The commercial spacecraft Nostromo is on a return trip to Earth with a seven-member crew in stasis. Detecting a mysterious transmission, possibly a distress signal, from a nearby planetoid, the ship's computer, MOTHER, awakens the crew. Following standard company policy for such situations, the Nostromo lands on the planetoid and Captain Dallas, Executive Officer Kane, and Navigator Lambert head out to investigate. They discover the signal is coming from a derelict alien spacecraft. Inside, they find the remains of a large alien creature whose ribcage appears to have exploded from the inside.
Crop blight has made growing food on Earth nearly impossible, threatening the existence of humanity. Joe Cooper, a widowed former NASA pilot, runs a farm with his father-in-law Donald, son Tom, and daughter Murphy. Murphy believes her bedroom is haunted by a poltergeist. When the "ghost" creates a pattern of dust on the floor, Cooper realizes an unknown intelligence is using gravity to communicate, and interprets the pattern as geographic coordinates, which Cooper and Murphy follow to a secret NASA installation.
Three years after the destruction of the Death Star, the Rebel Alliance has been driven from their former base on Yavin IV by the Galactic Empire. Princess Leia leads a contingent including Han Solo and Luke Skywalker in a new base on the icy planet Hoth. The Imperial Fleet, led by Darth Vader, continues to hunt for Rebels’ new base by dispatching probe droids across the galaxy.
Ellen Ripley is rescued after drifting through space in stasis for 57 years. She is debriefed by her employers at the Weyland-Yutani Corporation over the destruction of her ship, the Nostromo; they are skeptical of her claims that an Alien killed the ship's crew and forced her to destroy the ship.
In the future of 2026, wealthy industrialists rule the vast city of Metropolis from high-rise tower complexes, while a lower class of underground-dwelling workers toil constantly to operate the machines that provide its power. Joh Fredersen is the city's master. Joh's son Freder idles away his time in a pleasure garden with other rich children. Freder is interrupted by the arrival of a young woman named Maria, who has brought a group of workers' children to witness the lifestyle led by the rich. Maria and the children are quickly ushered away, but Freder is fascinated by Maria and goes to the workers' portion of the city to find her.
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.
The film begins at 62 West Wallaby Street on Gromit's birthday at breakfast. After being tipped out of bed and dressed using several mechanical contraptions, Wallace is greeted with a large pile of bills. Wallace remembers Gromit's birthday and presents Gromit with a somewhat unwelcome gift of a spiked dog collar, and a second present of a pair of ex-NASA robotic "Techno Trousers", acquired by Wallace to alleviate the burden of taking Gromit for walks. While Gromit is out on a "walk", Wallace realizes they are in financial difficulty and decides to let the spare bedroom out. He is answered by an inscrutable-looking penguin named Feathers McGraw. The penguin comes to stay at the house, pushing Gromit out of his comfortable bedroom and keeping him awake at night with loud music. On the other hand, Wallace takes a liking to him. Feathers also takes an interest in the Techno Trousers after seeing Gromit use their suction feet to walk on the ceiling.
An infamous hacker called Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss) is cornered in an abandoned hotel by police. She easily overpowers and escapes from them, but a group of sinister black-suited Agents with superhuman abilities lead the police in a rooftop pursuit after her. Upon picking up a ringing phone in a telephone booth, she vanishes without a trace.
The galaxy is in a civil war, and spies for the Rebel Alliance have stolen plans to the Galactic Empire's Death Star, a heavily armed and armored space station capable of destroying entire planets. Rebel leader Princess Leia is in possession of the plans, but her ship is captured by Imperial forces under the command of the evil Lord Darth Vader. Before she is captured Leia hides the plans in the memory of an astromech droid called R2-D2, along with a holographic recording. The droid, accompanied by fellow protocol droid C-3PO, escape from the captured ship to the desert planet Tatooine.
In 1995, John Connor is ten years old and living in Los Angeles with foster parents. His mother Sarah Connor had been preparing him throughout his childhood for his future role as the leader of the Human Resistance against Skynet, but was arrested after attempting to bomb a computer factory and imprisoned at a mental hospital under the supervision of Dr. Silberman. Skynet sends a new Terminator, designated as T-1000, back in time to kill John. The T-1000 is an advanced prototype composed of a mimetic polyalloy that allows it to take on the shape and appearance of almost anything it touches, and transform parts of its anatomy into knives and other stabbing weapons. The T-1000 arrives under a freeway, kills a policeman and assumes his identity. Meanwhile, the future John Connor has sent back a reprogrammed T-800 (Model 101) Terminator to protect his younger self.
In 2805, Earth is long-abandoned and covered in heaps of garbage leftover from decades of mass consumerism, facilitated by the megacorporation Buy 'n' Large (BnL). Seven hundred years earlier, BnL evacuated Earth's population in fully automated starliners, leaving behind WALL-E trash compactor robots to clean the planet for humanity's eventual return, however the plan failed and all the bots were shut off. Only one WALL-E robot remains active, and has developed sentience after so many years of life-experience. He manages to remain active by repairing himself using parts from other inactive units.
In Los Angeles, November 2019, retired police officer Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford) is detained by officer Gaff (Edward James Olmos) and brought to his former supervisor, Bryant (M. Emmet Walsh). Deckard, whose job as a "Blade Runner" was to track down bioengineered beings known as replicants and destroy them, is informed that four have come to Earth illegally. As Tyrell Corporation Nexus-6 models, they have only a four-year lifespan and may have come to Earth to try to extend their lives.
In October 1957, after the Russian satellite Sputnik is put into orbit, an enormous robot from outer space crashes into the ocean near Rockwell, Maine. The robot makes it inland and wanders into the forest. Nine-year-old Hogarth Hughes soon discovers the robot one night. The robot begins eating the powerlines of an electrical substation, then gets electrocuted. Hogarth shuts down the power, saving the robot, and returns home. Several days later, Hogarth makes it his mission to find the robot and take a picture. After hours of waiting, the robot surprises Hogarth, who soon befriends him. Suffering amnesia, the Iron Giant accompanies Hogarth wherever he goes. When they come across a railroad, the Giant starts eating the rails. Hearing an oncoming train, Hogarth tells the Giant to repair the tracks. As he does, the train collides, breaking him to pieces. The Giant's parts start to reassemble, and Hogarth hides the damaged robot in his house's barn, where the parts can repair themselves.
On May 12, 1984, two beings from the year 2029 arrive in Los Angeles: one is a Terminator T-800 Model 101, a cyborg assassin programmed to kill a young woman named Sarah Connor; the other is Kyle Reese, a soldier sent to protect her from the T-800. After the Terminator kills a gang member, a gun-shop manager, the two other women named "Sarah Connor" listed in the telephone directory, Sarah's roommate Ginger, and her partner, it tracks its target to the Technoir, a nightclub. Kyle arrives and saves Sarah from the Terminator. The two steal a car and escape, while the Terminator steals a police car and pursues them.