At the start of the summer holiday, Lewis Thomas (Paul Walker) and his childhood friend Venna Wilcox (Leelee Sobieski), who study at different universities, are both packing to go back home. In an attempt to get Venna romantically interested in him, Lewis offers to come by Venna's campus to drive her home instead of both of them flying back. Venna happily agrees and, after buying a car, Lewis starts his road-trip. When he calls his parents during the trip he learns his brother Fuller (Steve Zahn) has managed to once again get arrested, this time in Salt Lake City. Since Salt Lake City is not that far, Lewis decides that, prior to picking up Venna, he will visit Fuller, whom he hasn't seen in five years. After bailing him out, Fuller decides to accompany Lewis on his trip and, during the ride, coaxes Lewis into playing a cruel prank through their CB Radio on a truck driver, known only as 'Rusty Nail' (voiced by Ted Levine (uncredited)). Lewis pretends to be an attractive young woman named Candy Cane and sets up a meeting with Rusty Nail in the motel where Lewis and Fuller will be spending the night. But instead of giving Rusty his own room number, Lewis gives him the number of the room next door, which belongs to a highly irritable businessman who had an argument with Fuller earlier that night. When the joke takes a deadly turn, Lewis and Fuller find themselves being relentlessly stalked by the psychotic Rusty Nail. Needing gas, Lewis and Fuller stop at a gas station but are shocked when an ice truck follows them into the gas station. Convinced the truck driver must be Rusty Nail, Lewis and Fuller flee in panic only to discover they are being chased by the ice truck driver. However, it turns out the truck driver is merely trying to return Lewis' credit card which he left behind at the gas station. As the ice truck drives away, the real Rusty Nail in his truck ploughs through the ice truck, killing the innocent truck driver. He then proceeds to run over and crush the Lewis and Fuller's car, taunting them. Once the two apologize, Rusty accepts, and leaves.
When David (Lochlyn Munro), a comedian, gets a three night gig at a trucker's bar, his girlfriend, Sylvia (Kristin Davis), leaves him and accepts a ride from a trucker, Jack (Meat Loaf).
In a small American town, the town residents live peacefully. But one day, trucks mysteriously start to come to life and develop their own minds, but they end up prompting violence, starting to destroy houses and kill people, and the rest of the townspeople have to figure out a way to destroy them all before they kill all the residents of the town.
Ellen Carson (Yasmine Bleeth) is a real estate agent who inadvertently cuts off a delivery truck driver while changing lanes on the freeway to hurry home. The truck driver turns out to be a disturbed man named Eddie Madden (Jere Burns), who proceeds to chase after Ellen in an effort to run her off the road. Ellen in fear calls the 1-800 number on the back of his truck and lodges a complaint, which causes Eddie to lose his job, and he (being a grieving husband and father who earlier lost his family to a car accident) sets out to destroy Ellen's family and soon becomes fixated on Ellen and her teenage stepdaughter Cynthia (Alana Austin) and plots to have them as replacement family, by removing the head of the house, Ellen's husband and Cynthia's father Jim Carson (John Wesley Shipp).
The movie first starts out with FBI and ATF agents on a pursuit to stop a truck carrying illegal guns as part of an illegal arms operation. The result is the death of the driver, which leads to a disagreement with FBI and ATF agents on involvement with the case.
While driving cross-country from Boston to San Diego in their new Jeep Grand Cherokee, Jeff Taylor and his wife Amy narrowly miss colliding with a beat-up Ford F-150 that darts in front of them from a connecting road on a deserted highway. Later, while stopped at a gas station, the truck's driver, Earl, exchanges hostile words with Jeff before the couple resume their journey. Shortly afterwards, their Jeep breaks down in the middle of the desert. Leaving Jeff with the car, Amy accepts a ride from a passing big rig trucker named Red Barr driving a Peterbilt 385, to get to a nearby diner and call for help. Jeff eventually discovers that the Jeep's battery connections have been suspiciously tampered with, and, after reconnecting them, drives to the diner, only to discover that no one has seen his wife. When he catches up to Barr on the road and forces him to stop, the trucker claims he has never seen Jeff or his wife before. Jeff hails a passing sheriff, named Boyd, but a brief search of Barr's truck yields no sign of Amy, and he is let go.
In a small town in Upstate New York named "Sam Dent", a school bus skids into a lake, killing 14 children. Their grieving parents are approached by a lawyer, Mitchell Stephens (Ian Holm), who is haunted by his dysfunctional relationship with his drug-addict daughter. Stephens persuades the reluctant parents to file a class action lawsuit against the state, school district, or other entity for damages, arguing that the accident is a result of negligence.
Fred, la trentaine, grutier qualifié, est au chômage. Sa compagne Lisa travaille dans un laboratoire d'analyses médicales. Elle soutient son homme, inactif malgré lui, de son amour, même si l'ambiance est de plus en plus pesante. Une nuit d'insomnie Fred entend un camion s'arrêter devant la maison de son ami Michel, chauffeur routier. Le lendemain, Michel lui propose de lui rendre service contre une mince rétribution. Il accepte de convoyer ce fameux camion dans un entrepôt. Sans le savoir, il vient de mettre le pied dans un engrenage.
At a corporation's base on the Neptunian moon Triton, mercenaries are setting up a defense perimeter to try to hold off an unstoppable cyborg warrior. The commander, Nabel, seals himself inside the control room. The cyborg destroys the soldiers' tank and then attacks a helicopter—which crashes into the control room. The soldiers are killed one by one, until Nabel finally deactivates the cyborg with a remote control. The remaining corporate employees discover that the cyborg was created by company owner E.J. Saggs. Saggs arrives at the base just as the battle ends, and takes the remote from Nabel. He reactivates the cyborg and orders it to kill Nabel.
Los Angeles SWAT officers Jack Traven and Harry Temple thwart an attempt by a bomber to hold an elevator full of people for a $3 million ransom. They corner the bomber, but he grabs Harry. Jack shoots Harry in the leg, forcing the bomber to release him. He turns and runs around a corner, apparently dying in an explosion. Jack and Harry are praised by their superior, Lieutenant "Mac" McMahon.
Jimmy Hoffa and Bobby Ciaro are impatiently waiting in the parking lot of a roadhouse diner on July 30,1975. Others are late for a meeting. Asked if he wants to leave, Hoffa gives Ciaro a scornful glance. The first flashback to 1935 then occurs:
Lincoln Hawk is a struggling trucker who arm wrestles on the side to make extra cash while trying to rebuild his life. Hawk's estranged wife Christina, who is very ill, asks that Hawk pick up their son Michael from military school so that the two of them can get to know each other; Hawk had left them ten years earlier. Michael's controlling grandfather Jason Cutler, a wealthy man who hates Hawk and disapproved of his daughter's relationship with him, believes that Hawk has no right to be in his grandson's life. Michael is very distrusting and bitter towards Hawk initially and treats him with contempt at every turn.
In the year 2037, an international sport has been established, wherein a driver of a truck must cross the country and arrive at a designated terminus, while confronting obstacles and enemies along the way. The lead truck, named "Monster", has been designed by a boy genius (Gabriel Damon) and is to be piloted through the course by a woman named Gus (Karen Allen). Eventually, the truck's AI fails and Gus ends up in uncharted territories. There, she encounters leather-clad "hoods" (hoodlums) that torture her and eventually kill her. Prior to dying, she befriends a fellow prisoner (Johnny Hallyday), who later uses the truck to rescue himself and a young orphan. Meanwhile, the boy genius watches them by an artificial satellite so that he may see how well the truck's software works. The conclusion reveals that as he watches the truck, he is himself watched and evaluated by the sinister doctor (Jürgen Prochnow) who cloned him.