Brad (Vince Vaughn) and Kate (Reese Witherspoon) are an upscale San Francisco couple. Having both come from dysfunctional families, with divorced parents and siblings with out-of-control kids, the two disdain the idea of getting married or having kids. In an effort to avoid their families at Christmas, the two go on vacation abroad while pretending to be doing charity work there. The third Christmas of their relationship, Brad and Kate are trapped at San Francisco International Airport by a fog bank that cancels every outbound flight, and interviewed by a news crew, alerting their families to the fact they're stuck at home for the holidays.
At the beginning of the film, Kabir (Abhay Deol) proposes to Natasha (Kalki Koechlin). Their families meet at the engagement party where Natasha learns that Kabir is planning a three-week bachelor road trip to Spain with his school friends Imraan (Farhan Akhtar) and Arjun (Hrithik Roshan). Kabir explains that the three have a long-standing pact, and that during the road trip, each of them will have to pick an adventure sport, which all three will try together. Initially, Arjun is reluctant to take trip as he does not want lose his pay for missing work. It is later revealed that Arjun's ex-girlfriend left him due to his workaholism & obsesion with money. Imraan has an additional personal agenda on the trip: to find his biological father Salman Habib (Naseeruddin Shah), an artist in Spain.
Jackie and Luke Harrison (Susan Sarandon and Ed Harris) are a divorced New York couple that are struggling to help their children Anna (Jena Malone) and Ben (Liam Aiken) be happy with this sudden change of lifestyle. This is far from easy, as Luke, an attorney, is living with his new girlfriend, Isabel Kelly (Julia Roberts), an NYU alumna and a successful fashion photographer several years his junior. Isabel tries very hard to make Anna and Ben feel comfortable and happy with her, but Anna repeatedly rejects her overtures while Ben, who loves Isabel (not as much as his actual mother), adds extra complication with his mischievous nature. Isabel behaves with contempt tempered by caution around Jackie, believing she overcompensates for her divorce by spoiling her children.
Ingrid and Gregorio Cortez (Carla Gugino and Antonio Banderas) are rival spies who fall in love with each other. They eventually retire and have two children, Carmen (Alexa Vega) and Juni (Daryl Sabara). They currently work for the Organization of Super Spies (OSS) doing desk work. Content with the safety of their family, the two still yearn for field work. Meanwhile, the children think their parents are boring and have no idea of their previous work. Eventually, Ingrid and Gregorio are called back into the field when several agents go missing. Gregorio thinks that a kids' TV show star Fegan Floop (Alan Cumming) has kidnapped the agents and mutated them into his "Fooglies", creatures on his show that speak in gibberish.
When the film opens, a St. Bernard puppy and a large group of others are stolen from a pet store by two thieves, Harvey (Oliver Platt) and Vernon (Stanley Tucci). After meeting a dog during his escape from the thieves, the St. Bernard sneaks into the home of the Newton family. The workaholic father, George Newton (Charles Grodin), doesn't want the responsibility of owning a dog, but his wife, Alice (Bonnie Hunt), and their children, Ryce, Ted and Emily, convince him otherwise. While trying to name him, Emily (Sarah Rose Karr), plays a portion of Ludwig van Beethoven's Fifth Symphony and he barks along: thus they name him "Beethoven."
Howard Langston (Arnold Schwarzenegger) is a workaholic mattress salesman, who does not find time for his wife, Liz (Rita Wilson), and his 9-year-old son, Jamie (Jake Lloyd) — especially when compared to next door "superdad" divorcee, Ted Maltin (Phil Hartman), who continually puts Howard in a bad light. After missing Jamie's karate class graduation, Howard resolves to redeem himself by fulfilling Jamie's ultimate Christmas wish: getting an action figure of Turbo-Man, a popular children's TV superhero toy that everyone is looking for. Along the way, Howard meets Myron Larabee (Sinbad), a postal worker dad with a rival ambition, and the two soon become bitter competitors in their race for the action figure. During his search, Howard repeatedly runs into Officer Alexander Hummell (Robert Conrad), a police officer who had earlier pulled him over for a traffic violation. After several failed attempts to find the toy in a store, Howard attempts to buy a Turbo-Man from a Mall of America Santa (James Belushi) who is actually the leader of a band of counterfeit toy makers. When he accuses the Santa of undermining the values of Christmas, Howard ends up in a brawl with the gang. He narrowly escapes when the police raid their warehouse and gets out by posing as an undercover detective.
Two years after the events in the previous film, the Baker family begins to undergo many changes, beginning with Lorraine (Hilary Duff) and her desire to study in New York. Their oldest daughter Nora (Piper Perabo) is now married to Bud McNulty (Jonathan Bennett) and heavily pregnant. They intend to move to Houston because of Bud's new job promotion.
Will Freeman (Hugh Grant) lives a serene and luxurious lifestyle devoid of responsibility in London thanks to substantial royalties left to him from a successful Christmas song composed by his father. Will begins attending a support group for single parents as a way to meet women and as part of his ploy, invents a two-year-old son named Ned. His plan succeeds and he meets Suzie (Victoria Smurfit). Will brings Suzie on a picnic where he meets Marcus (Nicholas Hoult), the 12-year-old son of Suzie's friend, Fiona (Toni Collette). Will gains Marcus' interest and trust after he lies to a park ranger to cover up for Marcus killing a duck. Afterward, when Will and Suzie take Marcus home, they find Fiona in the living room, overdosed on pills in a suicide attempt.
Divorcee Lauren Reynolds (Drew Barrymore), who has two sons, Brendan (Braxton Beckham) and Tyler (Kyle Red Silverstein), meets Jim Friedman (Adam Sandler), a widower with three daughters, Hilary (Bella Thorne), Espn (Emma Fuhrmann), and Lou (Alyvia Alyn Lind) on a blind date. The date ends in a disaster due to Jim's clumsy and careless attitude and Lauren's perfectionist nature along with the fact that they have their date at Hooters.
Gil Buckman, a neurotic sales executive in the St. Louis area, is trying to balance his family and career. When he finds out that his eldest son, Kevin, has emotional problems and needs therapy, and that his other two children, Taylor and Justin, both have issues as well, he begins to blame himself and questions his abilities as a father. When his wife, Karen, announces she is pregnant with their fourth child on the same day he quit his sales job, he is unsure whether he can handle it.
Jack Campbell is a single, wealthy Wall Street executive living the high life in New York City. He is in the midst of putting together a multi-billion dollar merger and has ordered an emergency meeting on Christmas Day to ensure its success. The concept of family life clearly has little or no meaning for him. In his office, on Christmas Eve, he is surprised to hear that his former girlfriend, Kate, tried to call him after many years. After reminiscing a bit, he walks into a convenience store where a lottery contestant, Cash, barges in saying that he has a winning ticket worth $238. The store clerk believes that Cash is lying and refuses to give him his winnings. Cash pulls out a gun and is about to shoot the clerk before Jack offers to buy the ticket from him for $200, thus averting disaster. Jack and Cash settle their business deal outside. Jack offers to help Cash. In return, Cash questions Jack, asking him if he is missing anything in his life. Jack assures him he has everything he needs. The two part company, but not before Cash cryptically tells Jack that actions have consequence and that Jack has brought whatever is coming on himself. Jack returns to his penthouse and sleeps away the night alone.
After finding success with a DNA restructuring formula in the first film, Sherman Klump has created another formula which enables those who take it to find the Fountain of Youth. He has also met and fallen in love with a colleague, Denise Gaines, who has developed a method to isolate genetic material and later becomes his fiancée. Together, their work has enabled Wellman College to receive a $150 million award from a pharmaceutical firm to the excitement of Dean Richmond. Despite his good fortune, Sherman has a major problem: the personality of his vanquished alter ego, Buddy Love, is still ingrained inside him and causes him to act out in the same crass manner Buddy does.
At his son's wedding party, Edward Bloom (Albert Finney) tells the same tall tale he's told many times over the years: on the day Will (Billy Crudup) was born, he was out catching an enormous uncatchable fish, using his wedding ring as bait. Will is annoyed, explaining to his wife Joséphine (Marion Cotillard) that because his father lives in a fantasy world and has never told the straight truth about anything, he felt unable to trust him. He is troubled to think that he might have a similarly difficult relationship with his future children. Will's relationship with his father becomes so strained that they do not talk for three years. But when his father's health starts to fail from cancer, Will and the now pregnant Joséphine return to his hometown in Alabama to visit. On the plane, Will recalls his father's tale of how he braved a swamp as a child after he was dared by a few other children. He meets a witch (Helena Bonham Carter). She shows Don Price and another boy how they were going to die. They run away, frightened. When the witch shows Edward his death in her glass eye, he accepts it without fear. With this knowledge, Edward knew there were no odds he could not face.
During the late 18th century, the Bennet family, consisting of Mr. and Mrs. Bennet and their five daughters—Jane, Elizabeth, Mary, Kitty and Lydia—live in comparative financial independence as gentry on a working farm in rural England. As Longbourn is destined to be inherited by Mr. Bennet's cousin, Mr. Collins, Mrs. Bennet is anxious to marry off her five daughters before Mr. Bennet dies.