In a dystopian 1984, Winston Smith endures a squalid existence in the totalitarian superstate of Oceania under the constant surveillance of the Thought Police. The story takes place in London, the capital city of the territory of Airstrip One (formerly "either England or Britain").
In an African desert millions of years ago, a tribe of man-apes is driven from their water hole by a rival tribe. They wake to find a featureless black monolith has appeared before them. One man-ape realizes how to use a bone as a tool and weapon; the tribe kills the leader of their rivals and reclaims the water hole.
Japanese middle school student Shuya Nanahara copes with life after his father's suicide. Meanwhile, schoolmate Noriko Nakagawa is the only student attending class 3-B. Their teacher, Kitano, resigns after being impulsively attacked by a student.
In "the not-too-distant future", eugenics is common. A genetic registry database uses biometrics to classify those so created as "valids" while those conceived by traditional means and more susceptible to genetic disorders are known as "in-valids". Genetic discrimination is illegal, but in practice genotype profiling is used to identify valids to qualify for professional employment while in-valids are relegated to menial jobs.
Sam Lowry (Jonathan Pryce) is a low-level government employee who has frequent daydreams of saving a damsel in distress. One day he is assigned the task of trying to rectify an error caused by a fly getting jammed in a printer, misprinting a file it was copying, resulting in the incarceration and accidental death during interrogation of cobbler Archibald Buttle, instead of the suspected terrorist, freelance heating engineer Archibald Tuttle.
Returning from a Hong Kong business trip, Beth Emhoff has a layover in Chicago to have sex with a former lover before returning to her family in suburban Minneapolis. She appears to have contracted a cold during her trip. Her six-year-old son from a previous marriage, Clark, also becomes symptomatic and is sent home from school. Beth's condition worsens and two days later she collapses with severe seizures. Her husband, Mitch, rushes her to the hospital, but she dies of an unknown cause.
In futuristic Los Angeles, Theodore Twombly is a lonely, introverted, depressed man who works for a business that has professional writers like himself compose letters for people who are unwilling or unable to write letters of a personal nature themselves. Unhappy because of his impending divorce from childhood sweetheart Catherine (Rooney Mara), Theodore purchases a talking operating system (OS) with artificial intelligence, designed to adapt and evolve. He decides that he wants the OS to have a female voice, and she names herself Samantha. Theodore is fascinated by her ability to learn and grow psychologically. They bond over their discussions about love and life, such as Theodore's avoiding signing his divorce papers because of his reluctance to let go of Catherine. Samantha proves to be constantly available, always curious and interested, supportive and undemanding.
Ikigami takes place in a dystopian society where the government has implemented the "Prosperity Law". This law dictates 1 in 1000 random citizens ages 18~24 will die for the state in a mandatory lottery. Death occurs at a preset date and time, which is when an injected nano-capsule, received at an early age, explodes. The law is meant to create appreciation for life by instilling fear in order make people live the best possible lives.
In 2021, Johnny is a "mnemonic courier" with a data storage device implanted in his brain, allowing him to discreetly carry information too sensitive to transfer across the Net, the virtual-reality equivalent of the Internet. While lucrative, the implant has cost Johnny his childhood memories, and he seeks to have the implant removed to regain his memories back; his handler, Ralfi assigns him one more job that would cover the costs of the operation (which are extremely expensive), sending Johnny to Beijing to deliver the latest information.
An aircraft carrying young military school cadets returning home crash lands into the sea near a remote, uninhabited, jungle island in the Pacific Ocean. Among the survivors is the pilot, Captain Benson (Michael Greene), who is seriously injured and delirious. Meanwhile, on the beach, an overweight cadet, whose real name is never revealed, nicknamed “Piggy” (Danuel Pipoly), finds a conch seashell and takes it to the grouped cadets, who adopt it to signal the right to speak and be heard by the group. The senior cadet, and one of the elder boys, Cadet Colonel Ralph (Balthazar Getty), organizes a meeting to discuss surviving their predicament. Ralph and Jack (Chris Furrh) emerge dominant, with Ralph's seniority in rank making him the one in charge. They start a fire using Piggy's glasses to try and alert any passing craft. Tensions begin to grow between Ralph and Jack.
The film is set in a future where death from illness has become extremely unusual. When Katherine Mortenhoe (Romy Schneider) is diagnosed as having an incurable disease, she becomes a celebrity and is besieged by journalists. The television company NTV (headed by Vincent Ferriman) offers her a large sum of money if she will allow her last days to be filmed and made into a reality television show – they have already spied on her as she is told of her diagnosis (her doctor is colluding with them) and prepared posters for the show which show her face (to her annoyance when she sees the posters on display before they have contacted her).
A man and his young son struggle to survive after an unspecified cataclysm has caused another extinction event. Civilization has collapsed, reducing the survivors to scavenging and in most cases cannibalism. The duo search for supplies as they travel south on a road to the coast in the hope it will be warmer. The man is armed with a revolver, but carries just two rounds.
The film opens to a shot of an abandoned office, where the main character (Pierre Jolivet), who is only identified as 'The Man' in the end credits, is having intercourse with a sex doll. The Man is then seen attempting to salvage parts from abandoned vehicles, but returns to his dwelling empty handed, where he works on building a makeshift aircraft. The Man ventures outside the office building he lives in, which is surrounded by a desert wasteland. A group of men are shown surviving in the wasteland. They hold a man, 'The Dwarf' (Maurice Lamy), captive, and force him to retrieve water for them. The Man, who has been observing the survivors, makes his way to their camp, stabs their leader, 'The Captain' (Fritz Wepper) and retrieves a car battery. Survivors pursue The Man, though he is able to escape in his now completed aircraft.