James Woods

In Columbia Pictures White House Down, Capitol Policeman John Cale (Channing Tatum) has just been denied his dream job with the Secret Service of protecting President James Sawyer (Jamie Foxx). Not wanting to let down his little girl with the news, he takes her on a tour of the White House, when the complex is overtaken by a heavily armed paramilitary group. Now, with the nations government falling into chaos and time running out, it's up to Cale to save the president, his daughter, and the country.

David and Amy Sumner (James Marsden and Kate Bosworth), a Hollywood screenwriter and his actress wife, return to her small hometown in the deep South to prepare the family home for sale after her father`s death. Once there, tensions build in their marriage and old conflicts re-emerge with the locals, including Amy`s ex-boyfriend Charlie (Alexander Skarsgard), leading to a violent confrontation.

A stylistically daring CGI feature, ``Surf`s Up`` is based on the groundbreaking revelation that surfing was actually invented by penguins. In the film, a documentary crew will take audiences behind the scenes and onto the waves during the most competitive, heartbreaking and dangerous display of surfing known to man, the Penguin World Surfing Championship.

Two years after the first film, Stuart Little has settled into family life with his parents, older brother George, and baby sister Martha, who has yet to say her first words. Stuart is becoming tired of his adoptive mother Eleanor's over-protectiveness due to his small size and is finding himself lonely when George would rather play with his own friend, Will (Marc John Jefferies). Stuart is looking forward to a soccer match with George, but Eleanor is worried that Stuart might get crushed by any of the players in cleats. Stuart is benched for most of the game, passing orange slices to players during the break. With 40 seconds left in the match, a player gets hurt, and Stuart is asked to take the field. Stuart Little (Michael J. Fox) questions his ability after a grueling soccer match alongside George (Jonathan Lipnicki), who kicked him with a soccer ball. Stuart is found by Frederick and Eleanor hanging on the back of the net. Stuart becomes even more downhearted after George's toy airplane gets broken in an accident because of him. George and Stuart had built the model airplane together, but then George went to play PS2 with Will. Stuart decided to finish the plane himself, but accidentally ends up turning it on. Stuart is unable to control the plane, and it flies out of the house into a park, where it crashes. This prompts George to furiously throw it into a trash can However, Stuart's dad Mr. Frederick Little (Hugh Laurie) tells him that for every Little, there is a "silver lining"- a good thing that comes out of an apparently bad situation. Stuart tries to make new friends at school, but everyone is busy with a lot going on in their lives. When driving home from school in his roadster, Stuart saves a female canary named Margalo (Melanie Griffith) who is being pursued by a peregrine falcon (James Woods), and they become friends. But Margalo is secretly working with the Falcon to case and steal from households. When he presses her to find and take an object of value, or lose the sanctuary he promised her, Margalo can't seem to concentrate on her assignment, as she is beginning to have tender feelings for Stuart. Falcon eventually loses patience and threatens to kill Stuart if she doesn't deliver. Sadly, Margalo takes Mrs. Eleanor Little's (Geena Davis) diamond ring. When the family sees the ring is missing, they think it has fallen down the sink. Stuart offers to be lowered down the drain on a string to get it, and nearly succeeds. When the string breaks Margalo saves him, and his thanks to her only make her feel even more guilty, so she decides to leave. When Stuart can't find her, he assumes she has been kidnapped - and that Falcon is somehow involved. He leaves on a quest to rescue her with the household's reluctant cat Snowbell (Nathan Lane), but not before setting up a plan with George. Stuart convinces George to conduct a series of elaborate (and extremely unconvincing) lies to Eleanor in order to cover for him. Stuart and Snowbell decide to get information on Falcon's whereabouts, so they enlist the help of Monty (Steve Zahn), an alley cat, who tells them that Falcon's lair is at the disused observation deck of the nearby Pishkin Building and warns that he is an extremely dangerous foe. Stuart and Snowbell hatch a plan to use balloons to get Stuart to the top, where he finds out that Margalo is Falcon's slave, and was forced to take the ring. He tries to save her, but Falcon traps Margalo in a paint can, and drops him from an immense height to his presumed death. However, he lands on a soft trash bag in a garbage truck and is taken to a garbage barge out at sea. In the meantime, Snowbell has also ventured up the Pishkin Building, and frees Margalo from the paint can, only to become trapped in it himself. Snowbell learns from Margalo that Falcon killed Stuart. Margalo breaks free from Falcon's control, and flies away with Eleanor's ring, prompting Falcon to give chase. On a garbage scow where he has ended up, Stuart blames himself for everything and has almost lost all hope. But suddenly, he finds George's broken plane, fixes it up, and flies to save Margalo, who, having been freed by Snowbell, just fled from Falcon. Meanwhile, George, after being reprimanded by his parents for his deception and interrogated on Stuart's true whereabouts, confesses where Stuart is to them, prompting them to head out and look for him. The Littles follow Stuart by taxi as he begins an aerial adventure through the park, with Margalo at his side. Eventually, they lose the Falcon, but he catches up and makes an attempt to kill Stuart, when he detaches the upper wing of the plane, damaging the main wing and causing it to enter a steep nosedive, which fails when Stuart recovers from the dive, nearly missing the Littles. Stuart then realizes he can't run from Falcon and lets Margalo off. Stuart turns and flies the damaged plane in a kamikaze run while Falcon goes into an attack dive. Stuart uses Mrs. Little's ring to temporarily blind Falcon and jumps out using a Bandana as a parachute. The kamikaze attack works, and Falcon is struck head on and defeated. Although Falcon survives the attack, he falls out of the sky and lands in a garbage can that Monty is scavenging in, and is presumably eaten by the cat, but not before Stuart falls when his parachute is sliced apart by the propeller of the shattered plane, and then is rescued by Margalo. Stuart is congratulated by his family, and Margalo, who gives Mrs. Little her ring back, and Snowbell reunite with them as well. That evening, Margalo leaves with the other birds to migrate south, but not before saying goodbye to her friends. Stuart says the "silver lining" is that she'll be back in the spring, and his baby sister, Martha (Anna and Ashley Hoelck) the infant daughter of the Little family, says her first words: "Bye-bye, birdie."

A single mother, with dreams of becoming a writer, has a son at the age of 15 in 1965, and goes through a failed marriage with the drug-addicted father. Seriocomic story based on the memoir by Beverly Donofrio, the movie follows a young woman who finds her life radically altered by an event from her teen years. Born in 1950, Beverly grew up bright and ambitious in a working-class neighborhood in Connecticut; her father was a tough but good-hearted cop who listened to his daughter's problems, and her mother was a nervous woman eager to imagine the worst. From an early age, Beverly displays a keen intelligence and an interest in literature, and dreams of going to college in New York and becoming a writer. However, she also develops an early interest in boys, and at 15 finds herself madly in love with a boy from her high school. However, an attempt to get his attention leads to an embarassing incident at a party, and Ray, a sweet but thick-headed 18-year-old, steps forward to defend her. Beverly and Ray end up making out, and after one thing leads to another, Beverly discovers she's pregnant. Telling Ray is only marginally less difficult than informing her parents, and at 16, Beverly is a wife and mother. Against the odds, Beverly is determined to still finish high school and go on to college, but that goal becomes more difficult with time, especially after Beverly's marriage begins to fall apart. Ray tries to do the right thing but has trouble holding a job, and becomes addicted to heroin.

In 2065, Earth is infested by alien life forms known as Phantoms. The Phantoms arrived on Earth 34 yrs ago. By physical contact Phantoms consume the Gaia spirit of living beings, killing them instantly, though a minor contact may only result in an infection. The surviving humans live in "barrier cities" protected by energy shields that prevent Phantoms from entering and are engaged in an ongoing struggle to free the planet. After being infected by a Phantom during one of her experiments, scientist Dr. Aki Ross (Ming-Na) and her mentor, Dr. Sid (Donald Sutherland) discover a means of defeating the Phantoms by gathering eight spirits, unique energy patterns contained by various lifeforms. When joined, the resulting energy wave can negate the Phantoms. Aki searches for the sixth spirit in the ruins of New York City when she is cornered by Phantoms but rescued by Captain Gray Edwards (Alec Baldwin) and his squad Deep Eyes, consisting of Master Sergeant Ryan Whittaker (Ving Rhames), Neil Fleming (Steve Buscemi) and Corporal Jane Proudfoot (Peri Gilpin). It is revealed that Gray was once romantically involved with Aki. When they return to Barrier city #42, the whole team undergoes scans, and it is revealed that Gray somehow got infected. Aki takes a big risk and by treating Gray inside the city, and using lasers to eliminate the phantom before it broke through & infected the entire city. Dr Sid then arrives and allows Aki to bypass the scans. 20 years ago, Sid discovered an energy signature in the phantoms. Sid is responsible for every piece of tech being used to fight the phantoms. Including bringing together the 8 spirits from 8 different life forms. Dr Sid believes that each spirit is born out of the Gaia. and is housed in a physical body, where it grows and mature. When the body dies, the spirit returns to the Gaia, enriching it and allowing it to grow. But his research is not popular, only the weapons he creates are. Returning to her barrier city, Aki joins Sid and appears before the leadership council along with General Douglas Hein (James Woods). Hein is determined to use the Zeus cannon, a powerful weapon aboard a space station, to destroy the Phantoms (who nest in the Leonid meteor, which is now lying on the surface of the Earth), though Sid is concerned the cannon will damage Earth's Gaia (a spirit representing its ecosystem) (Sid argues that every time humans have attacked Leonid, the phantoms go deeper inside the Earth to bide their time. Increasing the weapons power could lead to injuring the spirit of the Earth). Aki delays the use of the cannon by revealing that she has been infected, and the collected spirits are keeping her infection stable inside her body, convincing the council that there may be another way to defeat the Phantoms. The 6 spirits collected so far are: Human, Fish, Sparrow, Deer, A little girl (dying in the emergency room), & a Plant. However, this revelation leads Hein to incorrectly conclude that she is being controlled by the Phantoms. Hein reassigns Gray to Aki and to keep an eye on her at all times. Aki and the Deep Eyes squad succeed in finding the seventh spirit as Aki's infection begins to worsen and she slips into unconsciousness. The phantoms were attracted towards her energy signature. Gray barely manages to get her out. Gray's team wants to shoot Aki, but Gray stands in their way. Her dream reveals to her that the Phantoms are the spirits of dead aliens brought to Earth on a fragment of their destroyed planet (There was a civil war and both sides used powerful nukes, destroying their planet and turning all life forms into Phantoms. Which is why phantoms on Earth come in myriad shapes and forms). Sid uses the seventh spirit to bring Aki's infection back under control, reviving her. To scare the council into giving him clearance to fire the Zeus cannon, Hein lowers part of the barrier shield protecting the city. Though Hein intended that only a few Phantoms enter, his plan goes awry, and legions of Phantoms invade the entire city. Aki, Sid and the Deep Eyes attempt to reach Aki's spaceship, their means of escape, but Ryan, Neil and Jane are killed by Phantoms during the process. Ryan attacks the meta to distract them away from Aki's ship and allowing them to power up to escape. Aki and Gray share a kiss after they escape. Hein escapes and boards the Zeus cannon's space station, where he finally receives authorization to fire the cannon. Sid finds the eighth spirit at the crater site of the alien asteroid's impact on Earth. But that's most likely a one-way trip. He attaches a device to Aki's chest plate to attract the 8th spirit. He lowers a shielded vehicle, with Aki and Gray aboard, into the crater to locate the final spirit. Just before they can reach it, Hein fires the Zeus cannon into the crater, not only destroying the eighth spirit but also revealing the Phantom Gaia. Aki tries to speak to Hein to explain that the phantoms are only lost spirits, ghosts and not an invading force. Hein is in no mood to stop firing. Aki has a vision of the Phantom home planet, where she is able to receive the eighth spirit from the alien particles in herself. When Aki awakens, she and Gray combine it with the other seven. Hein continues to fire the Zeus cannon despite overheating warnings and unintentionally destroys the cannon and himself. Gray sacrifices himself as a medium needed to physically transmit the completed spirit into the alien Gaia. The Earth's Gaia is returned to normal as the Phantoms ascend into space, finally at peace. Aki is pulled from the crater holding Gray's body and is seen looking into the newly liberated world.

This movie is more of a historically inspired children's fantasy. It centers around a young boy who's widowed father, Dr. Huber (James Woods), is the preiminent German rocket scientist at NASA during the early space program. Patterned after Werner Von Braun, Dr. Huber is trying to raise his son Billy (Linz) as a proud German while the son is much happier being an all American kid. In addition to fighting the ever present cultural conflict, Dr. huber is faced with political intrigue and ruthless competitors. The story is mostly about Billy's relationships with various space program employees (engineers, animal trainers and astronauts) and with the other kids who often see him as a German. The space program serves largely as a backdrop to a story of a child caught between two cultures. A good movie for kids and space buffs it is a fictional (and at times fantastical) account of the very early space program as seem from Billy's eyes. Excellent special effects and accurate minitaures.

There`s the right way, the wrong way and the Army way. But there`s no way military investigator Brenner is going to join in when officials try to cover up the murder of a female officer.

The story takes place in affluent Grosse Pointe, Michigan, in 1974, as four neighborhood boys reflect on their neighbors, the five Lisbon sisters. Strictly unattainable due to their overprotective, authoritarian parents, Ronald (James Woods) and Sara (Kathleen Turner), the girls: 17-year-old Therese (Leslie Hayman), 16-year-old Mary (A.J. Cook), 15-year-old Bonnie (Chelse Swain), 14-year-old Lux (Kirsten Dunst), and 13-year-old Cecilia (Hanna R. Hall), are the enigma that fill the boys' conversations and dreams. The film begins with the suicide attempt of the youngest sister, Cecilia, as she slits her wrist in a bath. The family therapist Dr. Horniker (Danny DeVito) suggests to Ronald and Sara and Cecilia may have a problem with feeling neglected and says that they should pay more attention to Cecilia and the rest of their children. A few days later, Ronald and Sara throw a chaperoned party at their house which is intended to make Cecilia feel better. Cecilia excuses herself and jumps out her second-floor bedroom window, dying when she impales herself on an iron fence. In the wake of her act, the Lisbon parents begin to watch over their daughters even more closely, further isolating the family from the community and heightening the air of mystery about the Lisbon family and what they are really about. At the beginning of the new school year in the fall, Lux forms a secret relationship with Trip Fontaine (Josh Hartnett), the school heartthrob. Trip comes over one night to the Lisbon residence to watch television and persuades Mr. Lisbon to allow him to take Lux to the Homecoming Dance by promising to provide dates for the other sisters, to go as a group. Mr. Lisbon agrees as well as volunteers to be one of the chaperones. After being crowned Homecoming Queen and King, Lux and Trip have sex on the football field. Lux falls asleep, and Trip abandons her immediately. Lux wakes up alone and has to take a taxi home. Having broken curfew, Lux and her sisters are punished by a furious Mrs. Lisbon by being taken out of school and sequestered in their house. Unable to leave the house, the sisters contact the boys across the street by using light signals and sharing songs over the phone as a means of sharing their feelings. During this time, Lux begins to have anonymous sexual encounters on the roof of the house late at night; the boys watch from across the street. Finally, after months of confinement, the sisters leave a note for the boys, presumably asking for help to escape. When the boys arrive that night, they find Lux alone in the living room, smoking a cigarette. She invites them to wait for her sisters, while she goes to wait in the car. The boys briefly imagine the group of them driving blissfully away on a sun-soaked country road. The boys wander into the basement and discover Bonnie's body hanging from the ceiling. Terrified, they rush upstairs only to stumble across the bodies of the remaining sisters. They had all killed themselves in an apparent suicide pact moments before: Therese took an overdose of sleeping pills; Mary stuck her head in the gas oven; and Lux left the car engine running in the sealed garage. Devastated by the suicides of all their children, Mr. and Mrs. Lisbon quietly flee the neighborhood in the middle of the night, never to return. Mr. Lisbon calls a friend to sell off the family belongings, especially those belonging to the girls, in a yard sale; whatever didn't sell was put in the trash, including the family photos, which the neighborhood boys kept as mementos of the mysterious girls. Soon after, a young couple from Boston purchases the Lisbon's house. Seemingly unsure how to react, the adults in the community go about their lives as if nothing important happened. Mr. and Mrs. Lisbon were never seen or heard of again. People in the community to this day talk as if the Lisbon family never existed. The five dead girls forever remain a source of mystery and grief for the boys, who cannot forget them. The film ends with one of the boys acknowledging in voice-over that they will spend the rest of their lives trying to put together the unsolvable mystery of the Lisbon sisters and why they choose to commit suicide.

Jack Crow (James Woods) is a professional and Vatican-funded vampire slayer. He and his team of slayers have just rooted out a nest of nine vampires in the New Mexico desert but, disappointingly, the master vampire--Jan Valek--was not there. Still, the team is partying at the Sun God Motel, rejoicing in their victory. Unbeknown to the slayers, Valek (Thomas Ian Griffith) is in the adjoining room, seducing and biting Katrina (Sheryl Lee), a hooker hired for the party. Before Jack is even aware of Valek's presence, Valek has viciously slain his entire team as well as all the hookers. During the battle, Valek says Jack's name, which takes the slayer by surprise. Only Jack, Katrina, and Jack's partner Montoya (Daniel Baldwin) manage to escape. After beheading and burning the bodies of his team (to make sure they don't turn into vampires), Jack goes directly to Cardinal Alba (Maximilian Schell) for further instructions. Alba has more bad news. Their European team was also wiped out three days ago near Cologne, Germany, and a portrait of Jan Valek was found there. According to archivist, Father Adam Guiteau (Tim Guinee), Valek was a 14th century priest who turned against the church and was burned at the stake for heresy. After his death, however, Valek became a vampire, the first of his kind. The Vatican wants Jack to rebuild his team, and they give him Guiteau as his first replacement. Jack wants nothing to do with the milquetoast bookworm, especially because he suspects the team's slaying was a setup, and it could just as easily have been Guiteau as anyone else in the church. After physically abusing Guiteau a few times, Jack levels with him. He shows him a map of where nests of vampires have been killed in the Southwest since the 1800s. It shows a pattern of an ever-widening circle, and Jack thinks that they're searching for something. Furthermore, he thinks they might be searching for a black cross that he heard of when he was young. Meanwhile, Montoya and Katrina are holed up in a hotel. Katrina hasn't turned yet and, when she finds out that she's been bitten by a vampire. Montoya wants to keep her around because of her telepathic link to Valek. She tries to commit suicide by jumping off a ledge but Montoya manages to pull her back through the window, but he cuts his arm while doing so, and Katrina grabs it and starts sucking. Montoya knocks her out and then burns the bite with a lighter, hoping to sterilize it from the sickness that will convert him. When Katrina awakens, she starts having visions. The first one is of Valek in a church in San Miguel County. The next vision shows Valek looking at a map and then killing a priest. Guiteau offers to get a list of all the churches in the county, a clue that leads them to Father Molina, whose body was found decapitated and laying alongside a dirt road. After further brutal interrogation by Jack, Guiteau finally confesses that Molina was the only one in the world who knew the whereabouts of the black Bersier cross, an ancient relic from the Old World (Europe) that was used in the exorcism meant to drive the demons from Valek's body. Unfortunately, the exorcism resulted in turning him into a vampire was never completed, leaving Valek vulnerable to the sun. He needs the cross now to finish the ritual. If he succeeds, he will be able to live in the daytime. A master vampire able to walk in the sun would be unstoppable. It's sundown and Valek with a new group of vampires are rising from the ground where they sleep. Through her telepathic connection to Valek, Katrina can tell that he is accompanied by seven other master vampires. She can see them headed into a small Spanish mission. She can see the vampires brutally slaying the mission clerics. And she can see Valek taking down the black cross. "He's got it!" she smiles. The next day Katrina leads Jack and Montoya to the small, deserted town of Santiago where she says Valek is hiding in the best-constructed building in town -- the jailhouse. With only three slayers and as many as 30 vampires, Jack, Montoya, and Guiteau have their work cut out for them. As the day wears on, Guiteau lures out the vampires, Jack shoots stakes into their chests from his crossbow, and Montoya drives the winch that pulls the vampires out into the sun where they burn up. With the sun setting rapidly, it is time to end the day's work before the other vampires wake up. Montoya and Katrina escape in the jeep, Guiteau hides behind a counter in a restaurant, finding a shotgun, but Valek catches Jack and ties him up. Jack wonders why Valek just doesn't kill him. Suddenly, Cardinal Alba steps out of the shadows. Admitting he was the one who betrayed the slayers, he says he's struck a deal with Valek to give him immortality for finishing the ritual that will complete Valek's transformation. Meanwhile, Katrina has completed her change. She bites Montoya's neck, drinks some of his blood, and then leaves him for dead in the jeep and rejoins Valek and his vampires. Montoya shoots off a few rounds with his gun and then places the hot barrel to his neck, hoping to sterilize the bite. The ceremony is beginning, and Jack discovers that he is to part of it, because the ceremony requires a ritual sacrifice by crucifixion of a slayer at the moment of dawn. The vampires tie Jack to a cross and Alba begins by slicing Jack's leg, collecting the blood, and passing it to Valek to drink. As the sun begins to rise, Guiteau (who has been listening to everything from his hiding place in the restaurant) shoots Alba. With no priest to finish the ritual, Valek tries to force Guiteau to do it, but Guiteau turns the gun on himself. Just when it looks like Guiteau might have to shoot himself, Montoya appears in the jeep. He fires a stake into the cross and, using the winch, pulls it down. Guiteau leaps forward and cuts Jack free. As the sun continues to rise, the vampires run for cover, with Jack and Guiteau following. They trap Valek, who leaps at Jack. Jack holds up the Bersier cross and Valek lands on it, impaling himself. As Valek attempts to pull out the cross, Jack pulls down the dilapidated ceiling. The sunlight streams in, and Valek bursts into flames. In the final scene, knowing that they have more vampires to kill, Montoya finally admits to Jack that he's been bitten twice by Katrina, who is lying in the back of the truck in order to stay out of the sun. He also says that he can no longer function as a slayer and that he intends to take Katrina south where he can take care of her. Guiteau tries to kill Montoya, but Jack steps between them. Knowing that Montoya was first bitten two days ago but still saved his life in the fight with the vampires, Jack figures he owes Montoya two days. However, he promises that, when those two days are up, he will hunt down Montoya and Katrina and kill both of them. The soon-to-be-turned vamp Montoya and the vampire Katrina drive away while Jack and Guiteau stay behind to clean up the town of the surviving vampires before pursing them. [Original Synopsis by bj_kuehl.]

Film legend Martin Scorsese presents a tale about the rise and fall of a Las Vegas gangster and his slowly unraveling wife, exposing a world never seen by the average person.

A comic love triangle in which a man falls in love with his younger brother's wife.

A pampered actor unexpectedly becomes partnered with a hard-boiled New York City cop in this great blend of action and laughs!

An upscale couple unable to conceive arrange a brokered adoption with a pregnant woman who doesn't hold up her end of the deal to give up the baby. Linda and Michael, married for 10 years, desperately want a baby and turn to an adoption agency that introduces them to pregnant teenager Lucy. The three agree that Linda and Michael will adopt Lucy's baby and that Lucy will sign away custody, but will things actually turn out that way, or will Lucy and her boyfriend decide that they want to keep their relationship and their baby?

A cynical former civil liberties attorney now reduced to "specializing" in defending drug dealers becomes transformed by an eight-year-old murder case. Eddie Dodd is a burnt out former civil rights lawyer who now specializes in defending drug dealers. Roger Baron, newly graduated from law school, has followed Eddie's great cases and now wants to learn at his feet. With Roger's idealistic prodding, Eddie reluctantly takes on a case of a young Korean man who, according to his mom, has been in jail for eight years for a murder he did not commit.

A group of masked gunmen steal evidence from a police evidence storage unit, killing several officers in the process. Officer Dennis Meechum (Brian Dennehy) is seriously wounded after stabbing one of the robbers. He survives and publishes a book titled Inside Job based on his experience. Years later, Meechum has been promoted to Detective, and is working on his next novel. He now suffers from writer's block, and is a widowed father raising his daughter, Holly (Allison Balson). On a case at the docks, a suspect runs as Meechum gives chase. A man named Cleve (James Woods) joins the chase. The suspect hides in an overhead crane and attempts to shoot Meechum, but Cleve kills the man, then disappears. Cleve arranges a meeting with Meechum, and tries to convince to write a book about his history as a paid assassin for a corporate empire, Kappa International. Cleve intimidates Kappa's founder, David Madlock (Paul Shenar) about Meechum's next book, and promises Meechum to show evidence to back up his claims. They proceed to take trips to New York and Texas where Cleve tries to convince Meechum of his history of hits. While they are in Texas, it is revealed that Cleve was the injured masked gunmen that Meechum had stabbed years earlier. Madlock, through his legal representatives, tries to bribe Meechum but fails. When an enforcer tries to steal a manuscript of Meechum's novel and attempt to kill Holly, Cleve intervenes by killing him. When Cleve attempts to keep Holly safe by sending her to Meechum's agent, Roberta Gillian (Victoria Tennant). Madlock, however, manages to kidnap Holly. Meechum decides to have a meeting with Madlock at the latter's oceanfront estate. Cleve storms into the house, and guns down all of Madlock's bodyguards. Cleve then sacrifices his own life to save Holly from Madlock. Meechum arrests Madlock, before comforting a dying Cleve. At the end of the film, it is revealed that Meechum has published the book titled Retribution: The Fall of David Madlock and Kappa International.

California, 1980 Veteran photojournalist Richard Boyle (James Woods) has been taking his camera to the world's trouble spots for over 20 years. While he does good work, Boyle's fondness for booze and drugs, and his colossal arrogance, have given him a reputation that's left him practically unemployable. One morning, he finds that his wife has abandoned him, taking their child with her. Broke and with no immediate prospects, Boyle and his best friend, Doctor Rock (Jim Belushi), an out-of-work disc jockey, head to El Salvador, where Boyle is convinced that he can scrounge some lucrative freelance work amidst the nation's political turmoil. However, when Boyle and Rock witness the execution of a teenage high school student by government troops just as they enter the country, it becomes clear that this war is more serious than they were expecting. After he asks a soldier for a general he met during the Football War, he and Rock are taken to him in a school-turned-barracks where both discuss the situation and he learns that the army is supplied by the United States. Feeling that El Salvador is a disaster starting to happen, Boyle eventually decides that it's time to get out, but he's reunited with an old flame named María (Elpidia Carrillo) and her two children (one of whom is his), and he doesn't want to leave her behind. In the meantime, both he and Maria go to a mass by Archbishop Oscar Romero. During the mass, the Archbishop is killed by an assassin sent by the far-right ARANA party (a fascist parody of the real-life ARENA party) and the army outside opens fire on the escaping crowd with Boyle and Maria barely escaping. Following this, he goes to the United States Embassy to convince the ambassador (Michael Murphy) to cut aid for the Salvadoran government as their human rights abuses increase but is denied and is told to leave the country for his own safety, prompting him to leave the embassy in anger. While attempting to get her out of the country, Boyle is harassed by the military due to his profession and eventually leads to the deaths of innocent people either close to him or María by death squads. John Cassady (John Savage), Boyle's friend and fellow photojournalist, is also killed during a battle between the government and rebels in Santa Ana when the Salvadoran army starts using American vehicles and air support to crush the left-wing rebels. Boyle and María eventually leave the country and travel through Guatemala, and later Mexico towards the United States. However, upon entering California, their bus is stopped by immigration officers and María allows herself to be deported alongside her children due to the guilt of leaving her home country behind while Boyle is arrested after desperately arguing with the officers. An epilogue reveals that Maria and her children survived and were last rumored to be in a refugee camp in Guatemala by the time of this film's release. Doctor Rock eventually returned to San Francisco. John Cassady's photos were published and Richard Boyle is still looking for Maria and her children.

A gangster hires an ex-football player to find his girlfriend. When he finds her, they fall in love, but soon get caught in a complex web of corruption, betrayal and murder.

Max Renn (James Woods) is the president of CIVIC-TV (Channel 83, Cable 12), a sleazy Toronto UHF television station specializing in sensationalist programming. Displeased with his station's current lineup (which mostly consists of softcore pornography), Renn is on a seemingly endless quest for something that isn't so "soft" and will "break through" to a new audience. One morning Renn is summoned to the clandestine office of Harlan (Peter Dvorsky), a man whom he hires to operates CIVIC-TV's pirate satellite dish, a technologically advanced satellite run on an amalgamation of high-tech components that allows it to pirate broadcasts from as far away as Asia. Harlan shows Renn "Videodrome," a plotless television show apparently being broadcast out of Malaysia, which depicts the brutal torture and eventual murder of anonymous victims in a bizarre, reddish-orange chamber. Believing this to be the future of television-- faked snuff TV-- Renn orders Harlan to begin pirating the show. Appearing on a Rena King's TV talk show, Renn defends his station's programming choices to Nikki Brand (Deborah Harry), a sadomasochistic psychiatrist, and Professor Brian O'Blivion (Jack Creley), a pop-culture analyst and philosopher who will only appear on television if his image is broadcast into the studio, onto a television, from a remote location. O'Blivion hijacks the interview and delivers a speech prophesying a future in which television supplants real life. Renn dates Nikki, who is sexually aroused when Renn shows her an episode of Videodrome and coaxes him into having sex with her while they watch it. Renn goes once again to Harlan's office, where Harlan informs him that the signal delay which caused it to appear to be coming from Malaysia was a ploy by the broadcaster. In fact, Videodrome is being broadcast out of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Renn tells Nikki of his discovery and she excitedly goes to Pittsburgh to try and audition for the show, over Renn's objections. When Nikki fails to return to Toronto, Renn contacts Masha Borowski (Lynne Gorman), a softcore feminist pornographer with long-standing ties to the porn community who frequently makes content for Renn's channel. He asks her to help him find out the truth about Videodrome. Through Masha, Renn learns that Videodrome is the public "face" of a political ideology movement with unspecified but apparently violent goals. She warns him that this organization is dangerous, and that their TV content features real torture and death, much to Renn's disbelief as he assumed that all of that stuff was faked. Masha further informs Renn that Brian O'Blivion knows about Videodrome. Max Renn tracks down O'Blivion's office to The Cathode Ray Mission, a mission where homeless individuals are provided food, shelter, clothing, and access to marathon sessions of television viewing. Renn discovers that the mission is run by O'Blivion's daughter, Bianca (Sonja Smits), with the goal of helping to bring about her father's vision of a world in which television replaces every aspect of everyday life. Later, Renn views a videotape in which O'Blivion informs him that "the Videodrome" is a socio-political battleground in which a war is being fought for control of the minds of the people of North America. Shortly thereafter, Renn begins experiencing disturbing hallucinations in which his torso transforms into a bloody, vaginal VCR. In one hallucination, Renn finds himself strapped to a chair while a hooded figure is strangling him. The hood comes off to reveal Nikki. Her lips fill the screen of a TV set where she says: "Come to me." Renn leans in close. Pulling and undulating, the screen envelopes his face. At the mission, Bianca tells Renn that these are side-effects from having viewed Videodrome, which is in fact the carrier of a hidden broadcast signal that causes the viewer to develop a brain tumor, which she claims is actually a new organ that helps the viewer to hallucinate. Brian O'Blivion helped to create it as part of his vision for the future, but when he found out that it was to be used for malicious purposes, he attempted to stop his partners; they used his own invention to kill him. In the year before his death, O'Blivion recorded tens of thousands of videos, which now form the basis of his television appearances. Bianca sends Renn away with an armful of videotapes to watch. As he watches one tape, holding a pistol, he scratches his stomach in which the vagina-like slit opens, into which his gun disappears. On the tape, O'Blivion says: "There is nothing real outside our perception of reality, is there?" Renn is contacted by Videodrome's producer, the Spectacular Optical Corporation, an eyeglasses company that acts as a front for a NATO weapons manufacturer. The head of Spectacular Optical, Barry Convex, (Leslie Carlson) has been working with Harlan to get Renn to broadcast Videodrome as part of a crypto-government conspiracy to morally and ideologically "purge" North America, giving fatal brain tumors to "lowlifes" fixated on extreme sex and violence. Convex produces a high-tech helmet to record Renn's hallucinations, to find out why he seems to be functioning when none of the other "test subjects" has returned to "normality." Convex places the helmet on Renn's head and leaves the room. Renn hallucinates himself in Videodrome with Nicki. As he whips an organic TV set, Nicki's image transforms into Masha. Renn wakes up in his own bed with Masha dead at his side. Renn calls Harlan to come over with his camera, but when he arrives, he sees nothing in the bed to photograph. Totally wired, Renn says they must watch last nights Videodrome broadcast as he is in it. At the lab, Harlan reveals that there never was a broadcast, only pre-recorded tapes which he himself never watched. Just then Convex enters. He says that Harlan was specifically introduced to Renn two years ago in order to expose him to Videodrome, and that they chose Renn's Channel 83 for the first live transmission of the Videodrome signal because of its sleazy content and audience. "Why would anybody watch a show like Videodrome?" says Convex. Under Convex's influence he produces a pulsating VHS tape and Renn's stomach-slit opens to receive his program. Convex orders Renn to: "kill your partners and give me Channel 83." Renn pulls his gun back from the slit and black metal tendrils extend into his hand. Renn goes back to the CIVIC-TV station and shoots both his partners, Moses and Raphael, in the Channel 83 boardroom, his gun/hand now a single organic fusion. His next program is to kill Bianca O'Blivion. He breaks into the Mission, but hesitates when Bianca plays him Nikki's death scene on Videodrome. She was killed on the show along with all those other people by Spectacular Optical Corporation. A flesh-gun emerges from the TV set and shoots him - a violent deprogramming. Bianca inserts her own tape into Renn's slit. With that she re-programs him to go after the ones responsible for creating Videodrome. She tells him he is: "the video word made flesh. Death to Videodrome. Long live the new flesh." Back at the Channel 83 studios, Harlan congratulates Renn on his good work, and tries to change his program. When Harlan puts his hand into Renn's slit to retrieve the videotape program, he screams in pain, and upon withdrawing it, he is horrified to see how his hand has become a ticking bloody organic grenade. The explosion kills Harlan and blows a hole in the wall of the studio which Renn calmly steps out. At the Spectacular Optical trade show at the Toronto Convention Centre, Convex introduces the new spring collection, the Medici range. Renn approaches the stage and shoots Convex with his gun/hand, who falls dead and his entire body erupts in a gory and sickening mass of tumors as people scream and panic. Renn waves his hand/gun to the assembly declaring: "Death to Videodrome! Long live the new flesh!" Afterwards, Renn takes refuge on a derelict boat in an abandoned harbor, where Nicki appears to him on another television that appears. As Renn sits on a filthy mattress, Nicki tells him he has weakened Videodrome, but that in order to completely defeat it, he has to "leave the old flesh." The television then shows an image of Renn shooting himself in the head with his gun/hand, which causes the TV set to explode, splattering the deck of the ship with bloody, human intestines and multicolored goo. Imitating what he has just seen on TV, Renn says his final words, "Long live the New Flesh", and then he pulls the trigger.