf named Clarice, who is in town working in a carnival sideshow. Clarice encourages Scott and he is inspired to continue his journal. Later, Scott notices he has become shorter than Clarice, and runs home. Scott shrinks small enough to live in a doll house and becomes more tyrannical. When Louise leaves home on an errand, Scott is forced to escape to his basement after Butch, the family cat, attacks him. Louise returns and assumes Butch ate Scott after she finds a bloody scrap of Scott's clothing. Louise prepares to move out and asks her brother, Charlie, to help. Scott encounters much hardship navigating his basement. The water heater bursts, but when Charlie and Louise come to investigate, Scott is too small for them to hear his screams for help. Scott next battles a large spider while finding food and shelter for himself. He ultimately kills the spider with a straight pin, and collapses in exhaustion. He awakens small enough to escape the basement through the squares in a screen. Scott accepts his fate of shrinking to sub-atomic size. However, he is no longer afraid, concluding that no matter how small he becomes, he will still matter in the universe because God will know he exists. 

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The titular hound Dr James Mortimer calls on Sherlock Holmes in London for advice after his friend Sir Charles Baskerville was found dead in the yew alley of his manor on Dartmoor in Devon. The death was attributed to a heart attack, but according to Mortimer, Sir Charles's face retained an expression of horror, and not far from the corpse the footprints of a gigantic hound were clearly visible. According to an old legend, a curse runs in the Baskerville family since the time of the English Civil War, when a Hugo Baskerville abducted and caused the death of a maiden on the moor, only to be killed in turn by a huge demonic hound. Allegedly the same creature has been haunting the manor ever since, causing the premature death of many Baskerville heirs. Sir Charles believed in the plague of the hound and so does Mortimer, who now fears for the next in line, Sir Henry Baskerville. Even though he dismisses the curse story as nonsense, Holmes agrees to meet Sir Henry in London as soon as Sir Henry arrives from Canada, where he has been living. He is a young and jovial good- looking fellow, sceptical toward the grim legend and eager to take possession of Baskerville Hall, even though he has just found an anonymous note in the mail warning him to stay away from the moor. When someone shadows Sir Henry while he is walking down a street, however, Holmes asks Watson to go with the young man and Mortimer to Dartmoor, in order to protect Sir Henry and search for any clues about who is menacing his life. Sherlock Holmes examining Dr Mortimer's walking stick Sir Henry Baskerville Holmes sees a clue in the Baskerville portrait Watson meets Stapleton Watson meets Miss Stapleton The hound killed by Holmes The trio arrives at Baskerville Hall, an old and imposing manor in the middle of a vast park, managed by a butler and his wife the housekeeper. The estate is surrounded by the moor and borders the Grimpen Mire, where animals and humans can sink to death in quicksand. The news that a convict named Selden, a murderer, has escaped from the nearby Dartmoor Prison and is hiding in the nearby hills adds to the barren landscape and the gloomy atmosphere. There are inexplicable events during the first night, keeping the guests awake, and only in the daylight can Watson and Sir Henry relax while exploring the neighborhood and meeting the scattered and idiosyncratic residents of the district. Watson keeps on searching for any lead to the identity of whoever is threatening Sir Henry's life, and faithfully sends the details of his investigation to Holmes. Among the residents, the Stapletons, brother and sister, stand out: Jack is overfriendly and a bit too curious toward the newly arrived, while Beryl, a rare beauty, seems all too weary of the place and attempts to warn Sir Henry of danger. Distant howls and strange sightings trouble Watson during his long walks on the hills, and his mood gets no better even inside Baskerville Hall. Watson grows suspicious of the butler, Barrymore, who at night appears to be signaling from a window of the house with a candle to someone on the moor. Meanwhile, Sir Henry is drawn to Beryl, who seems to be afraid of her brother's opinion on the matter. To make the puzzle more complex there are Mortimer, maybe too eager to convince Sir Henry that the curse is real; an old and grumpy neighbour, who likes to pry with his telescope into other people's doings; his daughter Laura, who had unclear ties to Sir Charles; and even a bearded man roaming free in the hills and apparently hiding on a tor where ancient tombs have been excavated by Stapleton for an unclear purpose. Unknown to everyone, even to his friend Watson, Holmes has been hiding in the moor all the time and has solved the mystery. He reveals that the hound is real and belongs to Stapleton, who seduced Laura and convinced her to lure Sir Charles out of his house by night, in order to frighten him with the apparition of the legendary hound. Beryl is indeed Jack's legitimate wife, abused and forced into posing as his sister to seduce Sir Henry and expose him also to the fangs of the hound, since Stapleton is in fact a descendant of the Baskervilles wanting to claim their inheritance. Meanwhile, the hound attempts to kill Sir Henry, but Barrymore had given the former's clothes to Selden, his brother-in-law, who dies in his place. Unfortunately the collected evidence is not enough for a jury to condemn Stapleton, so Holmes decides to use young Baskerville as a bait to catch the criminal red-handed. Sir Henry will accept an invitation to Stapleton's house and will walk back alone after dark, giving his enemy every chance to unleash the hound on him. Holmes and Watson pretend to leave Dartmoor by train, but instead they hide near Stapleton's house with Inspector Lestrade of Scotland Yard. Despite the dark and a thick fog, Holmes and Watson are able to kill the fearsome beast as soon as it attacks the designated victim, while Stapleton, in his panicked flight from the scene, drowns in the mire. 

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Gandalf tricks Bilbo Baggins into hosting a party for Thorin Oakenshield and his band of twelve dwarves, (Dwalin, Balin, Kili, Fili, Dori, Nori, Ori, Oin, Gloin, Bifur, Bofur, and Bombur) who sing of reclaiming the Lonely Mountain and its vast treasure from the dragon Smaug. When the music ends, Gandalf unveils Thrór's map showing a secret door into the Mountain and proposes that the dumbfounded Bilbo serve as the expedition's "burglar". The dwarves ridicule the idea, but Bilbo, indignant, joins despite himself. The group travels into the wild, where Gandalf saves the company from trolls and leads them to Rivendell, where Elrond reveals more secrets from the map. When they attempt to cross the Misty Mountains they are caught by goblins and driven deep underground. Although Gandalf rescues them, Bilbo gets separated from the others as they flee the goblins. Lost in the goblin tunnels, he stumbles across a mysterious ring and then encounters Gollum, who engages him in a game of riddles. As a reward for solving all riddles Gollum will show him the path out of the tunnels, but if Bilbo fails, his life will be forfeit. With the help of the ring, which confers invisibility, Bilbo escapes and rejoins the dwarves, improving his reputation with them. The goblins and Wargs give chase, but the company are saved by eagles before resting in the house of Beorn. The company enters the black forest of Mirkwood without Gandalf. In Mirkwood, Bilbo first saves the dwarves from giant spiders and then from the dungeons of the Wood-elves. Nearing the Lonely Mountain, the travellers are welcomed by the human inhabitants of Lake-town, who hope the dwarves will fulfil prophecies of Smaug's demise. The expedition travels to the Lonely Mountain and finds the secret door; Bilbo scouts the dragon's lair, stealing a great cup and espying a gap in Smaug's armour. The enraged dragon, deducing that Lake-town has aided the intruder, sets out to destroy the town. A thrush had overheard Bilbo's report of Smaug's vulnerability and reports it to Lake-town defender Bard. Bard's arrow finds the hollow spot and kills the dragon. When the dwarves take possession of the mountain, Bilbo finds the Arkenstone, an heirloom of Thorin's family, and hides it away. The Wood-elves and Lake-men besiege the mountain and request compensation for their aid, reparations for Lake-town's destruction, and settlement of old claims on the treasure. Thorin refuses and, having summoned his kin from the Iron Hills, reinforces his position. Bilbo tries to ransom the Arkenstone to head off a war, but Thorin is only enraged at the betrayal. He banishes Bilbo, and battle seems inevitable. Gandalf reappears to warn all of an approaching army of goblins and Wargs. The dwarves, men and elves band together, but only with the timely arrival of the eagles and Beorn do they win the climactic Battle of Five Armies. Thorin is fatally wounded and reconciles with Bilbo before he dies. Bilbo accepts only a small portion of his share of the treasure, having no want or need for more, but still returns home a very wealthy hobbit roughly a year and a month after he first left. 

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In 1984 Los Angeles, a cyborg assassin known as a Terminator arrives from 2029. Kyle Reese, a human soldier sent back in time from the same year, arrives shortly afterwards. The Terminator begins systematically killing women named Sarah Connor, whose addresses it finds in the telephone directory. It tracks the last Sarah Connor to a nightclub, but Kyle rescues her. The pair steal a car and escape with the Terminator pursuing them in a police car. As they hide in a parking lot, Kyle explains to Sarah that an artificial intelligence defense network, known as Skynet and created by Cyberdyne Systems, will become self- aware in the near future and initiate a nuclear holocaust. Sarah's future son John will rally the survivors and lead a resistance movement against Skynet and its army of machines. With the Resistance on the verge of victory, Skynet sent a Terminator back in time to kill Sarah before John is born, to prevent the formation of the Resistance. The Terminator, a Cyberdyne Systems Model 101, is an efficient killing machine with a powerful metal endoskeleton and an external layer of living tissue that makes it appear human. Kyle and Sarah are apprehended by police after another encounter with the Terminator. The Terminator attacks the police station, killing police officers in its attempt to locate Sarah. Kyle and Sarah escape, steal another car and take refuge in a motel, where they assemble pipe bombs and plan their next move. Kyle admits that he has been in love with Sarah since John gave him a photograph of her, and that he traveled through time to save her; reciprocating his feelings, they fall in love. The Terminator kills Sarah's mother and impersonates her when Sarah, unaware of the Terminator's ability to mimic voices, attempts to contact her via telephone. When they realize the Terminator has located them, they escape in a pickup truck while it chases them on a motorcycle. In the ensuing chase, Kyle is wounded by gunfire while throwing pipe bombs at the Terminator. Enraged‚ Sarah knocks the Terminator off its motorcycle but loses control of the truck, which flips over. The Terminator, now bloodied and badly damaged, hijacks a tank truck and attempts to run down Sarah, but Kyle slides a pipe bomb onto the tanker's hose tube, causing an explosion that burns the flesh from the Terminator's endoskeleton. It pursues them into a factory, where Kyle activates machinery to confuse the Terminator. He jams his final pipe bomb into the Terminator's abdomen, blowing it apart, injuring Sarah, and killing himself. The Terminator's torso reactivates and grabs Sarah. She breaks free and lures it into a hydraulic press, crushing it. Months later, a pregnant Sarah is traveling through Mexico, recording audio tapes to pass on to her unborn son, John. At a gas station, a boy takes an instant photograph of her and she buys it—the same photograph that John will give to Kyle in the future. 

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Retired sea captain James McKay (Gregory Peck) travels to the American West to join his fiancée Patricia (Carroll Baker) at the enormous ranch owned by her father, Henry Terrill (Charles Bickford), referred to by all as "The Major". After a meeting with Patricia's friend, schoolteacher Julie Maragon (Jean Simmons), McKay and Patricia are accosted by a group of drunks led by Buck Hannassey (Chuck Connors), the son of the Major's ardent and implacable enemy Rufus Hannassey (Burl Ives). In spite of the harassment and mockery, McKay surprises Patricia by standing his ground and allowing the group to leave without further incident. The next morning, McKay declines an invitation from the Major's foreman Steve Leech (Charlton Heston) to ride an indomitable bronco stallion named "Old Thunder". McKay then brings a pair of dueling pistols to the Major as a gift. When the Major learns of Buck's pestering of his daughter and future son-in-law, he gathers his men and goes to raid the Hannassey ranch despite McKay's attempts to defuse the situation. The Major's group finds neither Rufus nor Buck, so they settle for terrorizing the Hannassey women and children, as well as capturing and punishing the members of Buck's posse. Meanwhile, McKay privately tames and rides Old Thunder after many unsuccessful attempts, and swears his only witness, the ranch hand Ramon (Alfonso Bedoya), to secrecy. A gala is held on the Terrill ranch in honor of Patricia and McKay's upcoming wedding. At the height of the festivities, Rufus, carrying a shotgun, crashes the party and accuses the Major of being a hypocrite. The next day, McKay sets out to explore the country around the Terrill ranch. He tells Ramon to tell Pat that he is perfectly safe - given his navigating skills as a sea-captain. He chances upon the Maragons' deserted ranchhouse, on the "Big Muddy", as the ranch is known. The Big Muddy's territory is the location of the area's sole river, and as such it is a vital source of water for both the Terrill and Hannassey cattle during times of drought. McKay persuades Julie Maragon to sell the ranch to him thereby securing a wedding gift for Patricia. He assures her that both ranchers will continue to have unrestricted access to the river, continuing her policy of even-handedness. On his return McKay rides into the camp of a search party organised by Terrill and led by Leech. Ramon has attempted to tell the Major and Pat of McKay's message but they ignore him. The party ride back to the ranch where Leech calls McKay a liar when McKay explains to the Terrills that he was never lost, but McKay again refuses to be goaded into a fight, disappointing Pat enough to make the pair reconsider their engagement. He leaves the ranch the next morning - but only after fulfilling Leech's challenge of the previous evening. He asks Leech to keep the encounter secret. At dawn the two walk on to the prairie and fight until they both agree to end the encounter. The next morning, Julie tells Pat of McKay's purchase of the Big Muddy for her, which initially persuades her into considering making up with McKay. However, when she learns of McKay's plan to allow the Hannasseys equal access to the water, she once again turns against McKay. Meanwhile Buck has persuaded Rufus that he and Julie are courting. Buck brings Julie to the Hannessey's but Rufus realizes her interest is in McKay. However, he knows that the Major will attempt to rescue Julie so he takes her hostage, wishing to lure the Major into an ambush in the canyon leading to his homestead. Although McKay personally promises Rufus equal access to the water, he finds himself in a clash with Buck, which is ultimately settled with a duel. Buck fires before the signal, but misses, his bullet grazing McKay's forehead and leaving him open to be shot by McKay. He merely shoots his round into the dust upon seeing Buck's craven response to the prospect of being shot. Seeing an opportunity to kill McKay, Buck snatches another gun from a nearby cowboy. Disgusted by his dishonourable action Rufus shoots his son. Rufus goes to the canyon for a final confrontation with the Major and challenges him to a one- on-one showdown. Armed with rifles, the two old men advance and kill one another. McKay, along with Julie and Ramon, ride off to start life together. 

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Guy Hamilton, a neophyte foreign correspondent for an Australian TV network, arrives in Jakarta on assignment. He meets the close-knit members of the foreign correspondent community, including journalists from the UK, the US, and New Zealand, diplomatic personnel—and Billy Kwan, a Chinese-Australian dwarf of high intelligence and moral seriousness. Hamilton is initially unsuccessful because his predecessor, tired of life in Indonesia, had departed without introducing Hamilton to his contacts. He receives limited sympathy from the journalist community, which competes for scraps of information from Sukarno's regime, the Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI), and the conservative Muslim Indonesian military. However, Billy takes a liking to Guy and arranges interviews for him with key political figures. Billy introduces Guy to Jill Bryant, a beautiful young assistant at the British embassy. Billy and Jill are close friends, yet Billy subtly manipulates her encounters with Guy. After resisting Guy because she's returning to the UK, Jill falls in love with him. Discovering that the Communist Chinese are arming the PKI, Jill passes this information to Guy to save his life, but he wants to cover the Communist rebellion that will occur when the arms shipment reaches Jakarta. Shocked, Billy and Jill cut off contact with Guy, and he is left with the American journalist, Pete Curtis, and his own assistant and driver Kumar, who is secretly a member of the PKI. Kumar, however, remains loyal to Guy, and tries to open his eyes to all that is going on. Billy, outraged by Sukarno's failure to meet the needs of most Indonesians, decides to hang a sign saying "Sukarno feed your people" from the Hotel Indonesia expressing his outrage, but is thrown from the window by security men, and dies in Guy's arms. His death is also witnessed by Jill. Still in search of "the big story", Guy visits the Presidential palace after the army generals have taken over and unleashed executions, after they learned of the Communist shipment. Struck down by an Army officer, Guy suffers a detached retina. Resting alone in Billy's bungalow, Guy recalls a passage from the Bhagavad Gita, "all is clouded by desire", which Billy told him. Kumar visits him and tells him about the failed coup attempt. Risking permanent damage to his eye, a bandaged Guy implores Kumar to drive him to the airport, where he boards the last plane out of Jakarta and is reunited with Jill. 

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At a fairground in rural Northern Ireland, a Provisional IRA volunteer named Fergus and a unit of other IRA members, led by a man named Maguire, kidnap a black British soldier named Jody after a female member of their unit, Jude, lures Jody to a secluded area with the promise of sex. They ransom Jody for the release of an imprisoned IRA member, threatening to kill him in three days if their demands are not met. While Fergus stands guard over Jody, the two bond, much to the chagrin of the other group members. Jody tells Fergus the fable of the Scorpion and the Frog. Jody gets Fergus to promise to seek out Jody's girlfriend Dil in London should Jody be killed. The deadline set by Jody's captors passes with their demands unmet, and Fergus is ordered to take Jody into the woods to kill him. When Jody tries to escape, Fergus pursues him but cannot bring himself to shoot the fleeing man in the back. However, Jody is accidentally run over and killed by a British armoured personnel carrier as it moves in to attack the IRA safehouse. With his companions seemingly killed in the attack, Fergus flees to London, where he takes a job as a day labourer using the alias "Jimmy". A few months later, Fergus finds Dil, working as a stylist at a hair salon. Later, they talk in a bar, where Dil is tormented by a drunken customer, and Fergus follows the pair, who return to Dil's apartment for sex. Fergus, consumed by guilt over Jody's death, pursues Dil, protecting her from her obsessive suitor, and soon begins falling in love with her. Their relationship progresses, but when the two prepare to become intimate in Dil's apartment, Dil removes her clothes and reveals that she is transgender. Fergus's initial reaction is of revulsion; he rushes to the bathroom to vomit after hitting Dil in the face, and then leaves her apartment. A few days later, Fergus leaves Dil a note in her mailbox apologizing and the two make up; despite Fergus's initial shock at Dil being transgender, he is still taken by her. Around the same time, Jude unexpectedly reappears and tells Fergus that the IRA has tried and convicted him of treason in absentia. She forces him to agree to help assassinate a British judge, and mentions that she knows about Fergus and Dil, warning him that the IRA will kill Dil if he does not cooperate. Fergus continues to woo Dil. To shield her from possible retribution, he cuts her hair short and dresses her in Jody's old cricket uniform as a disguise. The night before the IRA mission is to be carried out, Dil gets drunk and Fergus escorts her to her apartment, where she asks him to never leave her again. Fergus stays with her, and admits his role in Jody's death. Dil, drunk, appears not to understand; however, in the morning, before Fergus wakes up, Dil restrains him by tying his arms and legs to the bed with stockings, leaving Fergus unable to complete the assassination. Holding Fergus at gunpoint with his own pistol, Dil demands that he tell her that he loves her and will never leave her; he complies, and she unties him. Jude and Maguire shoot the judge, but Maguire is shot and killed in turn by an armed bodyguard. The vengeful Jude enters Dil's flat with a gun, seeking to kill Fergus for not taking part in the assassination. Dil shoots Jude repeatedly, telling her she is aware that Jude was complicit in Jody's death and used her sexuality to trick him. Dil finally kills Jude with a shot to the neck. She then points the gun at Fergus, but lowers it, saying that she cannot kill him because Jody will not allow her to. Fergus prevents Dil from shooting herself and tells her to go into hiding. He wipes her fingerprints off the gun, replaces them with his own, and allows himself to be arrested in her place. A few months later, Dil goes to visit Fergus in prison and asks why he took the fall for her. He responds, "As a man once said, it's in my nature," and tells her the story of the Scorpion and the Frog that he heard from Jody. 

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In 1947 Portland, Maine, banker Andy Dufresne is convicted of murdering his wife and her lover and is sentenced to two consecutive life sentences at the Shawshank State Penitentiary. He is befriended by Ellis "Red" Redding, an inmate and prison contraband smuggler serving a life sentence. Red procures a rock hammer and a large poster of Rita Hayworth for Andy. Assigned to work in the prison laundry, Andy is frequently sexually assaulted by "the Sisters" and their leader, Bogs. In 1949, Andy overhears the captain of the guards, Byron Hadley, complaining about being taxed on an inheritance and offers to help him shelter the money legally. After an assault by the Sisters nearly kills Andy, Hadley beats and cripples Bogs, who is subsequently transferred to another prison. Andy is not attacked again. Warden Samuel Norton meets Andy and reassigns him to the prison library to assist elderly inmate Brooks Hatlen, a front to allow Andy to manage financial matters for other prison staff, guards from other prisons, and the warden himself. Andy begins writing weekly letters to the state legislature requesting funds to improve the prison's decaying library. Brooks is paroled in 1954 after serving 50 years, but he cannot adjust to the outside world and eventually hangs himself. The legislature sends a library donation that includes a recording of The Marriage of Figaro; Andy plays an excerpt over the public address system and is punished with solitary confinement. After his release from solitary, Andy explains that hope is what gets him through his time, a concept that Red dismisses. In 1963, Norton begins exploiting prison labor for public works, profiting by undercutting skilled labor costs and receiving bribes. Andy launders the money using the alias "Randall Stephens". Tommy Williams is incarcerated for burglary in 1965. Andy and Red befriend him, and Andy helps him pass his GED exam. A year later, Tommy reveals to Red and Andy that his cellmate at another prison had claimed responsibility for the murders for which Andy was convicted. Andy approaches Norton with this information, but Norton refuses to listen, and when Andy mentions the money laundering, Norton sends him back to solitary confinement. Norton has Hadley murder Tommy under the guise of an escape attempt. Andy attempts to discontinue the laundering, but relents after Norton threatens to destroy the library, remove Andy's protection from the guards, and move him to worse conditions. Andy is released from solitary confinement after two months, and he tells a skeptical Red that he dreams of living in Zihuatanejo, a Mexican coastal town. Andy also tells him of a specific hayfield near Buxton, asking Red—once he is released—to retrieve a package that Andy buried there. Red worries about Andy's well-being, especially when he learns Andy asked a fellow inmate for of rope. At the next day's roll call, the guards find Andy's cell empty. An irate Norton throws a rock at a poster of Raquel Welch hanging on the cell wall, revealing a tunnel that Andy dug with his rock hammer over the past 19 years. The previous night, Andy used the rope to escape through the tunnel and prison sewage pipe, taking Norton's suit, shoes, and ledger, containing proof of the money laundering. While guards search for him, Andy poses as Randall Stephens, withdraws over $370,000 (equivalent to $ in ) of the laundered money from several banks, and mails the ledger and other evidence of the corruption and murders at Shawshank to a local newspaper. State police arrive at Shawshank and take Hadley into custody, while Norton commits suicide to avoid arrest. The following year, Red is finally paroled after serving 40 years. He struggles to adapt to life outside prison and fears that he never will. Remembering his promise to Andy, he visits Buxton and finds a cache containing money and a letter asking him to come to Zihuatanejo. Red violates his parole by traveling to Fort Hancock, Texas, and crossing the border into Mexico, admitting that he finally feels hope. He finds Andy on a beach in Zihuatanejo, and the two reunited friends happily embrace. 

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The narrator inexplicably finds himself in a grim and joyless city, the "grey town", where it rains continuously, even indoors, which is either Hell or Purgatory depending on whether or not one stays there. He eventually finds a bus-stop for those who desire an excursion to some other place (the destination later turns out to be the foothills of Heaven). He waits in line for the bus and listens to the arguments between his fellow passengers. As they await the bus's arrival, many of them quit the line in disgust before the bus pulls up. When it arrives, the bus is driven by the figure of Jesus Christ, who we learn later is the only One great enough to descend safely to hell. Once the few remaining passengers have boarded, the bus flies upward, off the pavement into the grey, rainy sky. The ascending bus breaks out of the rain clouds into a clear, pre-dawn sky, and as it rises its occupants bodies change from being normal and solid into being transparent, faint, and vapor-like. When it reaches its destination the passengers on the bus – including the narrator – are gradually revealed to be ghosts. Although the country they disembark into is the most beautiful they have ever seen, every feature of the landscape, including streams of water and blades of grass, is unyieldingly solid compared to themselves: It causes them immense pain to walk on the grass, whose blades pierce their shadowy feet, and even a single leaf is far too heavy for any to lift. Shining figures, men and women whom they have known on Earth, come to meet them and to urge them to repent and walk into Heaven proper. They promise as the ghosts travel onward and upward that they will become more solid and thus feel less and less discomfort. These figures, called "spirits" to distinguish them from the ghosts, offer to help them journey toward the mountains and the sunrise. Almost all of the ghosts choose to return to the grey town instead, giving various reasons and excuses. Much of the interest of the book lies in the recognition it awakens of the plausibility and familiarity – and the thinness and self-deception – of the excuses that the ghosts refuse to abandon, even though to do so would bring them to "reality" and "joy forevermore". An artist refuses, arguing that he must preserve the reputation of his school of painting; a bitter cynic predicts that Heaven is a trick; a bully ("Big Man") is offended that people he believes beneath him are there; a nagging wife is angry that she will not be allowed to dominate her husband in Heaven. However one man corrupted on Earth by lust, which rides on his ghost in the form of an ugly lizard, permits an angel to kill the lizard and becomes a little more solid, and journeys forward, out of the narrative. The narrator, a writer when alive, is met by the writer George MacDonald; the narrator hails MacDonald as his mentor, just as Dante did when first meeting Virgil in the Divine Comedy; and MacDonald becomes the narrator's guide in his journey, just as Virgil became Dante's. MacDonald explains that it is possible for a soul to choose to remain in Heaven despite having been in the grey town; for such souls, the goodness of Heaven will work backwards into their lives, turning even their worst sorrows into joy, and changing their experience on Earth to an extension of Heaven. Conversely, the evil of Hell works so that if a soul remains in, or returns to, the grey town, even any remembered happiness from life on Earth will lose its meaning, and the soul's experience on Earth would retrospectively become Hell. Few of the ghosts realize that the grey town is, in fact, Hell. Indeed, it is not that much different from the life they led on Earth – joyless, friendless, and uncomfortable. It just goes on forever, and gets worse and worse, with some characters whispering their fear of the "night" that is eventually to come. According to MacDonald, while it is possible to leave Hell and enter Heaven, doing so requires turning away from the cherished evils that left them in hell (repentance); or as depicted by Lewis, embracing ultimate and unceasing joy itself. This is illustrated in an encounter of a blessed woman who had come to meet her husband: She is surrounded by gleaming attendants while he shrinks down to invisibility as he uses a collared tragedian – representative of his persistent use of the self- punishing emotional blackmail of others – to speak for him. MacDonald has the narrator crouch down to look at a tiny crack in the soil they are standing on, and tells him that the bus came up through a crack no bigger than that, which contained the vast grey town, which is actually minuscule to the point of being invisible compared with the immensity of Heaven and reality. In answer to the narrator's question, MacDonald confirms that when he writes about it “Of course you should tell them it is a dream!” Toward the end, the narrator expresses the terror and agony of remaining a ghost in the advent of full daybreak in Heaven, comparing the weight of the sunlight on a ghost as like having large blocks fall on one's body (at this point falling books awaken him). The theme of the dream parallels The Pilgrim's Progress in which the protagonist dreams of judgment day in the House of the Interpreter. The use of chess imagery as well as the correspondence of dream elements to elements in the narrator's waking life is reminiscent of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass. The book ends with the narrator awakening from his dream of Heaven into the unpleasant reality of wartime Britain, in conscious imitation of the "First Part" of The Pilgrim's Progress, the last sentence of which is: “So I awoke, and behold: It was a Dream.” 

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The Screwtape Letters comprises 31 letters written by a senior demon named Screwtape to his nephew, Wormwood (named after a star in Revelation), a younger and less experienced demon, charged with guiding a man (called "the patient") toward "Our Father Below" (Devil / Satan) from "the Enemy". After the second letter, the Patient converts to Christianity, and Wormwood is chastised for allowing this. A striking contrast is formed between Wormwood and Screwtape during the rest of the book, wherein Wormwood is depicted through Screwtape's letters as anxious to tempt his patient into extravagantly wicked and deplorable sins, often recklessly, while Screwtape takes a more subtle stance, as in Letter XII wherein he remarks: "... the safest road to hell is the gradual one – the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts". In Letter VIII, Screwtape explains to his protégé the different purposes that God and the devils have for the human race: "We want cattle who can finally become food; He wants servants who can finally become sons". With this end in mind, Screwtape urges Wormwood in Letter VI to promote passivity and irresponsibility in the Patient: "(God) wants men to be concerned with what they do; our business is to keep them thinking about what will happen to them". With his own views on theology, Lewis goes on to describe and discuss sex, love, pride, gluttony, and war in successive letters. Lewis, an Oxford and Cambridge scholar himself, suggests in his work that even intellectuals are not impervious to the influence of such demons, especially during complacent acceptance of the "Historical Point of View" (Letter XXVII). In Letter XXII, after several attempts to find a licentious woman for the Patient "to promote a useful marriage", and after Screwtape's narrowly avoiding a painful punishment for having divulged to Wormwood God's genuine love for humanity (about which Wormwood had promptly informed the Infernal authorities), Screwtape notes that the Patient has fallen in love with a Christian girl and through her and her family a very Christian way of life. Toward the end of this letter, in his anger Screwtape becomes a large centipede, mimicking a similar transformation in Book X of Paradise Lost, wherein the demons are changed into snakes. Later in the correspondence, it is revealed that the young man may be placed in harm's way by his possibly civil defence duties (it is stated in an earlier letter that he is eligible for military service, but it is never actually confirmed that he was indeed called up). While Wormwood is delighted at this and by the war in general, Screwtape admonishes Wormwood to keep the Patient safe, in hopes that they can compromise his faith over a long lifetime. In the last letter, the Patient has been killed during a World War II air raid and has gone to Heaven, and for his ultimate failure Wormwood is doomed to suffer the consumption of his spiritual essence by the other demons, especially by Screwtape himself. Screwtape responds to Wormwood's final letter by saying that he may expect as little assistance as Screwtape would expect from Wormwood were their situations reversed ("My love for you and your love for me are as alike as two peas ... The only difference is that I am the stronger."), mimicking the situation where Wormwood himself informed on his uncle to the Infernal Police for Infernal Heresy (making a religiously positive remark that would offend Satan). 

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The unnamed narrator is brought to trial before sinister judges of the Spanish Inquisition. Poe provides no explanation of why he is there or of the charges on which he is being tried. Before him are seven tall white candles on a table, and, as they burn down, his hopes of survival also diminish. He is condemned to death, whereupon he faints and later awakens to find himself in a totally dark room. At first the prisoner thinks that he is locked in a tomb, but then he discovers that he is in a cell. He decides to explore the cell by placing a scrap of his robe against the wall so that he can count the paces around the room, but he faints before he can measure the whole perimeter. When he reawakens, he discovers food and water nearby. He tries to measure the cell again, and finds that the perimeter measures one hundred steps. While crossing the room, he trips on the hem of his robe and falls, his chin landing at the edge of a deep pit. He realizes that had he not tripped, he would have fallen into this pit. After losing consciousness again, the narrator discovers that the prison is slightly illuminated and that he is strapped to a wooden frame on his back, facing the ceiling. Above him is a picture of Father Time, with a razor-sharp pendulum measuring "one foot from horn to horn" suspended from it. The pendulum is swinging back and forth and slowly descending, designed to kill the narrator eventually. However, he is able to attract rats to him by smearing his bonds with the meat left for him to eat. The rats chew through the straps, and he slips free just before the pendulum can begin to slice into his chest. The pendulum is withdrawn into the ceiling, and the walls become red-hot and start to move inwards, forcing him slowly toward the center of the room and the pit. As he loses his last foothold and begins to topple in, he hears a roar of voices and trumpets, the walls retract, and an arm pulls him to safety. The French Army has captured the city of Toledo and the Inquisition has fallen into its enemies' hands. 

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During the Cold War, Marko Ramius, a Soviet Navy submarine commander of Lithuanian descent, plans to defect to the United States with his hand-picked officers on board the ballistic missile submarine Red October, a vessel. It is equipped with a cutting-edge silent propulsion system, known as the caterpillar drive, that makes audio detection by passive sonar extremely difficult and enables the submarine to sneak its way into American territorial waters and launch nuclear missiles with little or no warning. As the ship leaves the shipyard at Polyarny, Ramius kills Ivan Putin, his political officer, to ensure that he will not interfere with the defection. Initially, Ramius was instructed to conduct military exercises with Soviet attack submarine V. K. Konovalov, commanded by his former student Viktor Tupolev, for the purpose of testing the effectiveness of the caterpillar drive. Instead, he plots on a new course for the North American coast, falsely informing the crew that they will be proceeding all the way to Cuba undetected. Before sailing, Ramius had sent a letter to Admiral Yuri Padorin, the uncle of his deceased wife, Natalia, brazenly stating his intention to defect; the Soviet Northern Fleet therefore sails out to sink Red October under the pretext of a search and rescue mission. By sheer happenstance, Red October passes near , a under the command of Bart Mancuso, which is patrolling the entrance of a route used by Soviet submarines in the Reykjanes Ridge off Iceland. Dallas′s sonar operator hears the sound of the stealth drive but does not immediately identify it as a submarine. As tensions rise between the U.S. and Soviet fleets (due to the unannounced incursion of the Soviet Northern Fleet into Atlantic waters), the crew of Dallas analyzes tapes of Red October′s acoustic signature and realizes that it is the sound of a new propulsion system. Meanwhile, CIA analyst and former Marine Jack Ryan, who was initially tasked to examine MI6's photographs of Red October, finds out that the submarine's new construction variations house its stealth drive. Later putting information about Ramius's letter together with the subsequent launch of the entire Northern Fleet, Ryan deduces Ramius's plans to defect. The U.S. military reluctantly agrees to assist, while planning for contingencies in case the Soviet fleet has intentions other than those inferred. After it is revealed that Ramius has informed Moscow of his plan for him and his officers to defect, Ryan becomes responsible for shepherding Ramius and his vessel away from the pursuing Soviet fleet and meets with an old Royal Navy acquaintance, Admiral John White, commanding a task force from the aircraft carrier . In order to convince the Soviets that Red October has been destroyed, the U.S. Navy rescues her crew after Ramius fakes a reactor meltdown. Ramius and his officers stay behind, claiming they are about to scuttle the submarine to prevent it getting into the hands of the Americans. A decommissioned U.S. ballistic missile submarine, , is blown up underwater as a deception. A depth gauge taken from the main instrument panel of Red October (with the appropriate serial number) is made to appear as if it had been salvaged from the Ethan Allen′s wreckage. Meanwhile, Ryan, Captain Mancuso, some of his crew, and Owen Williams (a Russian-speaking British officer from Invincible) board Red October and meet Ramius face-to-face. The deception succeeds in convincing Soviet observers that Red October has been lost and the Soviet forces withdraw. However, Igor Loginov, a GRU intelligence officer masquerading as one of Red October's cooks, was suspicious and stayed behind when the crew evacuated. On learning of Ramius' intentions, he attempts to manually launch one of the submarine's missiles in its silo in order to destroy Red October. Loginov is discovered and he fatally shoots Captain Lieutenant Kamarov (the ship's navigator) and seriously wounds Ramius and Williams. Ryan tries to reason with the GRU agent, who refuses to listen and is killed in a firefight in the submarine's missile compartment. Later, Tupolev, aboard V.K. Konovalov which stayed behind when the Soviet fleet withdrew, happens upon what they initially believe is an submarine, being escorted by two other submarines. Based on its acoustical signature, Tupolev realizes that the Ohio is in fact Red October, which was reported sunk, and proceeds to engage it. The two U.S. submarines escorting Red October are prevented from firing on the Konovalov by rules of engagement. After a tense battle in which the Red October is damaged by a torpedo from the Konovalov, Ramius manages to ram Tupolev and sink him. The Americans escort Red October safely into dry dock in Norfolk, Virginia, where it is analyzed by US military intelligence. Ramius and his crew are taken to a CIA safehouse where they are given new identities thus beginning their settlement into American life. Ryan is commended and debriefed by his superiors; he later flies back to his posting in London. 

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For thirty years, Colonel Mikhail Semyonovich "Misha" Filitov, a personal aide to the Soviet Minister of Defense and war hero, has been passing military, technical, and political intelligence to the CIA as their highest agent-in-place, codenamed CARDINAL. His latest mission concerns a Soviet anti-ballistic missile research project codenamed "Bright Star", based at a secret defense installation in Dushanbe, Tajikistan. Colonel Filitov sends Gennady Bondarenko, a Soviet colonel skilled with lasers, to Dushanbe to evaluate the facility and unwittingly procure information that Misha will then send to his CIA contacts. Unfortunately, a minor slip-up in passing Filitov's intelligence alerts the KGB, which then aggressively pursues the couriers involved. They later become suspicious of Filitov and place him under surveillance. The courier chain having been quickly shut down by the CIA station chief in Moscow, Edward Foley, Filitov's more important intelligence on Bright Star is delayed; however, he reveals the presence of a KGB agent infiltrating Bright Star's counterpart, Tea Clipper, which alarms the CIA. The CIA then tasks Foley with extracting CARDINAL out of the country. However, when his wife Mary Pat, also a CIA agent, attempts to make a brush pass to Filitov, the two are arrested by the KGB. The Foleys are then declared persona non grata, while Filitov is imprisoned and psychologically tortured until he eventually confesses to his crimes. In an effort to salvage the mission, CIA analyst Jack Ryan, who had now learned of CARDINAL's identity, concocts a plan to secure the return of Filitov and at the same time force the defection of KGB chairman Nikolay Gerasimov, who has been vying for the position of General Secretary since Filitov's arrest; Ryan tries to prevent his ascension to power due to his anti-American ideology. Ryan, who is part of the American arms negotiation team, travels to Moscow for the arms reduction talks. There he meets Gerasimov, and blackmails him into releasing Filitov and betraying his country; if his demands are not met, he will reveal what actually happened to the Soviet ballistic missile submarine Red October, which would disgrace the KGB chairman, who had used the incident to consolidate the KGB's control over the military. As counter-leverage should he refuse to defect, Gerasimov arranges for the kidnapping of Tea Clipper's top SDI researcher, Major Alan Gregory. Gregory's kidnapping was undertaken by KGB agent Tania Bisyarina, who has been handling a mole inside Tea Clipper. The mole, a lesbian named Dr. Beatrice Taussig who unluckily falls in love with Gregory's fiancée, eventually gives up Bisyarina to the FBI out of guilt, and the Hostage Rescue Team later saves Gregory from his Soviet captors in a shabby desert safe house in New Mexico. Ryan later informs Gerasimov, who finally caves into his demands. The KGB chairman's wife and daughter are later extracted by CIA operative John Clark from Estonia into the submarine . Meanwhile, the secret ABM facility in Dushanbe finds itself under attack by the Afghan mudjahedin, whose leader was known as "the Archer" due to his expertise in using surface- to-air missiles to bring down Soviet ground support aircraft. Colonel Bondarenko, who was there for a second round of evaluations, manages to repel the attackers, protecting Bright Star's scientific and engineering personnel and eventually killing the Archer. On the last day of the arms negotiation talks, Gerasimov releases Filitov so that they can both proceed to Sheremetyevo Airport, joining Ryan and the American negotiation team in returning to the United States. They successfully board the American delegation's aircraft, but Ryan allows himself to be captured by KGB officer Sergey Golovko, who is his counterpart in the arms talks and had become aware of their planned departure. He is then led to the private dacha of General Secretary Narmonov, where they discuss the CIA's interest in his political position and interference in the Soviet Union's internal security. Meanwhile, the Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-25 attempts to force the American delegation's plane to return back to Russia, but the plane successfully evades it. Filitov, who was extensively debriefed by the CIA, later dies due to heart disease. He was buried at Camp David, within twenty miles of the Antietam battlefield. His funeral was attended by Ryan and the Foleys, among others, as well as a Soviet military attaché who questions why Filitov would be buried close to American soldiers. Ryan, always working to keep the peace, explains to him, "One way or another, we all fight for what we believe in. Doesn't that give us some common ground?" 

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Japanese industrialist Raizo Yamata has been plotting to bring back his country to a position of greatness for years, partly as revenge for the death of his family at the hands of American forces invading the island of Saipan during World War II. His opportunity comes when a car accident in eastern Tennessee, caused by faulty gas tanks made in Japan, results in the deaths of six American people. The incident leads to the swift passage of a law allowing the U.S. to mirror trade practices of the countries from which it imports goods, cutting off the American export markets upon which the Japanese economy depends. Facing an economic crisis, Japan’s ruling zaibatsu, led by Yamata, decides to take economic and military action against the United States. Along with covert support from China and India, they plot to curtail the U.S. presence in the Pacific and re-establish the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. After the Japanese Prime Minister Mogataru Koga resigns in disgrace due to the economic situation, the zaibatsu installs Hiroshi Goto, an aggressive nationalist and critic of the U.S., to succeed him. Meanwhile, Japan has covertly developed nuclear weapons, and with SS-18 designs bought from the former Soviet Union, has fabricated and deployed several ICBMs. Japan launches the first phase of its assault, sending Self-Defense Force units to occupy the Mariana Islands, specifically Saipan and Guam, without casualties. However, during a joint military exercise, Japanese ships "accidentally" launch torpedoes at the U.S. Pacific Fleet, destroying two submarines and crippling two aircraft carriers. An immediate retaliation is forestalled by the second phase of the Japanese offensive: an economic attack, where Japan engineers the collapse of the U.S. stock market by hiring a programmer who is a consultant for an exchange firm to insert a logic bomb into the system, which when triggered blocks the storage of all trade records made after noon on Friday. They also assassinate the chairman of the Federal Reserve. The Japanese government then immediately sue for peace, offering international talks and seemingly free elections in the Marianas to delay a U.S. response. Meanwhile, Jack Ryan is pulled out of retirement from government service by U.S. President Roger Durling, who appoints him as National Security Advisor. Despite his typical focus on military issues, he advises the president to deal with the economic crisis first, realizing that Japan's deletion of trade records could be an advantage in responding to the economic threat. He engineers a "do-over", where all of the transactions that were deleted on the day of the mass deletion are ignored and all trade information is restored to its condition at noon of that day. The U.S. stock market is successfully restored with only minor disruption, and a group of U.S. investment banks start a massive economic unloading of Japanese investment products, effectively eliminating any gains made by the zaibatsu. The United States military then proceeds to launch a counterattack on their Japanese counterparts using whatever resources they have. In a staged accident, CIA operatives John Clark and Domingo Chavez blind two incoming Japanese E-767 pilots with a Dazzler that causes them to crash upon landing. The U.S. Air Force then proceeds to eliminate the rest of Japan's AWACS system through low-profile military attacks using widely dispersed U.S. assets, allowing B-2 bombers to destroy the hidden ICBM silos. They later use an attack by stealthy F-22 fighters to further damage Japan's air defenses. An Army special operations team is airdropped into Japan to support covertly inserted Comanche helicopters. One helicopter is used to attack another AWACS plane with air-to-air missiles while several others use Hellfire missiles to kill members of Yamata's cabal. Meanwhile, Admiral Robby Jackson liberates the Marianas with few casualties by using a combination of cruise missiles and carrier air attacks to severely damage the Japanese aircraft stationed on the islands, which forces the Japanese commander to surrender his troops. Outmaneuvered and cornered by the United States's military and economic response, Goto resigns, ceding power to his predecessor Koga, who was rescued earlier by Clark and Chavez from Yamata. Yamata and his surviving conspirators are arrested for treason, and the new Japanese government accepts the generous U.S. offer of status quo ante. Throughout the book, President Durling faces another political crisis: Vice President Ed Kealty is forced to resign after being accused of rape. With the crisis over, President Durling nominates Ryan as vice president for successfully handling the crisis. However, an embittered Japan Air Lines pilot, driven mad by the deaths of his son and brother during the conflict, flies his Boeing 747 directly into the U.S. Capitol during a special joint session of Congress. The president, as well as nearly the entire Congress, the Supreme Court, and many other members of the federal government are killed in the attack. Ryan, who is on his way to be sworn as vice president after being confirmed, narrowly escapes the explosion. He becomes the President of the United States and takes his oath of office before a district judge in the CNN studios in Washington. 

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{| class="infobox" style="font-size:100%;" |- ! Actor ! class="unsortable" | ! Role |- | | style="width:1.5em;" | | |- | | | |- | | | |- | | | |- | | | |- | | | |- | | | |- | | | |- | | | |- | | | |- | | | |- | | | |} In Antarctica, a Norwegian helicopter pursues a sled dog to an American research station. The Americans witness the Norwegian passenger accidentally blow up the helicopter and himself. The Norwegian pilot fires a rifle and shouts at the Americans, but they cannot understand him and he is shot dead in self-defense by station commander Garry. The American helicopter pilot, R.J. MacReady, and Dr. Copper leave to investigate the Norwegian base. Among the charred ruins and frozen corpses, they find the burned remains of a malformed humanoid which they recover to the American station. Their biologist, Blair, performs autopsies on the remains and finds a normal set of human organs. Clark kennels the sled dog, and it soon metamorphoses and absorbs the station dogs. This disturbance alerts the team and Childs uses a flamethrower to incinerate the creature. Blair autopsies the new creature and learns that it can perfectly imitate other organisms. Recovered Norwegian data leads the Americans to a large excavation site containing a partially buried alien spacecraft, and a smaller, human-sized dig site. Norris estimates that the alien ship has been buried for at least 100,000 years. Blair grows paranoid that the creature could assimilate all life on Earth in a matter of years. The station implements controls to reduce the risk of assimilation. The malformed humanoid creature assimilates an isolated Bennings, but Windows interrupts the process and MacReady burns the Bennings-Thing. Blair sabotages all the vehicles, kills the remaining sled dogs, and destroys the radio to prevent escape. The team imprisons him in a tool shed. Copper suggests a test to compare each member's blood against uncontaminated blood held in storage, but after learning that the blood stores have been destroyed, the men lose faith in Garry, and MacReady takes command. MacReady, Windows and Nauls find Fuchs's burnt corpse and surmise he committed suicide to avoid assimilation. Windows returns to base while MacReady and Nauls investigate MacReady's shack. On their return, Nauls abandons MacReady in a snowstorm, believing he has been assimilated after finding his torn clothes in the shack. The team debate whether to allow MacReady inside, but he breaks in and holds the group at bay with dynamite. During the encounter, Norris appears to suffer a heart attack. As Copper attempts to defibrillate Norris, his chest transforms into a large mouth and bites off Copper's arms, killing him. MacReady incinerates the Norris-Thing, but its head detaches and attempts to escape before also being burnt. MacReady is forced to kill Clark in self-defense when the latter lunges at him from behind with a knife. He hypothesizes that the Norris-Thing's head demonstrated that every part of the Thing is an individual life form with its own survival instinct. He sequentially tests blood samples with a heated piece of wire. Everyone passes the test except Palmer, whose blood jumps from the heat. Exposed, Palmer transforms and infects Windows, forcing MacReady to burn them both. Childs is left on guard while the others go to test Blair. They find that Blair has escaped, and has been using vehicle components to assemble a small flying saucer. On their return, Childs is missing and the power generator is destroyed. MacReady speculates that the Thing intends to return to hibernation until a rescue team arrives. MacReady, Garry, and Nauls decide to detonate the entire station to destroy the Thing. As they set explosives, Blair kills Garry and Nauls disappears. Blair transforms into an enormous creature and destroys the detonator. MacReady triggers the explosives using a stick of dynamite, destroying the base. MacReady sits nearby as the station burns. Childs returns, saying he became lost in the storm while pursuing Blair. Exhausted and slowly freezing to death, they acknowledge the futility of their distrust and share a bottle of scotch. 

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The novel is set in the future, when Malthusian overpopulation on Earth has been averted by the invention of teleportation, called the "Ramsbotham jump," which is used to send Earth's excess population to colonize other planets. However, the costs of operating the device mean that the colonies are isolated from Earth until they can produce something to justify two-way trade. Because modern technology requires a supporting infrastructure, the colonists employ technology from the frontier era (such as horses instead of tractors). Rod Walker is a high school student who dreams of becoming a professional colonist. The final test of his Advanced Survival class is to stay alive on an unfamiliar planet for between two and ten days. Students may team up and equip themselves with whatever gear they can carry, but they are otherwise completely on their own. They are told only that the challenges are neither insurmountable nor unreasonable. On test day, student walk through the Ramsbotham portal and finds themselves alone on a strange planet but reasonably close to the pickup point. Rod, acting on his older sister's advice, takes hunting knives and basic survival gear, rather than high-tech weaponry, on the grounds that the latter could make him overconfident. The last advice that the students receive is to "watch out for stobor." On the second day, Rod is ambushed and knocked unconscious by a thief. When he wakes up, all that he has left is a spare knife hidden under a bandage. In his desperate concentration on survival, he loses track of time. Eventually, he teams up with Jacqueline "Jack" Daudet, a student from another class whom he initially mistakes for a male. When she tells him that more than ten days have elapsed without contact, he realizes that something has gone wrong with the portal that was supposed to recover them and that they are stranded. They start recruiting others to build a settlement for long term survival and Rod becomes the de facto leader of a community that eventually grows to around 75 people. Disagreements reveal the need to elect a government for the new town. Rod has no taste for politics or administration and is happy to have Grant Cowper, an older college student and born politician, elected mayor. Grant proves to be much better at talking than at getting things done. Despite disagreeing with many of Grant's policies, Rod supports him. Grant ignores Rod's warning that they are living in a dangerously hard-to-defend location and that they should move to a cave system that he has found. When a species that had been thought to be harmless suddenly changes its behavior and stampedes through their camp, the settlement is devastated and Grant is killed. Rod is put back in charge. Heinlein tracks the social development of the frontier community of educated Westerners deprived of technology, followed by its abrupt dissolution when contact with Earth is reestablished. After nearly two years of isolation, the culture shock experienced by the survivors highlights for them and the reader the pain and uncertainty of becoming an adult by reversing the process abruptly. Each of the students returns from being a self-responsible member of an autonomous community to being regarded as a youth. All of the students go back to Earth willingly except for Rod, who has great difficulty reverting from the status of head of a small but sovereign state to a teenager, who is casually brushed aside by the adult rescuers. However, his teacher (and now brother-in-law) and his sister persuade him to change his mind. His teacher also informs Rod that his warning against "stobor" ("robots" spelled backwards) was just a way of personalizing the dangers of an unknown planet to instill fear and caution in the students, as all students receive the same warning, regardless of the planet they are sent to for the final exam. Years later, Rod is briefly depicted accomplishing his heart's desire. The novel's ending finds him preparing to lead a formal colonization party to another planet. 

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Gaea is an alternate dimension that was created from the combined wishes of the inhabitants of Atlantis when it started to sink into the ocean. Gaea has 100 different countries. On Gaea, Earth is known as the Mystic Moon. Gaea's size, mass, atmospheric composition, temperature belts, and even seasons are the same as Earth’s, although its gravity is lower, as implied by some of the jumps and acrobatic feats of some of the show's characters. The series focuses on Hitomi Kanzaki and her adventures after she is transported to the world of Gaea, a mysterious planet where she can see Earth and its moon in the sky. Hitomi's latent psychic powers are enhanced on Gaea and she quickly becomes embroiled in the conflicts between the Zaibach Empire led by Emperor Isaac Dornkirk and the several peaceful countries that surround it. The conflicts are brought about by the Zaibach Empire's quest to revive the legendary power from the ancient city of Atlantis. As the series progresses, many of the characters' pasts and motivations, as well as the history of Atlantis and the true nature of the planet Gaea, are revealed. 

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Ambitious San Francisco wedding planner Mary Fiore is re-introduced to childhood acquaintance Massimo by her father Salvatore, who wants them to marry, but Mary declines. Hoping to persuade her boss, Geri, to make her a partner at their company, Mary is hired to plan catering heiress Fran Donolly's society wedding to long-term boyfriend "Eddie". When Mary's shoe becomes stuck in a manhole cover, a man pulls her out of the way of a speeding dumpster, and she manages to thank him before fainting. Waking up in the hospital, Mary meets her rescuer, pediatrician Steve Edison. Her colleague Penny persuades Steve to attend an outdoor movie with them, but makes up an excuse to leave the pair alone together. Mary and Steve dance, but are interrupted by a heavy downpour before they can kiss. At a dance lesson with a client, Mary encounters Fran, who introduces her to her fiancé "Eddie", none other than Steve. Fran leaves them to dance together, and Mary angrily rebukes Steve for leading her on behind Fran's back. Penny persuades Mary that her career is more important than her feelings and to continue planning Fran and Steve's wedding, and Steve's colleague assures him that his connection with Mary is only due to pre-wedding nerves. On a visit to a potential wedding venue in Napa Valley, Massimo appears and, to Mary's horror, introduces himself as her fiancé. While riding through the estate with Fran's parents, Mrs. Donelly's singing frightens Mary's horse. Steve rescues Mary again and admonishes her for condemning his actions when she was also engaged. At home, Mary scolds her father for trying to set her up with Massimo. Salvatore reveals that his marriage to her mother, which Mary has viewed as the perfect relationship, was arranged and only became a loving relationship months later, leaving Mary conflicted. While visiting another potential venue, Fran reveals she is going on a week-long business trip and leaves Mary and Steve to continue preparations. They apologize for their angry words, and soon become friends. They run into Wendy and Keith, whom Mary reveals was once her fiancé until she caught him cheating with Wendy, his secret high-school girlfriend, on the night of their rehearsal dinner. After getting drunk and struggling to get back into her apartment, Mary breaks down, lamenting that Keith is married and expecting a baby while she is alone and miserable. Steve manages to get Mary inside and comforts her as she sobers up, insisting that Keith was a fool to pick Wendy over her. Steve leaves, but quickly returns and confesses his feelings for Mary. She sadly replies that she respects Fran too much to let anything happen between them, and sends Steve away. Fran confesses to Mary that she is unsure if she is still in love with Steve. Ignoring her own heart, Mary convinces Fran to continue with the wedding. At a birthday party, Massimo offers Mary a heartfelt proposal and she reluctantly accepts; the two couples prepare for their same-day weddings. Leaving Penny to coordinate the Donelly wedding, Mary goes to marry Massimo at the town hall. Steve asks Fran if they are doing the right thing, and she admits that she does not want to get married. They part as friends, Fran leaving to enjoy their honeymoon alone. Penny reveals Mary's marriage plans to Steve, and he rushes to stop her. At the town hall, Massimo and Mary prepare to marry but her father stops the ceremony, realizing the wedding is not what Mary wants. Mary, having given up on true love, insists that life is not a fairy tale and marrying Massimo is the right thing to do, but realizes he is not the one for her and leaves. Steve arrives to find Salvatore and Massimo, who reveals that he could not go ahead with the wedding knowing Mary was actually in love with Steve. Steve reveals his feelings to Salvatore, who tells him to go and get her. Steve and Massimo ride off on Massimo's scooter to the park, where another outdoor movie is starting. Steve finds Mary, asks her to dance, and they kiss. 

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The film is an enactment of a book read to a sick boy from Chicago, who is initially dismissive of the story, by his grandfather, with occasional interruptions of the scenes in this frame story. A beautiful young woman named Buttercup lives on a farm in the fictional kingdom of Florin. Whenever she instructs the farmhand Westley, he complies and answers, "As you wish". She eventually realizes that he truly means "I love you" and that she loves him in return. He leaves to seek his fortune so they can marry, but his ship is attacked by the Dread Pirate Roberts, who is infamous for never leaving survivors, and Westley is believed dead. Five years later, Buttercup is forced into marriage to Prince Humperdinck, heir to the throne of Florin. Before the wedding, she is kidnapped by three outlaws: a short Sicilian boss named Vizzini, a giant from Greenland named Fezzik, and a Spanish fencing master named Inigo Montoya, who seeks revenge against a six- fingered man who killed his father. The outlaws are pursued separately by a masked man in black and Prince Humperdinck with a complement of soldiers. The man in black catches up to the outlaws at the top of the Cliffs of Insanity. He defeats Inigo in a duel and knocks him unconscious, chokes Fezzik until he passes out, and kills Vizzini by tricking him into drinking from a cup containing poison. He takes Buttercup prisoner and they flee, stopping to rest at the edge of a gorge. When Buttercup correctly guesses that he is the Dread Pirate Roberts, she becomes enraged at him for killing Westley. When Buttercup sees Humperdinck and his men approaching, she shoves Roberts down a hill and wishes death upon him. As he tumbles down, he shouts, "As you wish!" Realizing Roberts is Westley, she throws herself into the gorge after him and they are reunited. Westley explains the Dread Pirate Roberts is actually a title passed on by subsequent holders: he had taken the title so the previous Roberts could retire. They pass through the dangerous Fire Swamp, which is inhabited by rodents of unusual size (ROUSes), but Humperdinck captures them when they emerge. Buttercup agrees to return with Humperdinck if he releases Westley, which he promises to do, before secretly ordering his sadistic vizier, Count Rugen, to take Westley to his torture chamber, known as the Pit of Despair. Westley notices that Rugen has six fingers on his hand before being knocked out. When Buttercup expresses unhappiness at marrying Humperdinck, he promises to search for Westley. Humperdinck's real plan is to start a war with the neighboring country of Guilder by killing Buttercup and framing Guilder for her death (he had hired Vizzini to kill her for that same purpose). Meanwhile, Inigo and Fezzik reunite when Humperdinck orders the thieves arrested in the nearby forest, and Fezzik tells Inigo about Rugen. Inigo decides that they need Westley's help to get into the castle. Buttercup berates Humperdinck after learning that he has not tried to find Westley; enraged, Humperdinck imprisons Buttercup in her chambers, and tortures Westley to death. Inigo and Fezzik follow the cries of anguish through the forest. They find Westley's body and bring him to a folk healer, Miracle Max, whom Humperdinck has recently fired. Max declares that Westley is only "mostly dead" due to his "true love" for Buttercup and revives him, but Westley is heavily paralyzed. After Westley, Inigo and Fezzik invade the castle, Humperdinck panics and orders the wedding ceremony shortened. Inigo finds and kills Rugen in a duel, repeatedly taunting him with his greeting of vengeance: "Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die". Westley finds Buttercup, who is about to commit suicide, assuring her that the marriage is invalid because she never said "I do". Still partly paralyzed, he bluffs his way out of a duel with Humperdinck and they flee the castle. Westley rides away with Buttercup, Inigo and Fezzik before sharing a passionate kiss with Buttercup. Back in the boy's bedroom, the boy eagerly asks his grandfather to read the story to him again the next day, to which the grandfather replies, "As you wish". 

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Identical twins Sharon McKendrick and Susan Evers (Hayley Mills) meet at Miss Inch's Summer Camp for Girls, unaware that they are sisters. Their identical appearance initially creates rivalry, and they pull pranks on each other, culminating in the camp dance being ruined. As punishment, Miss Inch decides that they must live together in the isolated "Serendipity" cabin (and eat together at an "Isolation Table") for the remainder of the camp season. After discovering that they both come from single-parent homes, they soon realize they are twin sisters and that their parents, Mitchell "Mitch" Evers (Brian Keith) and Margaret "Maggie" McKendrick (Maureen O'Hara), divorced shortly after their birth, with each parent having custody of one of them. The twins, each eager to meet the parent she never knew, decide to switch places. Susan gives Sharon a matching haircut and teaches her how to bite her nails, and they also take a crash-course getting to know each other's personalities and character traits so as to fool the parents. While Susan is in Boston at their grandparents' house pretending to be Sharon, Sharon goes to California to their father's house, pretending to be Susan. Sharon learns their father is engaged to a child-hating gold digger named Vicky Robinson (Joanna Barnes). Sharon calls Susan to tell her that their father is planning to marry Vicky, who is beautiful and dangerous, and that she must bring their mother to California immediately. Susan eventually reveals to their mother and grandparents the truth about their switching places. They are extremely happy to see Susan again, and Maggie and Susan fly to California. After Mitch and Maggie are reunited, they argue and the twins make their surprise appearance together. Mitch is extremely happy to see Sharon again, and after he tells Vicky the truth about the twins, she is shocked and furious — especially after learning that Maggie plans to spend the night at his house. The girls recreate their parents' first date at the Italian restaurant Martinelli's with a gypsy violinist. The former spouses are gradually drawn together, but have another fight about why they divorced in the first place, with Maggie telling Mitch that she and Sharon are leaving in the morning, and that she wishes him the best of everything with Vicky. Susan and Sharon try to find a way to delay their return to Boston, so the twins dress and talk alike so their parents are unable to tell them apart. They will reveal who is who only after returning from the annual family camping trip. Mitch and Maggie reluctantly agree. Vicky is furious, so Maggie tricks her into taking her place and letting her know it would give her a chance to get to know the twins better. Mitch is an outdoorsman, but Vicky is not, and she is not used to climbing mountains and being in the woods, so the twins decide to play tricks on her. Vicky spends her time swatting mosquitoes after unknowingly using sugared water instead of mosquito repellent. She is also awakened by two bear cubs licking honey, placed by the twins, off her feet. Exasperated, Vicky finally has a shouting tantrum, destroying everything in her path. The tantrum culminates in Vicky angrily slapping Susan and Sharon, leaving Mitch with a whole new-found view of her. When Vicky escapes back to the city in a great huff, Mitch seems none too worried to be rid of her. Back at the house, the twins apologize for what they did to Vicky, and are forgiven. Maggie makes dinner, and Mitch talks about what their life was like when they were married. They realize they still love each other, and do not want to grow into a couple of old and lonely people. They share a kiss, and decide to remarry. 

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The film's title-card In the future, sexual intercourse and reproduction are prohibited, whereas use of mind-altering drugs is mandatory to enforce compliance among the citizens and to ensure their ability to conduct dangerous and demanding tasks. Emotions and the concept of family are taboo. Workers are clad in identical white uniforms and have shaven heads to emphasize uniformity, likewise with police androids who wear black and monks who are robed. Instead of names, people have designations with three arbitrary letters (referred to as the "prefix") and four digits, shown on an identity badge worn at all times. At their jobs in central video control centers, SEN 5241 and LUH 3417 keep surveillance on the city. LUH has a male roommate, THX 1138, who works in a factory producing android police officers. At the beginning of the story, THX finishes his shift while the loudspeakers urge the workers to "increase safety"—and congratulate them for only losing 195 workers in the last period—to the competing factory's 242. On the way home, he stops at a confession booth in a row of many, and relates his concerns and mumbles prayers about "party" and "masses", under the Jesus Christ-esque portrait of "OMM 0000". A soothing voice greets THX, and OMM ends the confession with a parting salutation: "You are a true believer, blessings of the State, blessings of the masses. Work hard, increase production, prevent accidents and be happy." At home, THX takes his drugs and watches holobroadcasts while engaging with a masturbatory device. LUH secretly substitutes pills in her possession for THX's medications, causing him to develop nausea, anxiety, and sexual desires. LUH and THX become involved romantically and have sex. THX later is confronted by SEN, who attempts to arrange that THX become his new roommate, but THX files a complaint against SEN for the illegal shift pattern change. Without drugs in his system, THX falters during a critical and hazardous phase of his job, and a control center engages a "mind lock" on THX which raises the level of danger. After the release of the mind lock, THX makes the necessary correction to that work phase. THX and LUH are arrested and THX undergoes drug therapy. He enjoys a brief reunion with LUH, disrupted shortly after she reveals her pregnancy. At THX's trial, THX is sentenced to prison, alongside SEN. Most of the prisoners seem uninterested in escape, but eventually THX and SEN find an exit, and they are later joined by hologram actor SRT 5752, who starred in the holobroadcasts. During the escape, THX and SRT are separated from SEN. Chased by the police robots, THX and SRT are trapped in a control center, from which THX learns that LUH has been "consumed", and her name has been reassigned to fetus 66691 in a growth chamber. SEN eventually escapes to an area reserved for the monks of OMM, where a lone monk notices that SEN has no identification badge. SEN attacks him and later wanders into a child-rearing area, strikes up a conversation with children and sits aimlessly until police androids apprehend him. THX and SRT steal two cars, but SRT crashes his into a concrete pillar. Pursued by two police androids on motorcycles, THX flees to the limits of the city and escapes into a ventilation shaft. The police androids pursue him on motorcycles along the shaft to an escape ladder, but are ordered by Central Command to cease pursuit, on the grounds that the expense of his capture exceeds their allocated budget. The guards inform THX that the surface is uninhabitable, but he is undeterred and continues up the ventilation shaft. The city is then revealed to be entirely underground, and THX has escaped onto the surface, where he then witnesses the Sun setting. 

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The series follows an unnamed British man (played by Patrick McGoohan) who, after abruptly and angrily resigning from his job (seemingly being a government secret service post), apparently prepares to make a hurried departure from the country. While packing his luggage, he is rendered unconscious by knockout gas piped into his London flat. When he wakes, he finds himself in a re-creation of his home, located in a mysterious coastal "village" within which he is held captive, isolated from the mainland by mountains and sea. Although physical movement of residents around the Village is unconstrained, the premises are secured by numerous high-tech monitoring systems and security forces, including a balloon-like automaton called Rover, that recaptures or destroys those who attempt escape. The man encounters the Village's population: hundreds of people from all walks of life and cultures, all seeming to be peacefully living out their lives. They do not use names, but have been assigned numbers, which give no clue as to any person's status within the Village, whether as inmate or guard. Potential escapees therefore have no idea whom they can or cannot trust. The protagonist is assigned Number Six, but he repeatedly refuses the pretence of his new identity. Number Six is monitored heavily by Number Two, the Village administrator, who acts as an agent for the unseen "Number One". A variety of techniques are used by Number Two to try to extract information from Number Six, including hallucinogenic drug experiences, identity theft, mind control, dream manipulation, and various forms of social indoctrination and physical coercion. All of these are employed not only to find out why Number Six resigned as an agent, but also to elicit other purportedly dangerous information he gained as a spy. The position of Number Two is filled in by various other characters on a rotating basis. Sometimes this is part of a larger plan to confuse Number Six; at other times, it seems to be a change of personnel made as a result of failure to successfully interrogate Number Six. Number Six, distrustful of everyone in the Village, refuses to co-operate or provide the answers they seek. He struggles, usually alone, with various goals, such as determining for which side of the Iron Curtain the Village works, if indeed it works for any at all; remaining defiant to its imposed authority; concocting his own plans for escape; learning all he can about the Village; and subverting its operation. His schemes lead to the dismissals of the incumbent Number Two on two occasions, although he never escapes. By the end of the series, the administration, becoming desperate for Number Six's knowledge as well as fearful of his growing influence in the Village, takes drastic measures that threaten the lives of Number Six, Number Two, and the rest of the Village. A major theme of the series is individualism, as represented by Number Six, versus collectivism, as represented by Number Two and the others in the Village. McGoohan stated that the series aimed to demonstrate a balance between the two points. 

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The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945). Inset painting by Ivan Albright The Picture of Dorian Gray begins on a beautiful summer day in Victorian England, where Lord Henry Wotton, an opinionated man, is observing the sensitive artist Basil Hallward painting the portrait of Dorian Gray, a handsome young man who is Basil's ultimate muse. While sitting for the painting, Dorian listens to Lord Henry espousing his hedonistic world view and begins to think that beauty is the only aspect of life worth pursuing, prompting Dorian to wish that his portrait would age instead of himself. Under Lord Henry's hedonistic influence, Dorian fully explores his sensuality. He discovers the actress Sibyl Vane, who performs Shakespeare plays in a dingy, working-class theatre. Dorian approaches and courts her, and soon proposes marriage. The enamoured Sibyl calls him "Prince Charming", and swoons with the happiness of being loved, but her protective brother, James, warns that if "Prince Charming" harms her, he will murder him. Dorian invites Basil and Lord Henry to see Sibyl perform in Romeo and Juliet. Sibyl, too enamoured with Dorian to act, performs poorly, which makes both Basil and Lord Henry think Dorian has fallen in love with Sibyl because of her beauty instead of her acting talent. Embarrassed, Dorian rejects Sibyl, telling her that acting was her beauty; without that, she no longer interests him. On returning home, Dorian notices that the portrait has changed; his wish has come true, and the man in the portrait bears a subtle sneer of cruelty. Conscience-stricken and lonely, Dorian decides to reconcile with Sibyl, but he is too late, as Lord Henry informs him that Sibyl has killed herself. Dorian then understands that, where his life is headed, lust and beauty shall suffice. Dorian locks the portrait up, and over the following eighteen years, he experiments with every vice, influenced by a morally poisonous French novel that Lord Henry Wotton gave him. One night, before leaving for Paris, Basil goes to Dorian's house to ask him about rumours of his self-indulgent sensualism. Dorian does not deny his debauchery, and takes Basil to see the portrait. The portrait has become so hideous that Basil is only able to identify it as his by the signature he affixes to all of his portraits. Basil is horrified, and beseeches Dorian to pray for salvation. In anger, Dorian blames his fate on Basil and stabs him to death. Dorian then calmly blackmails an old friend, the scientist Alan Campbell, into using his knowledge of chemistry to destroy the body of Basil Hallward. Alan later kills himself. A 19th-century London opium den (based on fictional accounts of the day) To escape the guilt of his crime, Dorian goes to an opium den, where James Vane is unknowingly present. James had been seeking vengeance upon Dorian ever since Sibyl killed herself, but had no leads to pursue as the only thing he knew about Dorian was the name Sibyl called him, "Prince Charming". In the opium den, however, he hears someone refer to Dorian as "Prince Charming", and he accosts Dorian. Dorian deceives James into believing that he is too young to have known Sibyl, who killed herself eighteen years earlier, as his face is still that of a young man. James relents and releases Dorian, but is then approached by a woman from the opium den who reproaches James for not killing Dorian. She confirms that the man was Dorian Gray and explains that he has not aged in eighteen years. James runs after Dorian, but he has gone. James then begins to stalk Dorian, causing Dorian to fear for his life. However, during a shooting party, a hunter accidentally kills James Vane, who was lurking in a thicket. On returning to London, Dorian tells Lord Henry that he will live righteously from now on. His new probity begins with deliberately not breaking the heart of the naïve Hetty Merton, his current romantic interest. Dorian wonders if his newly-found goodness has rescinded the corruption in the picture but when he looks at it, he sees only an even uglier image of himself. From that, Dorian understands that his true motives for the self-sacrifice of moral reformation were the vanity and curiosity of his quest for new experiences, along with the desire to restore beauty to the picture. Deciding that only full confession will absolve him of wrongdoing, Dorian decides to destroy the last vestige of his conscience and the only piece of evidence remaining of his crimes; the picture. In a rage, he takes the knife with which he murdered Basil Hallward and stabs the picture. The servants of the house awaken on hearing a cry from the locked room; on the street, a passerby who also heard the cry calls the police. On entering the locked room, the servants find an unknown old man stabbed in the heart, his figure withered and decrepit. The servants identify the disfigured corpse by the rings on its fingers, which belonged to Dorian Gray. Beside him, the portrait is now restored to its former appearance of beauty. 

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Alvin Straight fails to show up to his regular bar meeting with friends and is eventually found lying on his kitchen floor. His daughter, Rose, takes her reluctant father to see a doctor, who sternly admonishes Alvin to give up tobacco and use a walking frame. Alvin refuses and instead opts to use two canes. Alvin learns that his brother, Lyle, has suffered a stroke. Longing to visit him, but unable to drive, Alvin develops a plan to travel to Mount Zion, Wisconsin on his riding lawn-mower, towing a small homemade travel-trailer along the way. This stirs doubt and worry in the minds of his family, friends, and neighbors. Alvin's first attempt fails: after experiencing difficulty starting the old mower's motor, he does not get far before the machine breaks down. Alvin arranges for his mower to be transported back home on a flatbed truck, where he takes out his frustrations on the mower with a shotgun blast. At the John Deere dealership, he purchases a used lawn tractor whose transmission is still intact from 1966. The salesman offers Alvin kind words as his journey resumes. On the side of the highway, Alvin passes a young female hitchhiker who later approaches his campfire and says that she could not get a ride. In conversation, Alvin deduces that she is pregnant and has run away from home. Alvin tells her about the importance of family by describing a bundle of sticks that is hard to break. The next day, Alvin emerges from the trailer to find that she has left him a bundle of sticks tied together. Later, a huge group of RAGBRAI cyclists race past him. He arrives at the cyclists' camp and is greeted with applause. That night, he speaks with a pair of friendly cyclists around the campfire about growing old. The next day, Alvin is troubled by massive trucks passing him. He then interacts with a distraught woman who has hit a deer, and is being driven insane by the fact she continually hits deer while commuting, no matter how hard she tries to avoid them. She drives away in a tearful huff, and Alvin, who has started to run short on food, cooks and eats the deer. He mounts the antlers above the rear doorway of his trailer as a tribute to the deer and the sustenance it provided. Alvin's brakes fail as he travels down a steep hill; he struggles to maintain control of the speeding tractor and finally manages to bring the vehicle to a complete stop. A man named Danny helps Alvin get his mower and trailer off the main road. They discover that the mower has transmission problems. Now beginning to run low on cash, Alvin borrows a cordless phone from Danny – gently refusing an invitation to come indoors – and calls Rose to ask her to send him his Social Security check. He leaves money on the doorstep to pay for his telephone call. Danny offers Alvin a ride the rest of the way to Lyle's, but Alvin declines, stating that he prefers to travel his own way. Verlyn, an elderly war veteran, takes Alvin into town for a drink. Though Alvin does not drink alcohol, he orders a pint of milk and the two men exchange traumatic stories about their experiences in World War II fighting against the Germans. Alvin's tractor is fixed and he is presented with an exorbitant bill by the mechanics, who are twins and are constantly bickering. Alvin successfully negotiates the price down, and explains his mission to help his brother. The twins seem to relate to Alvin's struggle. Alvin crosses the Mississippi River and makes camp in a cemetery. He chats with a Catholic priest who recognizes Lyle's name and is aware of his stroke. The priest says that Lyle did not mention he had a brother. Alvin responds that all he wants is to make peace with Lyle after their falling out ten years prior. Finally arriving in Mount Zion, Alvin stops at a bar to have a single beer; his first drink in years. He asks the bartender for directions to Lyle's house. Alvin experiences engine trouble just a few miles from Lyle's house, and stops in the middle of the road. A large farm tractor driving by stops to help, then leads the way to make sure Alvin gets to his destination. When he arrives, Alvin finds the house dilapidated. He calls for his brother. Using two canes, Alvin makes his way to the door. Lyle invites Alvin to sit down on the porch. Lyle tearfully looks at Alvin's mower-tractor contraption and asks if Alvin had ridden it just to see him. Alvin simply responds, "I did, Lyle." The two men sit together silently and gaze up at the stars. 

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A gang of bandits led by Calvera (Eli Wallach) periodically raids a poor Mexican village for food and supplies. After the latest raid, during which Calvera kills a villager, the village leaders decide they have had enough. On the advice of the village elder (Vladimir Sokoloff), they decide to fight back. Taking their few objects of value, three villagers ride to a town just inside the United States border hoping to barter for weapons. They are impressed by Chris Adams (Yul Brynner), a veteran Cajun gunslinger, and approach him for advice. Chris suggests they instead hire gunfighters to defend the village, as "men are cheaper than guns." At first agreeing only to help them recruit men, Chris eventually decides to lead the group. Despite the meager pay offered, he finds five willing gunmen. They are the gunfighter Vin Tanner (Steve McQueen), who has gone broke after a round of gambling and resists local efforts to recruit him as a store clerk; Chris's friend Harry Luck (Brad Dexter), who assumes Chris is hiding a much bigger reward for the work; the Irish Mexican Bernardo O'Reilly (Charles Bronson), who has fallen on hard times; Britt (James Coburn), an expert in both knife and gun who joins purely for the challenge involved; and the dapper, on-the-run gunman Lee (Robert Vaughn), plagued by nightmares of fallen enemies and haunted that he has lost his nerve for battle. On their way to the village they are trailed by the hotheaded Chico (Horst Buchholz), an aspiring gunfighter whose previous attempts to join Chris had been spurned. Impressed by his persistence, Chris invites him into the group. Arriving at the village, they work with the villagers to build fortifications and train them to defend themselves. They note the lack of women in the village, until Chico stumbles upon Petra (Rosenda Monteros) and discovers the women were hidden in fear that the gunmen would rape them. The gunmen begin to bond with the villagers, and Petra pursues Chico. When Bernardo points out that the gunmen are being given the choice food, the gunmen share it with the village children. Three of Calvera's men are dispatched to reconnoiter the village; due to a mistake by Chico the seven are forced to kill all three rather than capture at least one. Some days later Calvera and his bandits arrive in force. The seven and the villagers kill another eight of their cohort in a shootout and run them out of town. The villagers celebrate, believing Calvera will not return. But Chico infiltrates Calvera's camp and learns that Calvera must return, as his men are short of food. Some fearful villagers thereupon call for the gunfighters to leave. Even some of the seven waver, but Chris insists that they stay, even threatening to kill anyone who suggests giving up the fight. The seven ride out to make a surprise raid on Calvera's camp, but find it abandoned. Returning to the village, they are caught by Calvera and his men, who have colluded with some of the villagers to sneak in and take control. Calvera spares the seven's lives, believing they have learned the simple farmers are not worth fighting for, and fearing reprisals from the gunfighters' "friends" across the border. Preparing to depart, Chris and Vin admit they have become emotionally attached to the village. Bernardo likewise gets angry when the boys he befriended call their parents cowards. Chico declares that he hates the villagers; when Chris points out he grew up as a farmer as well, Chico angrily responds that it is men like Calvera and Chris who made the villagers what they are. The seven gunmen are escorted some distance from the village, where their weapons are returned to them. They debate their next move and all but Harry, who believes the effort will be futile and suicidal, agree to return and fight. The gunmen infiltrate the village and a gunfight breaks out. Harry, who has had a change of heart, returns in time to save Chris's life, but is himself fatally shot. Harry pleads to know what they were fighting for, and Chris lies about a hidden gold mine to let Harry believe he died for a fortune; Harry smiles before dying. Lee finds the nerve to burst into a house where several villagers are being held, shooting their captors and releasing the prisoners to join the fight, but is gunned down as he leaves the house. Bernardo, shot protecting the boys he befriended, tells them as he dies to see how bravely their fathers fought. Britt dies after shooting at many bandits but exposing himself from cover. Chris shoots Calvera, who asks him, "You came back... to a place like this? Why? A man like you? Why?" He dies without receiving an answer. The remaining bandits take flight. The three surviving gunmen ride out of town. As they stop atop a hill overlooking the village, Chico parts company with them, realizing he wants to stay with Petra. Chris and Vin bid farewell to the village elder, who tells them that only the villagers have really won, whereas the gunslingers are "like the wind, blowing over the land and passing on." As they pass the graves of their fallen comrades, Chris admits, "The Old Man was right. Only the farmers won. We lost. We'll always lose."Transcript of script. Accessed May 1, 2012.The film's closing lines echo the last words of the source film, Seven Samurai, spoken by the character Kambei: "Again we are defeated. The winners are those farmers. Not us." 

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The Sheffield Royal Infirmary, site of the hospital scene. Young Sheffield residents Ruth Beckett (Karen Meagher) and Jimmy Kemp (Reece Dinsdale) intend to marry due to her unplanned pregnancy. Meanwhile, as hostilities between the United States and the Soviet Union escalate, the Home Office directs Sheffield City Council to assemble an emergency operations team, which settles in a makeshift bomb shelter beneath the town hall. After a brief nuclear skirmish between the Americans and the Soviets in Iran, the people of Britain fly into a panic, resulting in riots and looting. "Subversives" (mainly consisting of peace activists and trade unionists) are arrested under the Emergency Powers Act. At 8:30am in Britain, Attack Warning Red is transmitted as a nuclear warhead air bursts over the North Sea, then another at nearby RAF Finningley. In the ensuing chaos, Jimmy disappears as he tries to find Ruth. Strategic targets, including steel and chemical factories in the Midlands, are also attacked, destroying two-thirds of all British homes and immediately killing 12 to 30 million people. The nuclear fallout prevents the remaining functioning civil authorities from fighting fires or rescuing those trapped under debris. Sheffield's emergency team is trapped under the destroyed town hall, and rescue is impossible due to the high levels of radioactivity and destruction of all surrounding roads. A few hours later, fallout descends upon Sheffield, fatally contaminating Jimmy's family. Searching for Jimmy, Ruth goes to the Sheffield Royal Infirmary, where she realizes there is no longer electricity, running water or medicine. Curbar Edge, Peak District, where the scenes set six weeks after the attack take place. A month after the attack, soldiers enter the ruins of the town hall, where they find the emergency staff have suffocated. Without the manpower or fuel to bury or burn the dead, an epidemic of communicable diseases spreads. The government authorizes capital punishment, and special courts execute criminals. The only viable currency becomes food, given as a reward for work or withheld as punishment. The millions of tons of soot, smoke and dust in the upper atmosphere trigger a nuclear winter, lowering temperatures and preventing crop growth. Ruth flees to the Buxton countryside, where she gives birth to a daughter. A year after the war, sunlight begins to return, but crop cultivation remains poor due to the lack of equipment, fertilizers, and fuel. Damage to the ozone layer intensifies ultraviolet radiation, causing an increase in cataracts and cancer. Military and civil authorities dissolve in the face of depleted resources. A decade later, Britain's population has dropped to medieval levels of about 4 to 11 million people. Survivors work in the fields with primitive tools, and children born after the war are intellectually underdeveloped and speak a stunted form of English. Prematurely aged and blind with cataracts, Ruth collapses in a field and dies, survived by her 10-year-old daughter Jane. Sometime later, industry returns with limited electricity and steam powered technology, but the population continues to live in barbaric squalor. Three years after Ruth's death, Jane and two boys are caught stealing food. One of the boys is killed, and Jane and the other boy engage in a struggle for the food that degenerates into "obscene intercourse". Months later, Jane gives birth in a makeshift hospital, and she screams at the sight of her stillborn child. 

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The player takes on the part of Prisoner 849, aboard the prison spacecraft Vortex Rikers. During transport to a moon-based prison, the ship is pulled to an uncharted planet before reaching its destination. The ship crash-lands on the lip of a canyon on the planet Na Pali, home of the Nali, a primitive tribal race of four-armed humanoids. The Nali and their planet have been subjugated by the Skaarj, a race of brutish yet technologically advanced reptilian humanoids. Skaarj troops board the downed Vortex Rikers and kill the remaining survivors, except for Prisoner 849 who manages to find a weapon and escape from the ship. The planet Na Pali is rich in "Tarydium", a mineral that is found as light blue crystals, possessing a high energy yield and are the reason the Skaarj have invaded. The ship has crashed near one of the many mines and processing facilities that the Skaarj have built. Prisoner 849 travels through the mines, meeting Nali slaves and eventually entering the ruins of Nali temples, villages and cities, where the extent of the Nalis' suffering and exploitation are made clear. Throughout the game the player stumbles across the remains of other humans, often with electronic journals that detail their last days and hint at the cause of their demise. Usually the tales are of desperate struggles to hide from the Skaarj or other bloodthirsty inhabitants of the planet. The player never meets another live human aside from a wounded crew member on the bridge of the prison ship who gasps and dies immediately. Prisoner 849 is likely the only human alive on the planet Na Pali throughout the game. Prisoner 849 continues to make her way through a series of alien installations, a second crashed human spaceship, and ancient Nali temples infested with Skaarj troops and their minions, eventually arriving at the Nali Castle. Inside the castle, the prisoner locates a teleporter that leads to the Skaarj Mothership. The mothership proves to be a vast labyrinth, but Prisoner 849 manages to find the ship's reactor and destroys it, plunging the vessel into darkness. After navigating the corridors in the dark, the player arrives at the Skaarj Queen's chamber and kills her. Prisoner 849 jumps into an escape pod as the mothership disintegrates. Although the prisoner survives the Skaarj, the escape pod is left to float into space with slim hopes of being found. 

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Elijah Price, comic-book art dealer, has brittle bone disease. He develops a theory based on comic book stories that there must be someone "unbreakable" at the opposite extreme. David Dunn, a former star football quarterback turned security guard, becomes the sole survivor of a train crash which kills 130 others while remaining completely unharmed. After a memorial service for the victims he finds a note on his car windshield asking if he has ever been ill and inviting him to Elijah's art gallery, "Limited Edition". David realizes that he has indeed never been ill, and goes with his young son, Joseph, to meet Elijah. He is unsettled and leaves when Elijah proposes his theory of real-life superheroes, but later, curious, finds he can bench press 350 pounds, well above his expectation. Joseph idolizes his father believing him to be a superhero, although David maintains he is just an ordinary man. David challenges Elijah's theory with an incident from his childhood when he almost drowned. Elijah suggests that highlights the common convention whereby superheroes have a weakness, contending that David's might be water. David recalls the car accident that ended his athletics career, in which he had been unharmed and ripped off the car door to rescue his girlfriend, Audrey. He had used the accident as an excuse to quit football because Audrey disliked the violence of the sport. Under Elijah's influence, David realizes that his "natural instinct" for picking out dangerous people during security checks is actually extrasensory perception. Consciously honing this ability, David discovers that touch contact with people permits him visions of criminal acts they have committed. As people bump into him in a crowd he senses crimes they have perpetrated; theft, assault, rape, and he finds one he can act on: a sadistic janitor who has invaded a family home, killed the father, and is now holding the wife and two children captive. He follows the janitor to the victims' house and frees the children. The janitor pushes him into the swimming pool where he nearly drowns as he cannot swim but is rescued by the children. He kills the janitor with a chokehold, but discovers the mother is already dead. The next morning David shows Joseph a newspaper article featuring a sketch of the anonymous hero whom Joseph recognizes as his father, and tearfully promises to keep his secret. David meets Elijah's mother who explains the difference between villains who fight heroes with physical strength and those who use their intelligence. Elijah asks David to shake his hand, which reveals that Elijah was responsible for numerous high-profile "accidents,” including David's train crash, while seeking a superhero rival. Elijah believes they are destined to become each other's nemesis and adopts his childhood nickname, "Mr. Glass," as his supervillain moniker. David reports Elijah's criminal attacks to the police, and Elijah is confined to a psychiatric hospital for the criminally insane. 

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During the Battle of the Atlantic, after sinking a merchant ship from an Allied convoy, German U-boat U-571 has her engines badly damaged by depth charges from a British destroyer. U-571's skipper Kapitänleutnant Günther Wassner makes a distress call that is intercepted by American intelligence. The US Navy has its submarine S-33 modified to resemble a German resupply U-boat, to try to steal the Enigma machine coding device and sink the U-571. Before the crew of S-33 receives its assignment, the submarine's executive officer Lieutenant Tyler is unhappy about a recommendation for command of his own submarine being blocked by his commanding officer, Lieutenant Commander Dahlgren. During a storm, S-33's boarding party surprises and overwhelms the crew of U-571. After securing U-571, the American S-33 is torpedoed by the arriving German resupply submarine. Dahlgren is blown off the deck and seriously wounded; while struggling in the sea he refuses rescue and orders the boarding party on the captured U-boat immediately to submerge. Tyler takes command of U-571 and dives below the surface, where they subsequently engage and sink the resupply submarine. After making repairs and restoring its power, Tyler decides to route the disabled submarine toward Land's End in Cornwall. However, they are spotted by a German reconnaissance plane, which is unaware that U-571 has been commandeered by Americans. A nearby German destroyer sends over some crew, but before they arrive, Tyler gives orders to fire a shot from the deck gun, which destroys the ship's radio room, preventing it from reporting the situation and revealing that the Allies have the Enigma. The submarine then dives beneath the German destroyer, which begins to drop depth charges. U-571's Kapitänleutnant Wassner escapes captivity, and kills one of Tyler's crew, but he is subdued before he can sabotage the engines. Tyler attempts to deceive the destroyer into stopping its attack, by ejecting debris and a dead crew member out of a torpedo tube, faking their own destruction. However, the destroyer continues to drop depth charges. U-571 drops below , and is damaged by high water pressure. They start to sink, and can only reverse this by ascending uncontrollably. Tyler orders crewman Trigger to submerge himself in the bilge underwater to repressurize the single remaining torpedo tube. Trigger uses an air hose to breathe inside the flooded compartment. He closes the air valve to the stern tube, but finds a second leak, which he can't reach. The crew realizes that Wassner, despite being shackled, is using Morse Code to tap out a signal that the submarine had been captured, so Hirsch kills him. U-571 surfaces heavily damaged and begins to flood, unable to fire its last torpedo. The pursuing destroyer fires with its main guns: the damage pins Trigger's leg, when he is beyond reach of the air hose. Unable to turn back, he manages to close the valve before he drowns. Tyler orders Tank to fire the torpedo; the destroyer is unable to take evasive action and is sunk. As the crew sigh in relief, Tank reports Trigger's death. However, the submarine has taken severe damage, and so the crew abandons it with the Enigma in their possession. They watch U-571 as it slips beneath the waves once and for all. They are eventually spotted and rescued from their lifeboat by a US Navy PBY Catalina flying boat. 

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