On July 20, 1969, astronaut Jim Lovell hosts a party, where guests watch on television as Neil Armstrong takes his first steps on the Moon during Apollo 11. After the party, Lovell, who had orbited the Moon on Apollo 8, tells his wife Marilyn that he intends to walk on the Moon's surface.
On the morning of September 11, 2001, four al-Qaeda terrorists Ziad Jarrah, Saeed al-Ghamdi, Ahmed al-Nami, and Ahmed al-Haznawi pray in their respective hotel rooms before arriving at Newark Liberty International Airport. The quartet wait at a gate after getting through security to board San Francisco-bound United 93. After 40 minutes of delay due to traffic the plane takes off, flown by captain Jason Dahl and first officer Leroy Homer, with all four terrorists on board.
The film tells the story of Dr. Henry Jekyll (Fredric March), a kind English doctor in Victorian London, who is certain that within each man lurks impulses for both good and evil. One evening, Jekyll attends a party at the home of his fiancée Muriel Carew (Rose Hobart), the daughter of Brigadier General Sir Danvers Carew (Halliwell Hobbes). After the other guests have left, Jekyll informs Sir Danvers that, after speaking to Muriel, he wants Carew's permission to push up their wedding date. Sir Danvers sternly refuses Jekyll's request. Later, while walking home with his colleague, Dr. John Lanyon (Holmes Herbert), Jekyll spots a bar singer, Ivy Pearson (Miriam Hopkins), being attacked by a man outside her boarding house. Jekyll drives the man away and carries Ivy up to her room to attend to her. Ivy begins flirting with Jekyll and feigning injury, but Jekyll fights temptation and leaves with Lanyon.
Architect Doug Roberts (Newman) returns to San Francisco for the dedication of the Glass Tower, which he designed for owner James Duncan (Holden). At 138 stories (1,800 ft/550 m), it is the world's tallest building. Shortly after his arrival, an electrical short starts an undetected fire on the 81st floor while Roberts accuses the building's electrical engineer, Roger Simmons (Chamberlain), of cutting corners. Simmons insists the building is up to standards.
Jay Baruchel arrives in Los Angeles to visit with old friend and fellow actor Seth Rogen, who invites him to attend a housewarming party hosted by James Franco. Jay is uncomfortable being around so many people he hardly knows, so Seth accompanies him to a convenience store for cigarettes.
On an expedition in Antarctica, paleoclimatologist Jack Hall and his colleagues Frank and Jason are drilling for ice-core samples on the Larsen Ice Shelf for the NOAA when the shelf breaks off.
On May 10, 1998, teenage amateur astronomer Leo Biederman discovers an unusual object near the stars Mizar and Alcor at a star party in Richmond, Virginia with his school's astronomy club. His teacher alerts astronomer Dr. Marcus Wolf, who realizes that the object is a comet on a collision course with Earth. Wolf dies in a car accident before he can alert the world.
In Upstate New York, a waste management firm loads barrels of toxic waste onto trucks, intending to illegally dispose of them. They are shown heading into a tunnel under the Hudson River between Lower Manhattan and Jersey City, New Jersey along with several other commuters, including struggling playwright Maddy Thompson (Amy Brenneman), some young offenders, a vacationing family, an elderly couple, and a mountain climber named Roy Nord (Viggo Mortensen). Meanwhile, a gang of diamond thieves in a stolen car try to escape the NYPD by racing into the tunnel. The gang force their way through the north tube traffic, spilling the diamonds all over the floor of the car. While a female thief tries to retrieve them, she pushes the gas pedal to the floor, causing the driver to lose control, smashing though a security booth and into one of the trucks, killing them instantly. The waste barrels explode, causing the other trucks to explode and setting off a chain reaction. The tunnel entrances cave in, and a devastating fireball sweeps through the tunnel, incinerating thousands of cars and people.
While Dori Thorell (Sharon Lawrence) and her 9-year-old son, Danny (Michal Suchánek), eat breakfast, Sam Thorell (Garwin Sanford) calls from his business trip. Ballerina Diane Agostini (Jennifer Garner) is on the phone with her father when a blender shakes off the counter. Dismissing it, she ends the call and rushes off to a rehearsal session at the New York City Ballet. But she's scolded for being late. Public defender Evie Lincoln (Lisa Nicole Carson) talks with her client Joshua Bingham (JR Bourne) about his case. That evening, tremors cause a gas leak at Diane's apartment complex. Though the electricity is still on in the evacuated building, Fire Chief Thomas Ahearn (Tom Skerritt) sends his crew inside. The building explodes, killing several men. At a party at Gracie Mansion, Evie's grandmother Emily Lincoln (Cicely Tyson) chastises her for being late. Her father, Mayor Bruce Lincoln (Charles S. Dutton), coerces her into going to a job interview at a big law firm.
A privately owned luxury Boeing 747-100, Stevens' Flight 23, flies invited guests to an estate in Palm Beach, Florida, owned by wealthy philanthropist Philip Stevens, who also owns the jetliner. Valuable artwork from Stevens's private collection is also on board the jetliner, to be eventually displayed in his new museum. Such a collection motivates a group of thieves led by co-pilot Bob Chambers to hijack the aircraft.
During a routine flight to Minneapolis, a passenger (Susan Dey) aboard Global Airways Flight 502, a Boeing 707, discovers a bomb threat written on the mirror of one of the first-class bathrooms. A second threat is soon found left on a napkin in a galley. Captain Hank O'Hara (Charlton Heston) takes the cryptic threats seriously and follows the instructions -- "Bomb on plane divert to Anchorage Alaska. No Joke, No Tricks. Death"—by changing course for Alaska. To avoid an explosive decompression if a bomb goes off, he flies at lower altitude, increasing fuel consumption.
An earthquake strikes the city of Los Angeles. Mike Roark (Tommy Lee Jones), the head of the city's Office of Emergency Management, insists on coming to work to help out with the crisis, even though he has taken a vacation with his daughter Kelly (Gaby Hoffmann). His associate Emmit Reese (Don Cheadle) notes the quake caused no major damage, but seven utility workers are later burned to death in a storm drain, one escaped and survived but was severely burned on one side of his face at MacArthur Park. As a precaution, Roark tries to halt the subway lines which run parallel to where the deaths took place, but Los Angeles MTA Chairman Stan Olber (John Carroll Lynch) declines, feeling there is no threat to the trains. Against regulations, Roark and a colleague Gator Harris (Michael Rispoli) venture down the storm sewer in the park to investigate. They are nearly burned to death when hot gases suddenly spew out of a crack in the concrete lining and flood the tunnel. Geologist Dr. Amy Barnes (Anne Heche) believes a volcano may be rapidly forming beneath the city with magma flowing underground (similar to the formation of the Mexican volcano Parícutin which emerged and grew tremendously in just one week) but cannot come up with enough evidence for Roark to take action.
Markus Voss est le chef de projet d'un gigantesque tunnel en construction. Comme tous les jours, son fils, un adolescent de 14 ans, emprunte la ligne de bus 152 afin de se rendre en ville. A la suite de pluies diluviennes, la route s'effondre brusquement, précipitant le bus dans un magma de terre, d'eau et de boue.
Engineer Cal Miller's unauthorized attempt to close off the dangerously unstable Madison Bridge is foiled by the police pursuit of a robbery suspect. The chase ends in a multi-car accident in the middle of the bridge, which begins falling apart during the confusion. Miller organizes a rescue operation for the handful of bystanders who find themselves stranded with the armed suspect and a wounded policeman on a short stretch of crumbling pavement high atop a single collapsing pylon.
Un avion commercial, transportant plus de 90 personnes, décolle de Nice à destination de Munich. Mais quelques minutes plus tard, il entre en collision avec un bimoteur, ce qui provoque une brèche sous le fuselage de l'appareil. Les autorités du transport aérien allemand se préparent au pire : en effet, dès que l'appareil aura les réservoirs vides, il peut provoquer une catastrophe : l'avion pourrait s'écraser sur le centre de Berlin, provoquant des centaines, voire des milliers de victimes.