Oliver Stone

On September 11, 2001, Port Authority Police officers John McLoughlin (Nicholas Cage) got up from a night's sleep at his usual time and got ready for a day of duty. John's wife Donna (Maria Bello) is still sleeping as he heads into work. People use various modes of transport to come into Mahattan. At the station, McLoughlin is in charge of assigning the daily duties to his officers. McLoughlin and Will Jimeno (Michael Pena), who are patrolling the Port Authority Bus Terminal in Midtown Manhattan, see a plane fly dangerously low overhead. As all of the police officers return to the station, they see on TV and that the North Tower of the World Trade Center has been hit by a plane. When the plane hit the tower, a shudder was felt even inside the station. Sergeant McLoughlin assigns many of the officers (including Colovito (Nicholas Turturro), Polnicki (Ned Eisenberg), Washington, O'Reilly, Jimeno, Hogart, Bavli, Rodrigues, Giraldi (Danny Nucci), Pezzulo, Stolman, and others) to assist in an evacuation attempt of the still undamaged South Tower and they board a commandeered Metropolitan Transit Authority bus. On the bus, they hear reports that the South Tower has also been hit. McLoughlin informs Lieutenant John Kassimatis (Nick Damici) that while the NYPD is prepared for many kinds of attacks such as car bombs, chemical, biological and so on, but they are not prepared for an attack of this size and scale. They never planned for it and as such there is no equipment with the force to deal with it. There are expected to be 50/60,000 people inside the 2 towers. Jimeno tries to call his wife Allison (Maggie Gyllenhaal), but the phones are not working. When they arrive at the World Trade Center, they realize the extent of the disaster and see one of the first victims to jump out of the towers to a certain death. Paper from the offices inside the 2 towers is flying everywhere and the towers are spewing smoke. Sergeant John McLoughlin, veteran of the 1993 bombing, assembles a group of volunteers to evacuate the towers. Not everyone was keen to go. The group consists of McLoughlin, Jimeno, Dominick Pezzulo (Jay Hernandez) and Antonio Rodrigues (Armando Riesco). They enter the complex through Building # 5, to grab their safety equipment (mainly oxygen tanks and cutters) from the police desk. The men enter the concourse between the towers. An officer named Chris Amoroso (Jon Bernthal) appears to inform them of other events, such as the attack on the Pentagon and the second plane's hit on the South Tower, though the group does not accept this. The group meets Officer Reynolds (Tom Wright) who was also helping with the evacuations. McLoughlin grabs more tanks as spare to help people that they find trapped. As the men prepare to enter the North Tower, the buildings begin to rumble. McLoughlin realizes that the South Tower is collapsing onto them and that their only chance of survival is to run into the service elevator shaft. Chris trips and does not have time to get up. Rodrigues is unable to get to the shaft in time. McLoughlin, Jimeno and Pezzulo manage to escape the huge amounts of dust and rubble flying down from the South Tower. However, as the rubble continues to crush the elevator shaft, the three are trapped. McLoughlin knew that the elevator shaft is the strongest part of the building and hence was their best chance of survival. As the cascade of debris subsides, Pezzulo realizes he can free himself and manages to move nearer to Jimeno who, along with McLoughlin, is pinned under rubble and cannot move. Pezzulo tries but fails to shift the debris covering Jimeno's legs. Pezzulo wanted to go out and find help but is told by McLoughlin not to leave. As Pezzulo becomes optimistic that they will live, the rumbling begins again as the North Tower starts to collapse. Although Jimeno and McLoughlin are not further harmed, Pezzulo is fatally injured when a concrete slab crushes his torso. Pezzulo manages to fire his sidearm once into the air, in an attempt to alert rescuers to their whereabouts just before dying. Jimeno and McLoughlin spend hours under the rubble, in pain but exchanging personal information. McLoughlin continues to communicate on his wireless device but gets no response. Both are thirsty, but there is no water. McLoughlin's knees are crushed together. The duo are buried under several feet of rubble and topside there is absolute mayhem as the 2 towers are completely demolished. The news of the attacks on America reverberates around the world. Several hundred police and fire rescue officers are reported missing and unaccounted for. Allison and Donna have no clue if their husbands are alive or not. Donna is glued to the TV hoping to see McLoughlin. When Building 7 collapses, both men scream and accept their demise, but they survive without further harm. They survive burning gas flares and raining debris, which was also on fire. McLoughlin is particularly anxious to keep Jimeno from falling asleep. Jimeno is bleeding inside, and McLoughlin knows that if he goes to sleep, he may not be revived later. Jimeno also realizes that by straining to grab a metal bar above his body, he can make a noise that rescuers might hear. Two United States Marines, Dave Karnes (Michael Shannon) and Jason Thomas (William Mapother), who are searching for survivors, do hear it and find the men, calling for help to dig them out. Jimeno is rescued first, and then hours later McLoughlin is lifted out of the debris, barely alive. Both men are reunited with their families at the hospital and undergo medical treatment, including extensive surgeries, and McLoughlin is placed in a medically induced coma. In 2003, Jimeno and McLoughlin, both medically retired from duty, attend a celebratory barbecue with their families. The epilogue reveals that both men were two of twenty people found alive at Ground Zero, and they were numbers eighteen and nineteen, respectively. David Karnes reenlisted in the Marines and served two tours in the Iraq War.

The story begins around 285 BC, with Ptolemy I Soter (Anthony Hopkins), who narrates throughout the film. Ptolemy narrates that history made Alexander better than he was. The Persians ruled to the East. Greece was in decline and the Persians bribed Greek kings to fight as mercenaries in their army. King Phillip changed this by uniting Greece under a single King. He built a professional army. The Persians assassinated Phillip, and Alexander came to power. Alexander wanted revenge and conquered all cities of Western Asia and Egypt, where he crowned as Pharaoh. Finally, Alexander took on the Persian empire with the battle at Babylon. In 334 BC, 45,000 Greeks against 100,000 Persians led by King Darius. Hephaestion is Alexander's lover. The Persians have cavalry and chariots, which Alexander counters with legions of phalanxes. Alexander is a skill-full commander in battle. He opens up a hole in the Darius lines by luring one part of his army by offering himself as the bait. The Greek army attacks into the hole, and Alexander almost kills Darius, forcing him to withdraw from the battlefield. Persian empire was destroyed and at the age of 25, Alexander was the King of all. Alexander (Colin Farrell) grows up with his mother Olympias (Angelina Jolie) and his tutor Aristotle (Christopher Plummer), where he finds interest in love, honor, music, exploration, poetry and military combat. Olympias was a sorcerers and Alexander was considered by some to be a son of Zeus. Philip hated Olympias, who never let Philip touch her. Hephaestion & Alexander trained together. Aristotle teaches Alexander that a gay relationship is not natural. Men can be friends. A Man cannot love a woman as she is purely driven by passion. These ideas were taught to him in childhood. Aristotle showed him the way to India and back to Greece. But he also warns that the East has a way of swallowing men's dreams and lives. Which is why Greece has never conquered the East yet. His relationship with his father, Philip II (Val Kilmer) of Macedon, is destroyed when Philip marries Attalus's (Nick Dunning) niece, Eurydice (Marie Meyer). Olympia tells Alexander that the son of Philip and Eurydice will be a pure Macedonian, unlike Alexander, and hence will have first right to the throne. Olympia wants Alexander to marry a Macedonian, or declare civil war against Philip. Alexander calls her mad. She tries to convince Alexander that Zeus is his real father and Philip never wanted him. Alexander insults Philip after disowning Attalus as his kinsman (Attalus had toasted Eurydice as the legit queen and her future sons as the legit Macedonian sons at Philip's wedding), which results in Alexander's banishment from Philip's palace. After Philip is assassinated in 336 BC, Alexander is proclaimed the King of Macedonia in the ensuing chaos. His supporters move quickly, take advantage of the public mood and crown him King, even though Eurydice had a son. Alexander suspects Olympia of being behind the assassination. That was the last time Alexander saw Olympia. He had Attlus, Eurydice and her son killed. Ptolemy mentions Alexander's punitive campaign in which he razes Thebes, also referring to the later burning of Persepolis, then gives an overview of Alexander's west-Persian campaign, including his declaration as the son of Zeus by the Oracle of Amun at Siwa Oasis, his great battle against the Persian Emperor Darius III (Raz Degan) in the Battle of Gaugamela, and his eight-year campaign across Asia. Back in the present, Alexander enters the rich city of Babylon. Alexander meets Bagoas in Babylon and is attracted to him. He treats Darius's queen with respect and grants her the status of his own family. Olympia wants to be brought to Babylon as Queen, but Alexander is not too keen on it. Alexander continues to chase Darius across Persia in 329 BC, and finds his dead body at a riverbed where Darius had been betrayed by his own commanders. Alexander then chased the commanders until he killed them all. All cities that stood in his way were burnt down and destroyed. He marries a commoner from Bactria, a woman of no political significance. The woman was Roxana. After 7 long yrs away from Macedonia, Alexander's commanders don't understand what they are doing so far away from home, building roads and cities for barbarians. Alexander seeks an Asian empire with him as king. They are upset with Alexander marrying Roxana and want a Macedonian heir. The commanders can see that Alexander lusts for war. Also seen are Alexander's private relationships with his childhood friend Hephaestion (Jared Leto), Bagoas (Francisco Bosch), and later his wife, Roxana (Rosario Dawson). Hephaestion compares Alexander to Achilles, to which Alexander replies that Hephaestion must be his Patroclus (Achilles' lover). When Hephaestion mentions that Patroclus died first, Alexander pledges that, if Hephaestion should die first, he will follow him into the afterlife (as Achilles had done for Patroclus). Hephaestion shows extensive jealousy when he sees Alexander with Roxana, and deep sadness when he marries her. Roxana sees Alexander embracing Hephaestion and does not trust him. Olympia warns Alexander not to chase his dreams further east and asks him to return to Babylon or Macedonia to strengthen the empire. Philotas (Joseph Morgan) is found guilty to be leading a conspiracy against Alexander and is executed after trial. Alexander orders his loyal father Parmenion (John Kavanagh) to be executed as well, as Parmenion was in charge of guarding his supply lines to the East. Alexander is shown to sleep with Bagoas. Alexander marches his army of 150,000 soldiers through the passes of Hindu Kush into the promised lands of India. Roxana bore no sons even after 2 yrs of marriage. He reaches India in 327 BC. He finds monkeys, sadhus, rain and forests. He found no gold. The army became restless as even conquered lands were returned to their kings to make them allies. Hephaestion attempts to keep Roxana away from him after Alexander murders Cleitus the Black (Gary Stretch) in India. Cleitus got drunk and started by saying that he wanted to be back in Macedonia. He then insulted Alexander by calling him a lesser King to previous Greeks. He then insults his love for Asia and the barbarians, a woman who cant bear sons. He calls him the son of Zeus, and thus a bastard of Philip and thus his mother a whore. At this point an enraged Alexander kills Cleitus. Cleitus was a trusted general of Philip. After initial objection from his soldiers (40,000 had died in the quest to the East), Alexander convinces them (Alexander killed the commanders of the mutiny and this divided his army) to join him in his final and bloodiest battle, the Battle of Hydaspes against Porus. Porus deploys an army of elephants that trample the core of Alexander's army. Alexander personally leads a charge to rally his troops against the enemy. He is severely injured with an arrow but survives and is celebrated. Alexander orders a return back to Macedonia. Alexander chose the shortest route back through the Arabian desert. This was the worst blunder of his life and many more thousands died on the way back. Back home, he took 2 more wives. Alexander's army was made of Persians and Macedonians. His generals questioned his every decision. While his regional Satraps had dubious loyalties. He orders the construction of Alexandria. Later on, Hephaestion succumbs to an unknown illness either by chance or perhaps poison, speculated in the film to be typhus carried with him from India. Alexander, full of grief and anger, distances himself from his wife, despite her pregnancy, believing that she has killed Hephaestion. He dies less than three months after Hephaestion, in the same manner, keeping his promise that he would follow him. On his deathbed, Bagoas grieves as Alexander's generals begin to split up his kingdom and fight over the ownership of his body. He died on 10th June, 323 BC in Babylon. He was 33 yrs old. Within 40 yrs, the empire was split into 4 parts. Cassander (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) kills Olympias 7 yrs after his death. He then executes Roxana and her 13 yr old son, 6 yrs after that.. Alexander's bloodline was finished. The story then returns to 285 BC, where Ptolemy admits to his scribe that he, along with all the other officers, had indeed poisoned Alexander just to spare themselves from any future conquests or consequences (mixed races with the Asians). However, he has it recorded that Alexander died due to illness compounding his overall weakened condition. He then goes on to end his memoirs with praise to Alexander. The movie then ends with the note that Ptolemy's memoirs of Alexander were eventually burned, lost forever with the Library of Alexandria.

Bobby (Sean Penn) is a young drifter driving cross-country in a Ford convertable. He has his left hand bandaged and he is transporting a gym bag full of cash to Los Angeles which he owes. After the opening credits, his car breaks down when the radiator hose bursts. He drives to the outskirts of the nearist town which is Superior, Arizona. He leaves his car with the local simpleton and grease monkey mechanic Darrell (Billy Bob Thornton). Darrell tells Bobby about the broken radiator line and tells him that it will take about three or four hours to fix. Bobby takes the gym bag with the money in it, but leaves a pistol in the car trunk. While wandering around the small town, Bobby meets Grace (Jennifer Lopez) a young, attractive Latina woman coming out of a local hardware store after purchasing drapes. Bobby immediately hits on her and offers to help her carry her drapes to her parked car. They introduce themselves to each other and he tells her about waiting for his car to be fixed. When Grace asks about his bandaged hand, he tells her that he recently had an accident. She offers to take him back to her house where he can have a shower to clean up. While in the shower, it is revealed that the "accident" that happened to his hand was in fact a punishment for the overdue debt - two of his fingers were cut off. After his shower he attempts to seduce Grace, who is cold to his advances. He goes to leave, saying he isn't interested in playing games. The two then kiss, where they are caught by Grace's older husband Jake McKenna (Nick Nolte). Bobby, saying he didn't know she was married, tries to leave but Jake punches him in the face. As Bobby is walking back to town, Jake pulls up beside him and offers him a lift. After a casual conversation about Grace, Jake asks Bobby if he would kill her for a price claiming that he is sick of her games. Bobby laughs this off and asks Jake if he's just trying to "rattle" him. A little later, while Bobby is in a convenience store, the store is held up by two teenage thugs. The robbers take his bag with all his money in it but the shop owner takes out a shotgun and kills them both, unfortunately destroying most of the money in the process which takes a blast from the shotgun. Broke and without the means to even leave the town as he cannot pay the mechanic, Bobby frantically calls nearly everyone he knows trying to get money to fix his car. He even calls the gangster he owes money to asking him for money but the gangster angrily refuses. The gangster now knows where Bobby is and sends someone after him. When Bobby is sitting in a bar drinking a beer, he is approached by Jenny (Claire Danes) a troubled and abused teenage girl who flirts with him. Just then, Toby N. Tucker (Joaquin Phoenix) enters. He is Jenny's aggressive and very possessive boyfriend and a local hoodlum who has nicknamed himself T.N.T. who attempts to provoke a fight with Bobby over Jenny's affections. The fight is stopped in time by the town sheriff Virgil Potter (Powers Boothe). Sheriff Potter is stern to T.N.T. who tells him to stay out of trouble, but he is very unfriendly towards Bobby whom he sees as a stranger in town and the sheriff does not like outsiders. After Bobby truthfully explains about why he is in town, Sheriff Potter orders him to be gone as soon as his car is fixed. Bobby goes back to the mechanic, where he finds that Darrell has done additional work and is asking a higher price. He also busted open the trunk of the car and has taken Bobby's gun. A confrontation breaks out which results in Darrell scratching up the hood of Bobby's car. Darrell says that he will continue working on the car and charging more and more for the work until Bobby has the means to pay him. Darrell refuses to take any payment other then cash. Wondering what to do for money, Bobby remembers the offer Jake made to him earlier in the car. He approaches Jake about the deal, who initially passes the comment off as a joke. Bobby says that he could tell Jake was serious about the offer and that he is serious about taking him up on it. Jake tells him that he would need to take Grace out of town and push her off a cliff in order to make the murder look like a suicide. A dream sequence shows that Bobby couldn't go through with it and ends up having sex with her instead as it cuts back into the real world. Grace cuts the sex short however just before he comes, leading Bobby to call her the "Queen of hot-and-cold". Grace reveals that she is not just Jake's wife; she is also his illegitimate child. Jake sexually abused her from a young age and then married her after her mother died. Her mother was found dead at the bottom of a cliff but her death was ruled a suicide. Grace doesn't believe she killed herself. Her death is eerily similar to how Jake told Bobby to kill Grace. Grace then asks Bobby if he would kill Jake, meaning the two of them could steal his money which Grace would not have access to otherwise. Bobby initially refuses, clearly not trusting Grace. Still broke and aware that the gangsters will send someone to find him, Bobby attempts to buy a ticket out of town in order to escape. Although he doesn't have enough money, the clerk gives him the ticket anyway after he becomes aggressive and hostile. After buying the ticket he sees one of the gangsters driving towards him. However, the Sheriff stops the gangster and arrests him for speeding. Thinking he is safe, Bobby is then attacked by T.N.T. who has been attempting to fight him for most of the film. TNT takes Bobby's ticket, rips it up and eats it, causing Bobby to lose his temper and badly beats him up. Just then, Jenny appears and yells at Bobby to stop beating up her boyfriend (!) Bobby reacts with disbelief as Jenny (having just been beaten and punched in the face by T.N.T. minutes earlier), is now comforting him. Bobby angrily storms out of the bus station, seeing how crazy not only Jenny is, but the entire town is. Knowing he is out of options, Bobby phones Grace and agrees with her plan to kill Jake for his money. She instructs him to come on over to the house after dark for the deed to be done. That evening after the sun sets, Bobby breaks into Jake's house while Jake is having sex with Grace, but Bobby accidentally makes a noise. Jake goes downstairs to investigate and finds Bobby, who then tells Jake that killing him was Grace's idea and that he'll kill Grace for just enough money to pay for a car. Grace overhears this and attacks Bobby when he walks into the room. However, she is really waiting for Jake to return so that she can kill him. After killing Jake, Bobby and Grace unlock his safe to find $200,000 in cash. They then have sex in front of his dead body. The next morning, Bobby goes to Darrell to pay him and finally gets his car back. When Bobby returns to the house, Grace's car is gone. Bobby thinks she has run off with the all the money but she shows up at the front door. As they drive off and out of town in Bobby's car, however, they are pulled over by Sheriff Potter. Here we find out that Grace has also been sleeping with him. Grace appears to turn on Bobby, blaming him for Jake's death and telling the sheriff that Bobby just killed her husband. However, just as Sheriff Potter places Bobby under arrest, she pulls out her gun and shoots the sheriff dead. Bobby helps Grace put the sheriff in the car trunk with Jake. As Bobby and Grace are dumping the two bodies off a cliff, Bobby elbows Grace in the nose and takes her gun, telling her that he does not trust her and that when they reach California they will split the money and go their separate ways. Grace says that when she blamed Jake's death on Bobby, she was merely baiting the Sheriff so she could kill him, much like Bobby baited Jake when he said he would kill Grace. The implication seems to be that Bobby would have killed Grace rather than Jake if he'd had to. As they are talking, Grace suddenly pushes Bobby over the cliff, not killing him but severely injuring him. Grace smirks and tells Bobby laying at the bottom of the 60-foot cliff that his suspicions about her were correct; she really is too greedy to split the money in any way, and she used him so she could steal all of Jake's money for herself. She also tells Bobby that SHE was the one who killed her mother by pushing her off the very same cliff, for reasons not made clear. As Grace gets back in the car to drive off, she realizes that Bobby has taken the keys. Bobby pleads with her to come down and help him. She does so, knowing she needs the keys. When she gets close enough however, he strangles her to death with his bare hands. Grace manages to shoot Bobby with her gun before she expires, but it is a non-fatal wound to his right hip. Bobby then makes the grueling journey back up the cliff with a broken leg, a broken arm, his gunshot wound and several other serious and superficial injuries. Relieved that he is finally back in his car (and with all the money), he starts the car to drive off, only for the radiator hose to burst again like it did in the opening scene. Bobby sits back and laughs insanely of his continuing bad luck as he looks up at the bright blue sky... aware that he will now die in the desert heat without anyone to help him now.

A rookie in the police force must engage in a cat-and-mouse game with a pistol-wielding psychopath who becomes obsessed with her. On her first day on the job, NYPD officer Megan Turner, the lone officer on the scene, shoots and kills the perpetrator of a supermarket hold-up. Since no gun was found on the perpetrator's person or at the scene and none of the witnesses could corroborate Megan's story definitively that the perpetrator was indeed wielding a gun, she is suspended from active duty. She is quickly albeit temporarily reinstated to the position of homicide detective because the spent shell casing from the bullet used in a subsequent murder had her name carved on it. This murder ends up being only the first in a series. Working on the case with fellow homicide detective Nick Mann, Megan initially has no idea who in her life could be the murderer. In short order, the murderer does show himself to her. He is commodities trader Eugene Hunt who she met immediately following her suspension and who she has since dated. He also implies to her that he was in the supermarket at the time of the hold-up and that he fled the scene with the perpetrator's gun. The supermarket shooting caused a psychotic break in him which resulted in among other things his obsession with her. However, beyond his implications only to her of being the murderer, Megan has no hard evidence that would stand up in a court of law that Eugene is indeed the murderer. Megan has to convince her colleagues, especially Nick, that she is telling the truth about Eugene, while stopping him from killing again and equally as important stopping him from his continued psychological torture of her.

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 Cuban refugee, Tony Montana, arrives in Miami with nothing and rises to become the city's drug kingpin.

Billy Hayes, a young American, faces physical and emotional brutality in a Turkish prison after being caught smuggling drugs.