Depuis des décennies, Freddy Krueger s'est frayé un chemin à travers les rêves d'innombrables jeunes, effrayant plus d'un demi-milliard de dollars au box-office à travers huit films terrifiants et spectaculaires.
During a lunchtime tryst in Phoenix, Arizona, a real estate secretary named Marion Crane discusses with her boyfriend, Sam Loomis, how they cannot afford to get married because of Sam's debts. After lunch, Marion returns to work, where a client drops off a $40,000 cash payment on a property. Her boss asks her to deposit the money in the bank, and she asks if she can take the rest of the afternoon off. Returning home, she begins to pack for an unplanned trip, deciding to steal the money and give it to Sam in Fairvale, California. She is seen by her boss on her way out of town, which makes her nervous. During the trip, she pulls over on the side of the road and falls asleep, only to be awakened by a state patrol officer. He is suspicious about her nervous behavior but allows her to drive on. Shaken by the encounter, Marion stops at an automobile dealership and trades in her Ford Mainline, with its Arizona license plates, for a Ford Custom 300 that has California tags. Her transaction is all for naught - the highway patrolman sees her at the car dealership and witnesses her purchase of the newer car.
In an unnamed American city, soon-to-be-retiring Detective William R. Somerset (Freeman) is partnered with short-tempered-but-idealistic Detective David Mills (Pitt), who recently transferred to the department. Together, their first case leads them to believe that they are chasing a serial killer whose killings each reflect one of the seven deadly sins. First, they discover an obese man who was tied to a chair and forced to eat food, and eventually, his own vomit, until his stomach exploded (representing gluttony). Next, they investigate the fatal bloodletting of a rich attorney, from whom a pound of flesh has been extracted (representing greed). Two days later, fingerprints left at the crime scenes lead them to an apartment, where they find an emaciated man strapped to a bed. Though he initially appears to be dead, they find he has been kept alive and immobile by the killer for one year to that day; a drug dealer and child molester before his capture (representing sloth). Though unable to learn anything from the insensate man, the detectives agree the killer has planned these crimes for more than a year.
Clarice Starling (Jodie Foster) is pulled from her training at the FBI Academy at Quantico, Virginia by Jack Crawford (Scott Glenn) of the Bureau's Behavioral Science Unit. He assigns her to interview Hannibal Lecter, a former psychiatrist and incarcerated cannibalistic serial killer, whose insight might prove useful in the pursuit of a serial killer nicknamed "Buffalo Bill", who skins his female victims' corpses.
A group of children are playing an elimination game in the courtyard of an apartment building in Berlin using a chant about a murderer of children. A woman sets the table for dinner, waiting for her daughter to come home from school. A wanted poster warns of a serial killer preying on children, as anxious parents wait outside a school.
Keller Dover (Hugh Jackman) and his wife Grace (Maria Bello) attend a Thanksgiving dinner at the home of their friends, Franklin (Terrence Howard) and Nancy (Viola Davis) Birch. The children go for a walk in the neighborhood and approach a campervan that is parked outside a house nearby. There is music playing, which suggests there is somebody inside. After dinner, both families' younger daughters, Anna Dover and Joy Birch, go missing.
In October 1986, a young woman is found raped and murdered in a ditch near a field. Soon after, another woman is found raped and murdered in a field. Local detective Park Doo-man, not having dealt with such a serious case before, is overwhelmed; key evidence is improperly collected, the police's investigative methods are suspect, and their forensic technology is near non-existent. Detective Seo Tae-yoon is sent from Seoul to assist them; their methods clash and he is unable to convince them they are dealing with a serial killer until his predictions of another murder come true. He realizes that the killer waits until a rainy night, and only kills women wearing red. A female police officer realizes that a local radio station is always requested to play a particular song during the nights the murders are committed.
As Francis (Friedrich Feher) sits on a bench with an older man who complains that spirits have driven him away from his family and home, a dazed woman named Jane (Lil Dagover) passes them. Francis explains she is his "fiancée" and that they have suffered a great ordeal. Most of the rest of the film is a flashback of Francis' story, which takes place in Holstenwall, a shadowy village of twisted buildings and spiraling streets. Francis and his friend Alan (Hans Heinrich von Twardowski), who are good-naturedly competing for Jane's affections, plan to visit the town fair. Meanwhile, a mysterious man named Dr. Caligari (Werner Krauss) seeks a permit from the rude town clerk to present a spectacle at the fair, which features a somnambulist named Cesare (Conrad Veidt). The clerk mocks and berates Dr. Caligari, but ultimately approves the permit. That night, the clerk is found stabbed to death in his bed.
In the 1930s West Virginia, along the Ohio River, Reverend Harry Powell, a serial killer, flees the scene of his latest victim. Powell is a self-anointed preacher with a penchant for switchblade knives; a misogynist who is both attracted to and repulsed by women. He travels rural roads, preaching in small towns, and seems to believe he is doing God's work. The letters "L-O-V-E" are tattooed on one hand and the letters "H-A-T-E" on the other, which Powell uses as symbols in impromptu sermons. In one small town, police arrest Powell for driving a stolen car and sentence him to jail, unaware that he is a murderer.
In Edwardian Britain, Louis Mazzini (Dennis Price), tenth Duke of Chalfont, writes his memoirs while in prison awaiting his death by hanging the next morning. Most of the film consists of a flashback in which Louis narrates the events leading to his imprisonment.
The Salesman steps out of the elevator and walks onto a penthouse balcony where The Customer, wearing a beautiful red dress, looks out over Basin City. He offers her a cigarette and says that she looks like someone who is tired of running and that he will save her. She smiles to him, the two share a kiss and he shoots her; she dies in his arms. He says he will never know what she was running from but that he’ll cash her check in the morning.
In West Texas, 1980, Ed Tom Bell laments the increasing violence in a region where, like his father and grandfather before him, he has become sheriff. Anton Chigurh, a hitman, strangles a sheriff's deputy to escape custody and steals a car by using a captive bolt pistol to kill the driver.
The plot revolves around the Brewster family of Brooklyn, New York, descended from the Mayflower and composed of illustrious White Anglo-Saxon Protestant ancestors whose portraits line the walls. The religious theme is repeatedly mentioned, and Elaine is the daughter of the minister who lives next door, with some scenes held in its ancient cemetery. Today the Brewster clan comprises insane murderers.
School-bus driver Kyung-chul happens upon Joo-yun one snowy night and offers to help fix her flat tire. Kyung-chul kills her and scatters her body parts. When a boy discovers one of Joo-yun's ears, the police are called in under the command of Section Chief Oh and Squad Chief Jang, the latter of whom is the father of Joo-yun. Soo-hyun, a secret service agent of the National Intelligence Service (NIS) and Joo-yun's fiancé, vows to track down and take vengeance on Joo-yun's murderer.
Eom Joong-ho is a dishonest ex-detective turned pimp who is in financial trouble because two of his girls have gone missing. One night he sends Mi-jin, one of his few remaining girls, to a customer. But he later realizes that this is the same person who was the last to see his missing girls. Believing that this man is reselling his women, he goes to look for Mi-jin. On the way he contacts his old police task force to ask for some help. But they cannot assist because the mayor of Seoul, whom they are guarding, has just been attacked with human feces during a walkabout. The police are now preoccupied with a media storm because they have suffered humiliation for failing to protect the mayor.