Captain Yossarian (Alan Arkin), a U.S. Army Air Force B-25 bombardier, is stationed on the Mediterranean base on Pianosa during World War II. Along with his squadron members, Yossarian is committed to flying dangerous missions, and after watching friends die, he seeks a means of escape.
During the Vietnam War in 1968, Captain Sam Cahill (Danny Glover) has been working hard to create good relations between the United States and Montagnard Vietnamese in the village of Dak Nhe. The U.S. Army is looking to monitor enemy operations on a clandestine weapons supply route which passes near the village. Cahill is coming close to his discharge, and explains to his successor Captain T.C. Doyle (Ray Liotta), the delicate nature of Vietnamese customs as well as the counter intelligence involving covert enemy activity. In a lapse of judgment with surrounding village children, a child steals a Nestlé Crunch bar, the wrapper, which when found, lets the NVA know of the local villagers' cooperation with the Americans. As punishment, Brigadier Nguyen (Hoang Ly) of the NVA, orders his subordinate, Captain Quang (Vo Trung Anh), to kill the villagers' elephant right before a spiritual festival. To aid the villagers, Cahill promises to replace the slain elephant before their upcoming ceremony.
Bill Rago (DeVito) is a divorced advertising executive down on his luck. When he loses his job in Detroit, the unemployment agency finds him a temporary job: teaching a class at a nearby U.S. Army training base, Fort McClane.
While flying a routine mission for the U.S. Navy from his aircraft carrier, an emergency causes Lieutenant Robin "Rob" Crusoe (Van Dyke) to eject from his F-8 Crusader into the ocean. Crusoe drifts on the ocean in an emergency life raft for several days and nights until landing on an uninhabited island. Crusoe builds a shelter for himself, fashions new clothing out of available materials, and begins to scout the island, discovering an abandoned Japanese submarine from World War II. Scouring the submarine, Crusoe also discovers a NASA astrochimp named Floyd, played by Dinky.
A Russian submarine called Спрут ("Octopus") draws too close to the New England coast one morning when its captain (Theodore Bikel) wants to take a good look at America and runs aground on a sandbar near the fictional Gloucester Island, which, from other references in the movie, is located off the coast of Cape Ann or Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Rather than radio for help and risk an embarrassing international incident, the captain sends a nine-man landing party, headed by his zampolit (Political Officer) Lieutenant Yuri Rozanov (Alan Arkin), to find a motor launch to help free the submarine from the bar. The men arrive at the house of Walt Whittaker (Carl Reiner), a vacationing playwright from New York City. Whittaker is eager to get his wife Elspeth (Eva Marie Saint) and two children, obnoxious but precocious nine and half-year-old Pete (Sheldon Collins) and three-year-old Annie (Cindy Putnam), off the island now that summer is over.
In the waning days of World War II, the United States Navy cargo ship Reluctant and her crew are stationed in the "backwater" areas of the Pacific Ocean. The executive officer/cargo chief, Lieutenant Junior Grade Douglas A. "Doug" Roberts (Henry Fonda), tries to shield the dispirited crew from the harsh and unpopular captain, Lieutenant Commander Morton (James Cagney). Eager to join the fighting, Roberts repeatedly requests a transfer. Morton is forced by regulation to forward his requests, but refuses to endorse them, which means they are always rejected. Roberts shares quarters with Ensign Frank Thurlowe Pulver (Jack Lemmon). Pulver spends most of his time idling in his bunk and avoids the captain at all costs, so much so that Morton is actually unaware that the ensign is even part of the crew.
Four Navy recruits fresh from boot camp graduation in San Diego spend a weekend pass together out on the town in Los Angeles before shipping out for further training.
US Army Command Sergeant Major Zack Carey (played by Garner) is about to retire from the military after taking his last post, in rural Georgia (loosely based on Fort Benning and filmed there, as well as the small town of Zebulon, GA). Despite being offered possibility of becoming Sergeant Major of the Army, he insists he just wishes to finish his tour and retire in peace to spend time with his family. Several years earlier, his older son, an active duty soldier, had been killed in an Army training accident, and his relationship with his only surviving son, Billy (played by Howell), is strained. He is shown to be a tough but fair NCO, who quickly earns the respect and admiration of his troops.
The action starts in 1918, with the collapse of the Tomainian (German) army. A Jewish barber saves the life of a wounded pilot, Schultz, but loses his own memory through concussion.
Stalag 17 begins on "the longest night of the year" in 1944 in a Luftwaffe prisoner-of-war camp somewhere along the Danube River. The story is narrated by Clarence Harvey "Cookie" Cook (Gil Stratton). The camp holds Poles, Czechs, Russian females and, in the American compound, 640 sergeants from bomber crews, gunners, radiomen, and flight engineers.
U.S. Navy petty officers Billy "Badass" Buddusky (Jack Nicholson) and Richard "Mule" Mulhall (Otis Young), are awaiting orders in Norfolk, Virginia when they are assigned a shore patrol detail escorting young sailor, Seaman Larry Meadows (Randy Quaid), to Portsmouth Naval Prison near Kittery, Maine. Meadows has drawn a stiff eight-year sentence for the petty crime of trying to steal $40 from a collection box of his Commanding Officer's wife's favorite charity. Despite their initial resentment of the detail, the oddly likeable Meadows begins to grow on the two Navy "lifers" as they escort him on a train ride through the wintry north-eastern states; particularly as they know what the Marine guards are like at Portsmouth and the grim reality facing their young prisoner. As the pair begin to feel sorry for Meadows and the youthful experiences he will lose being incarcerated, they decide to show him a good time before delivering him to the authorities.
United States Air Force Brigadier General Jack D. Ripper (Sterling Hayden) is commander of Burpelson Air Force Base, which houses the Strategic Air Command 843rd Bomb Wing, equipped with B-52 bombers. The 843rd is currently in-flight on airborne alert, a few hours from the Soviet border.
La guerre vient d'éclater et Max et Léon doivent s'engager, comme des milliers de jeunes en 1939. Et si au départ ils ne réalisent pas vraiment les conséquences d'une telle mission, ils ne vont pas tarder à découvrir que la guerre n'est pas une affaire à prendre à la légère. Et quand la défaite frappe, c'est encore moins réjouissant. Max et Léon n'ont plus qu'une idée en tête : rentrer le plus vite possible et coûte que coûte chez eux, à Mâcon. Mais c'est sans compter les forces et les hommes qui sont aux commandes et qui ne comptent pas les lâcher comme ça.
Larry is a waiter who has just lost his job and his girlfriend. Bill is a flustered husband living off a slip and fall lawsuit settlement. Everett is an inept security guard who was fired after only four days as a police officer. The three are members of the State Military Reserves, although their duties in the reserve consist mostly of drinking and partying at the reserve center once a month.
Plusieurs années après leur conscription, un groupe de jeunes hommes se retrouvent pour un exercice militaire, mais leur réunion tourne vite à la bringue.