Tobey Marshall is a former race car driver who owns a Mount Kisco, New York garage, where he and his friends tune performance cars. Struggling to make ends meet, he and his crew participate in street races after hours. One day, Dino Brewster, Tobey's former rival, arrives at his garage in a Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren with an offer to complete the build of a rare Ford Shelby Mustang worked on by the late Carroll Shelby. Dino wants Tobey and his crew to complete the project in exchange for 25% of the car's estimated selling price of $2 million. Despite objections from the crew, Tobey agrees to the deal.
On Fat Tuesday in New Orleans, the ferry Sen. Alvin T. Stumpf is carrying hundreds of U.S. Navy sailors and their families across the Mississippi River from their base to the city. Suddenly, the ferry explodes and sinks, killing 543 passengers and crew. Special Agent Doug Carlin (Denzel Washington) from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATF) is sent to investigate and discovers evidence of a bomb planted by a domestic terrorist. Arriving at the scene he hears his unique ring tone coming from a nearby body bag. He then meets with local investigators and FBI Special Agent Paul Pryzwarra (Val Kilmer), and informs them of his findings. He later learns about a charred body pulled from the river, identified as Claire Kuchever (Paula Patton). Unlike the other bodies from the ferry, though, this one appears to have been killed before the explosion.
Jerry Shaw (Shia LaBeouf) is a Stanford University dropout who learns his identical twin brother Ethan, a first lieutenant in the US Air Force, has been killed. Following the funeral, Jerry is surprised to find $750,000 in his bank account. Later he finds his Chicago apartment filled with weapons, ammonium nitrate, classified DOD documents, and forged passports. He receives a phone call from a woman (Julianne Moore) who warns that the FBI is about to arrest him and he needs to run.
In 1984, Captain Ray Quick and Colonel Ned Trent, explosives experts working for the CIA, are on a mission to blow up a car transporting a South American drug dealer. But when the car appears, a little girl is inside with the dealer. Ray insists they abort the mission, but Ned intends to see it through and allows the explosion to happen, resulting in the deaths of both the drug dealer and the girl. Angered by the girl's wrongful death, Ray savagely beats Ned and flees, effectively resigning from the CIA.
In AD 26, Judah Ben-Hur (Charlton Heston) is a wealthy prince and merchant in Jerusalem, who lives with his mother, Miriam (Martha Scott); his sister, Tirzah (Cathy O'Donnell); their loyal slave, Simonides (Sam Jaffe); and his daughter, Esther (Haya Harareet), who loves Ben-Hur but is betrothed to another. His childhood friend, the Roman citizen Messala (Stephen Boyd), is now a tribune. After several years away from Jerusalem, Messala returns as the new commander of the Roman garrison. Messala believes in the glory of Rome and its imperial power, while Ben-Hur is devoted to his faith and the freedom of the Jewish people.
A joint mission of the American FBI and the Russian MVD leads to the death of the younger brother of an Azerbaijani mobster (David Hayman). In retaliation, the mobster hires an enigmatic assassin known only by the pseudonym "The Jackal" (Bruce Willis) to kill an unseen target. The Jackal demands $70 million for the job, to which the mobster reluctantly agrees. Meanwhile, the MVD capture one of the mafia's henchmen. During interrogation by torture, the henchman reveals the name "Jackal". This, coupled with the documents recovered from the henchman's briefcase, leads the FBI and MVD to assume the target for the retaliatory hit is FBI Director Donald Brown (John Cunningham).
Phil and Claire Foster (Steve Carell and Tina Fey) are a married couple from New Jersey with two children and whose domestic life has become boring and routine. Phil is a tax lawyer while Claire is a realtor. They are motivated to reignite their romance after learning that their best friends, Brad and Haley (Mark Ruffalo and Kristen Wiig), are planning to divorce to escape the married-life routine and to have more excitement in their lives.
Major Vic "Deak" Deakins (John Travolta) and Captain Riley Hale (Christian Slater) are pilots in the United States Air Force. After a sparring match, the pilots are assigned to a top secret evening exercise over Utah, flying a B-3 Stealth Bomber (a fictional iteration of the B-2 Spirit stealth bomber) with two B83 nuclear bombs on board.
Marcus Burnett (Martin Lawrence) and Mike Lowrey (Will Smith) are best friends and detectives in the narcotics division of the Miami Police Department. One night, $100 million of Mafia seized heroin is stolen from a secure police vault. This is a major blow to Burnett and Lowrey, because it was the biggest drug bust of their careers. Internal Affairs suspects that it was an inside job with corrupted police officers and warns the rest of the department that if they do not recover the drugs in five days, the narcotics division will be shut down.
In 1972, eight-year-old Francis "Frankie" McGuire sees his father gunned down due to his Irish republican sympathies. In September 1992, the grown-up Frankie (Brad Pitt) and three other I.R.A. gunmen are involved in a shootout in Belfast when Special Air Service commandos attempt to capture him. 18 British military personnel are killed or wounded. One gunman is killed and another, Desmond, is wounded as Frankie and the last gunman, Sean Phelan (Paul Ronan), escape. An SAS agent asks the wounded man where Frankie is. Desmond is fatally shot by the agent after he says "up your arse". Hiding in the countryside, Frankie and his friend Martin MacDuf (David O'Hara) see a British Army helicopter circling overhead and decide they need Stinger missiles.
Rick Jarmin (Mel Gibson) helped convict a drug-dealing FBI agent named Eugene Sorenson (David Carradine) and was placed in the witness protection program. Fifteen years later his former fiancée Marianne Graves (Goldie Hawn) crosses paths with him at a gas station in Detroit, Michigan. Rick refuses to recognize Marianne as the witness protection program does not allow contact with people from the witness' previous life. If she recognizes him it may lead to Sorenson finding and killing him.
Alice Sutton (Julia Roberts) is a lawyer working for the U.S. government at the Justice Department. Jerry Fletcher (Mel Gibson), a conspiracy-theory obsessed New York City taxi driver, continually expounds his ideas to her. Alice humors him because he once saved her from a mugging, but does not know he has been spying on her at home. Her own obsession is to solve the mystery of her father's murder.
Nick Conklin is a New York City police officer facing possible criminal charges; Internal Affairs believes Nick was involved with his partner who was caught taking criminal money in a corruption scandal. Nick is divorced from his wife, who has custody of their two children. Nick also has financial difficulties.
Dr. Martin Harris and his wife Liz arrive in Berlin for a biotechnology summit. Martin realizes he left his briefcase at the airport and takes a taxi to retrieve it. When they are involved in an accident, the driver, Gina, rescues him and flees the scene, as she is an illegal immigrant. Martin regains consciousness at a hospital after having been in a coma for four days.