On October 30, Devil's Night in Detroit, Sergeant Albrecht is at the scene of a crime where Shelly Webster has been beaten and raped, and her fiancé Eric Draven then died on the street outside, having been stabbed, shot, and thrown out of the window. The couple were to be married the following day, on Halloween. As he leaves for the hospital with Shelly, Albrecht meets a young girl, Sarah, who says that she is their friend, and that they take care of her. Albrecht tells her that Shelly is dying.
Philo Beddoe is a truck driver living in the San Fernando Valley. He lives in a small house, with an orangutan named Clyde, behind that of his friend, Orville Boggs, and his mother. Philo makes money on the side as a bare-knuckle fighter; he is often compared to a legendary fighter named Tank Murdock.
A centuries long war between humans and vampires has devastated the planet's surface and led to a theocracy under an organization called The Church. They constructed giant walled cities to protect mankind and developed a group of elite warriors, the Priests, to turn the tide against the vampires. The majority of the vampires were killed, while the remainder were placed in reservations. With the war over, the Clergy disbanded the Priests. Outside the walled cities, some humans seek out a living, free from the totalitarian control of the Church.
In the near future, a mercenary named Toorop (Vin Diesel) accepts a contract from a Russian mobster, Gorsky (Gérard Depardieu), who instructs him to bring a young woman known only as Aurora (Mélanie Thierry) to New York City. In order to reach this goal, Gorsky gives Toorop a variety of weapons as well as a UN passport that has to be injected under the skin of the neck. Toorop, along with the girl and her guardian nun Sister Rebeka (Michelle Yeoh), travels from the Noelite Convent in Mongolia to reach New York via Russia.
The protagonists are two freewheeling hippies: Wyatt (Fonda), nicknamed "Captain America", and Billy (Hopper). Fonda and Hopper said that these characters' names refer to Wyatt Earp and Billy the Kid. Wyatt dresses in American flag-adorned leather (with an Office of the Secretary of Defense Identification Badge affixed to it), while Billy dresses in Native American-style buckskin pants and shirts and a bushman hat. The former is appreciative of help and of others, while the latter is often hostile and leery of outsiders.
The United States is devastated by a mysterious phenomenon which reanimates recently deceased unburied human beings as flesh-eating zombies. Despite the best efforts by the U.S. government and local authorities to control the situation, society is beginning to collapse and the remaining survivors are given to chaos. Some rural communities and the military have been effective in fighting the zombies in open country, but cities are helpless and largely overrun. Confusion reigns at the WGON television studio in Philadelphia by the phenomenon's third week, where staff members Stephen Andrews and Francine Parker are planning to steal the station's traffic helicopter to escape the zombies. Meanwhile, police SWAT officer Roger DiMarco and his team raid an apartment building where the residents are defying the martial law of delivering their dead to National Guardsmen. Some residents fight back with handguns and rifles, and are killed by both the overzealous SWAT team and their own reanimated dead. During the raid, Roger meets Peter Washington, part of another SWAT team, and they partner up together. Roger tells Peter that his friend Stephen intends to take his network's helicopter, and suggests that Peter come with them. The matter is decided when they are informed of a group of zombies sheltered in the basement, which they execute with grim determination.
The film begins with two cars racing in the middle of the desert. Biker Cary Ford (Martin Henderson) pulls up on his motorcycle and tries to pass them. He finally does so and stops at a diner which his old girlfriend Shane (Monet Mazur) owns. There are pictures all over the wall of Ford and Shane back when they were together. Ford takes one of the pictures. He then goes back outside and the two punks who didn't let him pass show up. The three get into a fight but Ford beats up both of them.
In 1978 Azusa, California, Rocky Dennis (Eric Stoltz), who suffers from a skull deformity, is accepted without question by his freewheeling biker mother's boyfriends, his "extended motorcycle family," and his maternal grandparents, who share his love of baseball card collecting; but is treated with fear, pity, awkwardness, and teasing by those unaware of his humanity, humor, and intelligence. Rocky's mother, Florence "Rusty" Dennis (Cher), is determined to give Rocky as normal a life as possible, in spite of her own wild ways as a member of the Turks biker gang, as well as her strained relationship with her parents. She fights for Rocky's inclusion in a mainstream junior high school, and confronts a principal who would rather classify Rocky as mentally retarded and relegate him to a special education school, despite the fact that his condition hasn't affected his intelligence.
Mobster Carmine Ricca (Richard Devon) drives away from court and an angry mob after being acquitted on a technicality. An unseen SFPD motorcycle cop stops Ricca’s limo for a minor traffic violation. Suddenly, the patrolman pulls his service revolver (a Colt Python .357 Magnum), shoots all four men in the car, then rides away.
Billy Jack is introduced as an enigmatic, half-Indian Vietnam War veteran who shuns society, taking refuge in the peaceful solitude of the California Central Coast mountains. His troubles begin when he descends from this unspoiled setting and drives into a small beach town named Big Rock (Morro Bay). A minor traffic accident in which a motorist hits a motorcyclist results in a savage beating by members of the Born Losers Motorcycle Club. The horrified bystanders (including Laughlin's wife, Delores Taylor, and their two children in cameo roles) are too afraid to help or be involved in any way. Billy Jack jumps into the fray and rescues the man by himself. At this point the police arrive and arrest Billy for using a rifle to stop the fight. (The irony here is that, unknown to Billy, the motorist is the one who starts the fight by inexplicably insulting one of the bikers.
Michael Emerson (Jason Patric) and his younger brother, Sam (Corey Haim), move with their recently divorced mother, Lucy (Dianne Wiest), to the beach community of Santa Carla, California. The family moves in with Lucy's father (Barnard Hughes), a cantankerous and eccentric old man who lives on the outskirts of town and enjoys taxidermy as a hobby.
Ultraviolet takes place in 2078, in the years following a global epidemic that causes vampire-like symptoms, including super-human strength and elongated canines. The infected "hemophages" die within twelve years after being infected. The "Archministry", a militant medical group headed by Vice-Cardinal Ferdinand Daxus, has taken control of the government and begun rounding up infected citizens and exterminating them in order to contain the virus.
Five years after avenging his wife and child, with supplies of petroleum having become nearly exhausted following a major energy crisis and a global war, ex-Main Force Patrol officer "Mad" Max Rockatansky (Mel Gibson) roams the now depopulated and desolate desert in his scarred, black supercharged V-8 Pursuit Special, scavenging for food, water, and fuel. His only companions are an Australian Cattle Dog and a rare functioning firearm–a sawed-off shotgun–for which ammunition is very scarce.
In the world of underground motorcycle racing, the undefeated racer known as Smoke (Laurence Fishburne) is the undisputed "King of Cali." But Smoke's dominance of the set is about to be threatened by a young motorcycle racing prodigy called Kid (Derek Luke), who is determined to win Smoke's helmet and earn the coveted title. Kid says that the difference between men and boys are the lessons they learn- and that his father, Slick Will, taught him plenty.