The film opens with a parody of The Godfather, at the wedding reception of Lou Pickles and his new wife, Lulu. A mother-child dance during the reception saddens Chuckie Finster, who realizes that he has lived most of his life without his mother, Melinda, who died of a sudden illness shortly after he was born. His father, Chas, shares Chuckie's loneliness.
In Edwardian London, 1910, Cockney one-man band Bert is entertaining a crowd when he senses a change in the wind. Afterwards, he directly addresses the audience and gives them a tour of Cherry Tree Lane, stopping outside the home of the Banks'. George Banks returns home from his job at the bank to learn from his wife Winifred that their hired nanny, Katie Nanna, has left their service after his children, Jane and Michael, ran away again. They are returned shortly after by the local constable, who reveals that the children were dragged away by their kite. The children ask their father to help build a better kite, but he dismisses them. Taking it upon himself to hire a nanny, George advertises for a stern, no-nonsense nanny. Jane and Michael present their own advertisement for a kinder, sweeter nanny, but George rips up the letter and throws the scraps in the fireplace, which magically float up and out into the air.
The film starts with a parody of the 1981 Indiana Jones action film Raiders of the Lost Ark. Afterwards, the babies are chased out of the temple by a boulder, which is revealed to be Didi Pickles who is at the baby shower at the Pickles' house, where Didi is pregnant with a second baby, which everyone believes will be a girl. Didi goes into labor and her friends rush her to the hospital. While this is happening, the kids crawl off. When the baby is finally born after a montage of past lives, it is a boy and they name him Dillon, after Didi's cousin. Dil quickly becomes a very spoiled baby, crying non-stop for attention, keeping all of the babies' toys for himself and refusing to share with Tommy. After a particularly nasty fight between Tommy and Dil over Tommy's teddy bear, Stu has a conversation with Tommy about being a big brother and the responsibility he now has and assures him that one day he will be happy to have Dil as his little brother. He also gives Tommy a locket with a picture of Tommy and Dil taped together and a watch inside which he calls his "sponsativity", his term for responsibility.
Navin R. Johnson, a homeless man, directly addresses the camera and tells his story. He is the adopted white son of African American sharecroppers, who grows to adulthood naïvely unaware of his obvious adoption. He stands out in his family not just because of his skin color but because of his utter lack of rhythm when his adopted family plays spirited blues music. One night, he hears the staid and starchy Roger Wolfe Kahn Orchestra song called "Crazy Rhythm" on the radio and his feet spontaneously begin to move with the urge to dance; he sees this as a calling and decides to hitchhike to St. Louis, from where the song was broadcast. On the way, he stops at a motel, where a dog wakes him up by barking at his door. Navin thinks the dog is trying to warn of a fire and names the dog "Lifesaver". He wakes up the other hotel guests to rescue them, but when everyone realizes it was a false alarm, one Asian man angrily suggests he call the dog "Shithead", which Navin takes literally.
Raj Malhotra (Shah Rukh Khan) and Simran Singh (Kajol) are non-resident Indians living in London. Simran was raised by her strict and conservative father, Baldev Singh (Amrish Puri), while Raj's father (Anupam Kher) was very liberal. Simran always dreams of meeting her ideal man. Her mother Lajjo (Farida Jalal) warns her against this, saying dreams are good but one should not blindly believe they come true. One day, Baldev receives a letter from his friend Ajit (Satish Shah), who lives in Punjab. Ajit wants to keep a promise he and Baldev made to each other 20 years ago—to have Simran marry his son Kuljeet (Parmeet Sethi). Simran is disappointed—she does not want to marry someone whom she has never met.
The film begins with the Spice Girls performing "Too Much" on Top of the Pops, but they later become dissatisfied with the burdens of it. Meanwhile, sinister newspaper owner Kevin McMaxford (Barry Humphries) is attempting to ruin the girls' reputation for his newspaper's ratings. McMaxford dispatches photographer Damien (Richard O'Brien) to take pictures and tape recordings of the girls. Less threatening but more annoying is documentarian Piers Cuthbertson-Smyth (Alan Cumming), who stalks the girls along with his camera crew, hoping to use them as subjects for his next project. At the same time, the girls' manager, Clifford (Richard E. Grant), is fending off two over-eager Hollywood writers, named Martin Barnfield and Graydon (George Wendt and Mark McKinney), who relentlessly pitch absurd plot ideas for a feature film for the Spice Girls.
Ignacio was the son of a Scandinavian Lutheran missionary and a Mexican deacon, who both died while Ignacio was young. Now a cook for the Oaxaca, Mexico monastery orphanage where he was raised, Ignacio dreams of becoming a luchador, but wrestling is strictly forbidden by the monastery. Ignacio cares deeply for the orphans, but his food is terrible due to being unable to obtain quality ingredients, which he cannot afford. Ignacio feels unfulfilled due to his desire to wrestle and his disdain for most of his orphanage duties, and struggles over his feelings for Sister Encarnación, a nun who teaches at the orphanage. One night, while collecting donated tortilla chips for the orphans, Ignacio is robbed of the chips by a street thief named Steven. After a fight ensues between the two, Ignacio decides to disregard the monastery's rules and become a luchador in order to make money. He convinces Steven to join him with the promise of remuneration if they win, and the two join a local competition as tag partners.
The film depicts the life of Bodhidharma (Suriya), a master of martial arts and medical remedies, who is depicted in the film as the son of a great Tamil king of the Pallava Dynasty. He is sent to China by his guru, who requests him to stop the spread of a pandemic disease existing there from spreading to India. Initially the people in China treated him as an inferior but later when he cures a little girl from the deadly disease and fights against some people who ill treated villagers there, the people of China began to respect and worship him. He begins to teach them how to cure many diseases, the skills of hypnotism and the physical training of the Shaolin monks that led to the creation of Shaolinquan. However, after several years, when he expresses his desire to return to India, the villagers plot to poison him and bury him near the temple, believing that their place would be disease free if he is buried there. Bodhidharma agrees to die and subsequently becomes a fundamental figure in Chinese history, affectionately being dubbed as "Damo".
The film follows the pop star Justin Bieber during 10 days counting down to what is considered his biggest performance, that of August 31, 2010 in Madison Square Garden, which sold out in 22 minutes. It shows footage of the performances during this period from his My World Tour. It shows excited female fans, and several instances of the "One Less Lonely Girl" routine of inviting a girl on stage for him to serenade and give flowers to, and of surprising random girls with free tickets to his concerts. The main people around Bieber, being like family and good friends to him, are interviewed, but Bieber himself is not. Various instances of praying together before a show are shown.
El Mariachi is recruited by CIA agent Sheldon Sands to kill General Emiliano Marquez, a corrupt Mexican Army officer who has been hired by Mexican drug lord Armando Barillo to assassinate the President of Mexico and overthrow the government. Many years before, El Mariachi and his wife Carolina confronted Marquez in a shootout and wounded the general; in retaliation, Marquez took the lives of Carolina and their daughter in an ambush. In addition to El Mariachi, Sands persuades former FBI agent Jorge Ramírez to come out of retirement and kill Barillo, who had murdered his partner Archuleta in the past. Furthermore, AFN operative Ajedrez is assigned by Sands to tail Barillo.
A museum tour guide named Mary Beth takes a group of children on a tour of Mexican folk myths and legends. She tells them the story of the Mexican town of San Angel from the Book of Life, which holds every story in the world.
Chili Palmer (John Travolta) helps Edie Athens (Uma Thurman), the widow of an executed friend, Tommy Athens (James Woods), to resurrect a record company using the talents of young and talented female vocalist and songwriter, Linda Moon (Christina Milian). The plot is complicated by several facts:
The seemingly random murder of their adoptive mother, Evelyn Mercer (Fionnula Flanagan), at a Highland Park, Michigan convenience store, brings four brothers back home to Detroit, Michigan to find out what happened. Originally under the impression the crime was a simple robbery-gone-wrong, the brothers soon discover that the robbery was merely a cover for what was, in fact, a hit put out on Evelyn. After this revelation, Bobby (Mark Wahlberg), Angel (Tyrese Gibson), Jeremiah (André Benjamin) and Jack Mercer (Garrett Hedlund) track down the hired guns who killed Evelyn. Refusing to say anything, they are unceremoniously executed by Bobby and Angel.
In the year 1990, Iqbal Haroon Khan (Jackie Shroff) runs The Great Indian Circus in Chicago, which has fallen on bad times. Anderson's (Andrew Bicknell) bank — Western Bank of Chicago —, which has lent money to Iqbal Khan, decides to close down the circus when Khan is unable to repay the loan. Young Sahir (Siddharth Nigam), the little son of Iqbal Khan, pleads with Anderson not to shut down his father's circus, as he and his father would soon be able to turn the corner. But Iqbal Khan's presentation before the bankers and Sahir's pleas don't help. Iqbal Khan commits suicide in front of the heartless Anderson, leaving Sahir devastated.
In the ancient Kingdom of Mahishmati in India, Sivagami, the queen mother (Ramya Krishnan), carrying a baby in her arms, emerges from a cave adjoining a big waterfall. She kills the soldiers pursuing her and sacrifices herself to save the baby. Local villagers spot the queen's hand carrying baby in the river and rescues the infant. Sanga (Rohini) and her husband name the infant Shivudu and raise him as their own son. They seal the cave fearing the child's safety.