With her new wealth, Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace) purchases an apartment in Stockholm. On returning to Sweden after nearly a year living abroad, Salander reconnects with her former lover Miriam Wu (Yasmine Garbi) and offers her free use of her previous apartment in return for forwarding her mail. Later, Salander confronts her guardian, Nils Bjurman (Peter Andersson) after hacking into his mail and discovering he has an appointment booked with a tattoo removal specialist. Threatening him with his own gun, she warns him not to remove the tattoo that she etched on his abdomen as revenge for sexually abusing her, marking him as "a pervert, a rapist and a sadistic pig".
Peter Brackett, le journaliste vedette du Chicago Chronicle, use de son prestige pour séduire les jeunes femmes et vendre son premier roman, Légers mensonges. Le déraillement d'un train, d'apparence banal, lui donne l'occasion de mener une petite enquête comme il les aime. À un premier imprévu — l'irruption d'une belle concurrente longiligne, Sabrina Peterson, du Globe — s'en ajoute bientôt un autre, beaucoup plus inquiétant. La catastrophe ferroviaire cache une sombre affaire, fertile en meurtres et en tentatives de corruption, qu'un sigle mystérieux, « L.D.F. », ne permet guère d'expliquer. Tout en se querellant, Sabrina et Brackett remontent la filière jusqu'à une grande entreprise chimique, connue pour sa fabrication de napalm pendant la guerre du Viêt Nam.
Famed novelist Paul Sheldon (James Caan) is the author of a successful series of Regency romance novels featuring a character named Misery Chastain. Wanting to focus on more serious stories, he writes a manuscript for the final Misery novel. While traveling from Silver Creek, Colorado to his home in New York City, he is caught in a blizzard and his car goes off the road, rendering him unconscious. Paul is rescued by a nurse named Annie Wilkes (Kathy Bates), who brings him to her remote home. When Paul regains consciousness he finds himself bedridden, with both his legs broken as well as a dislocated shoulder. Annie claims she is his "number one fan" and talks a lot about him and his novels. As a reward for saving him, Paul gives Annie his new manuscript which she saved from the wreckage. While feeding him, she is angered and spills soup on him but regains control and apologizes. She buys a copy of Paul's most recently published book, Misery's Child, giving glowing praise to Paul as she progresses through the book. However, when Annie discovers that Misery dies at the end of the book she flies into a rage, almost smashing a table on Paul's head. She reveals that she lied about calling his agent and the authorities; nobody knows where he is. Annie leaves and Paul tries to escape from his room, but she has locked the door.
During a prologue that is not directly related to the main plot, CBS producer Lowell Bergman (Pacino) convinces the founder of Hezbollah, Sheikh Fadlallah, to grant an interview to Mike Wallace (Plummer) for 60 Minutes. While preparing for the interview, both Wallace and Bergman firmly stand their ground against the Sheikh's armed and hostile bodyguards' attempted intimidation and disruption.
A British ghostwriter (Ewan McGregor), who is never named, is recruited by Rhinehart Inc., a large publishing company, to complete the memoirs of former Prime Minister Adam Lang (Pierce Brosnan). His predecessor on the project and Lang's long-term aide, Mike McAra, has recently died in an apparent accident. The writer travels to the fictional Massachusetts village of Old Haven on Martha's Vineyard, where Lang is staying with his wife, Ruth (Olivia Williams), in the house of Marty Rhinehart, the company owner, and a staff of servants and security personnel. The writer is checked into a small hotel. Lang's personal assistant (and implied mistress), Amelia Bly (Kim Cattrall), forbids him to take McAra's manuscript outside, emphasizing that it is a security risk. Rhinehart is allowing the new ghost four weeks to complete the book.
Aspiring news producer Becky Fuller has dreamed since childhood of working for the Today show, but her dedication to her career is off-putting to potential suitors. After being laid off from her job at the local Good Morning New Jersey, her mother advises her to give up her dream before it becomes an embarrassment. However, Becky perseveres, sending many different résumés out. She finally receives a call from IBS, which is looking for a producer on its struggling national morning show, DayBreak.
Los Angeles Times reporter Irwin "Fletch" Fletcher (Chase) is writing an article exposing the drug traffic on the beaches of Los Angeles. Posing as an addict during his investigation, he is approached by Boyd Aviation executive vice president Alan Stanwyk (Matheson) who mistakenly assumes Fletch is a junkie. Stanwyk claims to have bone cancer, with only months left to live, and wishes to avoid the pain and suffering. Stanwyk offers $50,000 for Fletch to come to his mansion in a few days time, kill him, and then escape to Rio de Janeiro, staging the murder to appear as the result of a burglary.
The film is presented in a nonlinear narrative, cutting back and forth between McCandless's time spent in Alaskan wilderness and his two-year travels leading up to his journey to Alaska. The plot summary here is told in a more chronological order.
Set in 1953, during the early days of television broadcast journalism. Edward R. Murrow (David Strathairn) and his dedicated staff — headed by his co-producer Fred Friendly (George Clooney) and reporter Joseph Wershba (Robert Downey, Jr.) in the CBS newsroom—defy corporate and sponsorship pressures, and discredit the tactics used by Joseph McCarthy during his crusade to root out Communist elements within the government.
Harold Crick, an agent for the Internal Revenue Service, lives his life by his wristwatch. He is assigned to audit an intentionally tax-delinquent baker, Ana Pascal, to whom he is attracted. On the same day, he begins hearing the voice of a woman omnisciently narrating his life but is unable to communicate with it. Harold's watch stops working and he resets it using the time given by a bystander; the voice narrates, "little did he know that this simple, seemingly innocuous act would result in his imminent death". Worried by this prediction, Harold consults a psychiatrist who attributes the voice to schizophrenia, though they consider that if there really is a narrator, he should visit an expert in literature. Crick visits Jules Hilbert, a literature professor, and relates his story. When Jules recognizes aspects of a literary work in Harold's story, he encourages Harold to identify the author, first by determining if the work is a comedy or tragedy.
New York City food writer Rachel Samstat and Washington, D.C. political columnist Mark Forman meet at a mutual friend's wedding and, after a whirlwind courtship, they marry, despite Rachel's reservations. They purchase a dilapidated Georgetown townhouse in Washington D.C. and the ongoing and seemingly never-ending renovations create some stress in their relationship. Rachel, overjoyed to discover she is pregnant, is determined to make her marriage work and becomes a stay-at-home mom. When she discovers evidence of Mark's extramarital affair with socialite Thelma Rice during her pregnancy with her second child, she leaves him and takes their daughter Annie to New York, where she moves in with her father and tries to jump start her career. Mark eventually convinces her to return home, but when it is obvious his philandering will never end, Rachel leaves him for good.
In June 1995, despite a complete lack of hiking experience, a recently divorced Cheryl Strayed (Reese Witherspoon) leaves Minneapolis, Minnesota, to hike 1,100 miles of the 2,650-mile Pacific Crest Trail on a journey of self-discovery and healing. During the hike, Strayed reflects in flashbacks on her childhood in Minnesota and memories of her mother, Bobbi Grey (Laura Dern), whose death had pushed her toward self-destructive behaviour that led to her divorce.
While visiting the (fictional) Ventana nuclear power plant outside Los Angeles, television news reporter Kimberly Wells (Fonda), her cameraman Richard Adams (Douglas) and their soundman Hector Salas witness the plant going through an emergency shutdown (SCRAM). Shift Supervisor Jack Godell (Lemmon) notices an unusual vibration while grabbing his cup of coffee which he had set down. He then finds that a gauge is misreading and that the coolant is dangerously low (he thought it was overflowing). The crew manages to bring the reactor under control and can be seen celebrating and expressing relief.
The film focuses on the March sisters: beautiful Meg (Trini Alvarado), tempestuous Jo (Winona Ryder), tender Beth (Claire Danes), and romantic Amy (Kirsten Dunst), who are growing up in Concord, Massachusetts during and after the American Civil War. With their father away fighting in the war, the girls struggle with major and minor problems under the guidance of their strong-willed mother, affectionately called Marmee (Susan Sarandon). As a means of escaping some of their problems, the sisters revel in performing in romantic plays written by Jo in their attic theater.
In 1959, the four dead bodies of the Clutter family are discovered on their Kansas farm. While reading The New York Times, Truman Capote (Philip Seymour Hoffman) is riveted by the story and calls The New Yorker magazine editor William Shawn (Bob Balaban) to tell him that he plans to document the tragedy.