Emma (Monica Potter) and John Collingwood (Tony Goldwyn), and their daughter, competitive swimmer Mari (Sara Paxton), head out on vacation to their lake house. Shortly thereafter, Mari borrows the family car and drives into town to spend some time with her friend Paige (Martha MacIsaac). While Paige works the cash register at a local store, she and Mari meet Justin (Spencer Treat Clark), a teenager passing through town who invites them both back to his roadside motel room to smoke some marijuana. While the three are hanging out in the motel room, Justin's family members return: Krug (Garret Dillahunt), Justin’s father; Francis (Aaron Paul), Justin’s uncle; and Sadie (Riki Lindhome), Krug’s girlfriend.
In a god-forsaken, off-season French seaside town we meet "Mellie" (Marlène Jobert), who watches a mysterious stranger step down from the bus into the pouring rain. He follows and eventually rapes her, while her husband (an airline navigator) is away from home.
Karen McCann (Sally Field) is happily married to Mack (Ed Harris) and has two daughters, 17-year-old Julie (Olivia Burnette) (from Karen's previous marriage) and six-year-old Megan (Alexandra Kyle). She lives in a nice house in Santa Monica, California and has a good job in a museum.
In 1989, Josey Aimes returns to her hometown in northern Minnesota with her children, Sammy and Karen, after escaping from her abusive husband. She moves in with her parents, Alice and Hank. Hank is ashamed of Josey, who had Sammy as a teenager by an unknown father and therefore thinks Josey is promiscuous. The townspeople believe the same, which causes the community not to associate with her. Her only friends are Glory Dodge and Glory's husband, Kyle. Glory, who works at the local iron mines (the town's main source of income), aids Josey in getting a job there. Glory and Kyle also allow Josey to stay at their home with her children, due to Josey's poor relationship with her father.
At a run-down gas station in the middle of the desert, an old man, Fred (John Steadman), is packing his truck when a ragged and somewhat feral teenage girl named Ruby (Janus Blythe) approaches him. She offers to trade what she has in her bag for food, but the old man refuses. They walk into a small cabin, and Fred scolds her for what "they" have done. Ruby says that her family ambushed a nearby airfield because they were hungry and no one passes by their home anymore. She pleads with Fred to take her with him, but he refuses and warns Ruby that she could be in danger if "the pack", in particular someone named Jupiter, learns what she is doing. She replies that his life will be in danger as well if Jupiter finds out that he is trying to leave. A noise distracts them, and Ruby hides.
A Christian musical procession waits outside a prison for Lee Geum-ja (Lee Young-ae), a recently reformed female prisoner, who had been convicted of murdering a young schoolboy, Won-mo. The case, a national sensation because of her young age at the time of the murder and innocent appearance, earns her a lengthy prison sentence, reduced because of her apparent spiritual transformation in prison and her good conduct toward other inmates, results in the nickname of the "Kind-Hearted Geum-Ja". As Lee Geum-ja emerges from prison, she immediately sidesteps the procession, intent on revenge.
Paul Kersey is an architect living in Manhattan with his wife Joanna and daughter Carol Toby. One day, Joanna and Carol are followed home from the store by a group of thugs who break into the apartment, fatally injure Joanna and sexually assault Carol.
Kurt Sloane (Jean-Claude Van Damme) is the cornerman for his brother Eric (Dennis Alexio), an American kickboxing champion. Kurt and Eric travel to Bangkok to challenge Tong Po (Michel Qissi), Thailand's undefeated champion. After a brutal first round, Kurt realizes that they are outmatched by Tong Po and tries to convince his brother to stop the fight. Unwilling to give up, Eric returns for the second round and continues to take a vicious beating, finally prompting Kurt to throw in the towel. Tong Po ignores him and continues the assault, which ultimately leaves Eric paralyzed from the waist down. Eric is then carried outside and left on the street without any help, until Winston Taylor (Haskell Anderson), a retired US Army special forces member, intervenes and agrees to take the brothers to the hospital. After several hours of surgery, the doctor informs Kurt that Eric will never walk again.
In New Orleans, Will Gerard (Nicolas Cage) is a humble English teacher at Rampart High School. Will's best friend Jimmy (Harold Perrineau) also works at the school. Will's wife Laura (January Jones) is a musician who is in a local orchestra. One night, after a performance, Laura is beaten and brutally raped by a stranger named Hodge (Alex Van).
Marjorie (Fawcett) is a young woman who works in a museum and lives with two female roommates, Pat (Woodard) and Terry (Scarwid) in Los Angeles. One night, while getting into her car, she is attacked at knifepoint by a masked assailant (Russo), who forces her to touch him sexually.
Chris McCormick (Margaux Hemingway) is a highly paid fashion model whose image serves as the driving force of the ad campaign for a popular brand of lipstick and can be seen in magazines and on billboards all around the world. Gordon Stuart (Chris Sarandon), a part-time composer and full-time music teacher, eagerly accepts Chris's 13-year-old sister Kathy's (Mariel Hemingway) invitation to come to a secluded beachside photo shoot, so Chris can listen to some of his music. But Chris is too busy to give any of her time to Gordon and suggests that they meet another day at the apartment she shares with Kathy. Gordon agrees and shows up at the apartment at the date and time that she mentioned. Though Chris has clearly forgotten about the invitation, she lets him in and politely sits down as he plays her a tape of one of his compositions. What she hears is not easy on her ears, but she smiles as it plays and pretends to appreciate it until a phone call from her lover, Steve Edison (Perry King), thankfully interrupts them and allows her to escape to her room, away from the noise and the very creepy Gordon.
After being raped by the soldiers of Queen Gedren, a despot who had her parents and brother murdered for scarring the queen's face while rejecting her sexual advances, Red Sonja is visited by a spirit who grants her the strength to seek revenge. Having trained under a swords master, and become distrustful of most men, Red Sonja is found by Lord Kalidor, who takes her to her dying sister Varna. Varna is a member of an order of priestesses who were preparing to destroy a light-powered relic known as the Talisman that created the world and whose growing power now threatens it. However, Gedren's army and her aide-de-camp Ikol slaughtered the priestesses and took the Talisman while Varna was fatally wounded by the time she found Kalidor. Before dying, Varna tells Sonja of the events at her temple while urging her to find the Talisman and destroy it. After turning down Kalidor's offer to accompany her, seeing a storm in the distance, Sonya arrives to the now-ruined kingdom of Hablock. There she meets the young Prince Tarn and his servant Falkon, learning Gedren completely wiped out Hablock when Tarn refused to surrender. Tarn announces that he is raising a new army to crush Gedren and invites Sonja to work for him as a cook. She declines while told that Gedren is based in Berkubane, the Kingdom of Eternal Night.
Recently divorced, Yoo-lim (Yoo Sun) now lives with her only daughter, Eun-ah (Nam Bo-ra). Upon arriving at her new school, Eun-ah is frequently picked on, though she has feelings for classmate Jo-han (Shin Dongho). One day she is brutally raped by Jo-han and his friends who threaten to upload footage of the rape online to keep her quiet. Unable to cope with the trauma she was forced to endure, Eun-ah takes her own life. As all of the boys involved in the rape are still minors, the law is helpless to prosecute them to the fullest extent possible, and they walk away with little more than a slap on the wrist. Filled with frustration and anger, You-lim sets out to make the boys' lives a living hell. As You-lim's animosity and exasperation is transformed into ever more brutal acts of revenge, she is brought closer and closer to the edge of insanity.