Margaret Tate is an executive editor in chief of a book publishing company. After learning she is about to be deported to Canada because she violated the terms of her work visa, she persuades her assistant, Andrew Paxton, to marry her. She reminds Andrew that if she's deported, the work he put in as her assistant will be lost, and he'll be set back in his dream to become an editor. Mr. Gilbertson, a U.S. immigration agent, informs them that he suspects they are committing fraud to avoid Margaret's deportation. Gilbertson tells them that they'll be asked questions about each other separately. If their answers don't match, Margaret will be deported to Canada permanently and Andrew will be convicted of a felony punishable by a $250,000 fine and five years in prison. Andrew insists that Margaret make him an editor after their marriage and publish the book he's been recommending to her. Margaret agrees.
Melvin Udall is a misanthrope who works at home as a best-selling novelist in New York City. He suffers from obsessive-compulsive disorder which, paired with his misanthropy, alienates nearly everyone with whom he interacts. He avoids stepping on sidewalk cracks while walking through the city due to a superstition of bad luck, and eats breakfast at the same table in the same restaurant every day using disposable plastic utensils he brings with him due to his pathological mysophobia. He takes an interest in his waitress, Carol Connelly, the only server at the restaurant who can tolerate his behavior.
Maggie Carpenter (Julia Roberts) is a spirited and attractive young woman who has had a number of unsuccessful relationships. Maggie, nervous of being married, has left a trail of fiancés. She's left three men waiting for her at the altar on their wedding day (all of which are caught on tape), receiving tabloid fame and the dubious nickname "The Runaway Bride".
Julianne Potter (Julia Roberts), a 27-year-old New York restaurant critic, receives a call from her longtime friend Michael O'Neal (Dermot Mulroney). In college, the two made an agreement that if neither of them were married by the time they turned 28, they would marry each other. Three weeks before her 28th birthday, Michael tells her that in four days, he will marry Kimmy Wallace (Cameron Diaz), a 20-year-old University of Chicago student from a wealthy family.
Mollie is an accountant living in New York City who has an affair with Albert, a womanizing executive who is married with two children, and becomes pregnant. During her pregnancy, Mollie and Albert keep their indiscretion secret, under the idea she was artificially inseminated, and that Albert plans to leave his wife Beth and their two children to be with her. Mollie and her friend Rona happen to catch Albert fooling around with his interior decorator Melissa and he admits he is planning on living with her after his divorce is finalized. Mollie leaves upset, and immediately goes into labor. She gets into a cab where the driver, James Ubriacco, recklessly speeds through downtown traffic in order to get her to the hospital on time, and he is inadvertently a witness to her son Mikey's birth. Mikey then begins to make commentary on his life and interacts with things through an inner voice which can also communicate with other babies.
The film begins with Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte, and Miranda meeting up with each other which turns into a flashback to how Carrie arrived in New York City in 1986, then met Charlotte one year later, Miranda in 1989. She also met Samantha, when she was bartender at a bar but she doesn't tell a year.
In 1593 London, William Shakespeare is a sometime player in the Lord Chamberlain's Men and poor playwright for Philip Henslowe, owner of The Rose Theatre. Shakespeare is working on a new comedy, Romeo and Ethel, the Pirate's Daughter. Suffering from writer's block, he has barely begun the play, but starts auditioning players. Viola de Lesseps, the daughter of a wealthy merchant, who has seen Shakespeare's plays at court, disguises herself as "Thomas Kent" to audition, then runs away. Shakespeare pursues Kent to Viola's house and leaves a note with the nurse, asking Thomas Kent to begin rehearsals at the Rose. He sneaks into the house with the minstrels playing that night at the ball, where her parents are arranging her betrothal to Lord Wessex, an impoverished aristocrat. While dancing with Viola, Shakespeare is struck speechless, and after being forcibly ejected by Wessex, uses Thomas Kent as a go-between to woo her. Wessex also asks Will's name, to which he replies that he is Christopher Marlowe.
Akeem Joffer, the crown prince to the throne of the wealthy African nation of Zamunda, lives a pampered lifestyle with every daily facet performed by servants. Akeem has become fed up with this and wishes to do more for himself. The final straw comes when his parents, King Jaffe and Queen Aeoleon, present him with an arranged bride-to-be named Imani Izzi, whom he has never met and who has been trained to obey Akeem's every command. Akeem concocts a plan to travel to the United States to find an intelligent, independent-minded woman he can both love and respect, and who will love Akeem for who he is and not for his wealth and social status as a prince. Akeem and his best friend/personal aide, Semmi, flip a coin to decide between going to either Los Angeles or New York City, and end up going to New York City. They end up in the borough of Queens and rent a run-down apartment in the neighborhood of Long Island City, passing themselves off as poor foreign students. They begin working at a local fast food restaurant called McDowell's—an obvious ripoff of McDonald's—owned by widower Cleo McDowell and his two daughters, Lisa and Patrice.
John Beckwith (Owen Wilson) and Jeremy Grey (Vince Vaughn) are divorce mediators in Washington D.C. The two friends frequently "crash" wedding parties to meet and bed women, working from a set of rules taught to them by a retired crasher, Chazz Reinhold.
Annie Walker (Kristen Wiig) is a single woman in her late 30s. Following the failure of her bakery, she lost her boyfriend and her savings, forcing her to take a job as a sales clerk in a jewelry store and to share an apartment with an obnoxious roommate Gil (Matt Lucas) and his sister Brynn (Rebel Wilson). Her business's failure was so painful that she has given up baking entirely. She has a no-strings-attached sexual relationship with the self-absorbed Ted (Jon Hamm) but hopes for something more from him. Her best friend, Lillian (Maya Rudolph), is virtually her only source of happiness.
A vindictive woman, Carrigan Crittenden, is upset upon the reading of her late father's will that she was given creepy Whipstaff Manor in Friendship, Maine instead of his fortune, but she changes her tune when she learns that there is a hidden treasure within the property. She and her assistant Dibs go to the house attempting to investigate, but discover that it is haunted by a friendly ghost named Casper and his obnoxious prankster uncles, the Ghostly Trio (Fatso, Stretch and Stinkie), who immediately frighten them off the property. Carrigan tries multiple methods to rid the house of ghosts, but fails time and time again. Meanwhile, Casper sees a report of a paranormal therapist, James Harvey, and is immediately smitten with his teenaged daughter Kat. He quickly inhabits the television in Carrigan's hotel room in order to convince her to have the Harveys come to the manor to investigate the haunting.
After breaking up for the summer, the four friends regroup for a party held by Stifler (Seann William Scott), their overtly sex-crazed class clown and friend. His party is shut down thanks in part to the neighbors calling the police. Kevin (Thomas Ian Nicholas) is inspired by his brother to make his summer with his friends count by renting a beach home. He, Jim, Oz and Finch plan to take off to a beach house together, where they intend to spend the summer. Kevin realizes a problem and worked out that they can only afford the house if they have a fifth member to work along with them. Stifler takes charge of much of the organizing, often ending up leading the group in their endeavors.
Bridget Jones (Renée Zellweger) is frustrated: she is in her early thirties, single, very accident-prone and worried about her weight. She works in publicity at a book publishing company in London where her main focus is fantasizing about her boss, Daniel Cleaver (Hugh Grant). At a New Year party hosted by her parents, she re-meets Mark Darcy (Colin Firth), the barrister son of her parents' friends. They had known each other as children. After their initial encounter, Mark thinks that Bridget is a fool and vulgar and Bridget thinks that he is arrogant and rude, and is disgusted by his novelty Christmas jumper. After overhearing Mark grumble to his mother about her attempts to set him up with Bridget "A verbally incontinent spinster who smokes like a chimney, drinks like a fish and dresses like her mother", she decides to turn her life around. She starts her own diary, which covers all her attempts to stop smoking, lose weight and find her Mr.
An English woman, Elise Clifton-Ward (Angelina Jolie), is being followed by French Police who are working with Scotland Yard under the direction of Inspector John Acheson (Paul Bettany). Acheson has spent years hunting Alexander Pearce, a lover of Elise, who owes £744 million in back taxes, and is believed to have received plastic surgery to alter his appearance. At a Parisian cafe, Elise receives written instructions from Pearce: Board the train to Venice; pick out a man; let the police believe that he is Pearce. Elise burns the note, evades the police and boards the train.
Harry Sanborn (Jack Nicholson) is a wealthy New York music mogul who has had a 40-year habit of dating women under 30, including his latest conquest, Marin Klein (Amanda Peet). The two drive to her mother's Hamptons beach house expecting to be alone, but are surprised by Marin's mother, successful playwright Erica Barry (Diane Keaton), who is there with her sister Zoe (Frances McDormand).