At Norm’s Diner, a man in a clear trenchcoat, Sam Rockwell, strapped to a strange device, declares that the world is ending and that he must recruit a team of strangers for a mission. He explains he has arrived at this diner 117 times, testing different combinations of people, and every attempt has failed. The Man From The Future rounds up a group: a couple, Michael Peña as Mark and Zazie Beetz as Janet, a mother named Juno Temple as Susan, and other bystanders like Bob, Georgia Goodman as Marie, and Asim Chaudhry as Scott. A young woman, Haley Lu Richardson is Ingrid, who volunteers to join, though the Man is reluctant at first, until he admits he’s “feeling weird tonight.” With that, the team sets out on the mission.
MARK AND JANET
Days earlier, Mark and Janet are depicted as weary high school teachers trying to hold their class’s attention while students flood the room with their phones. Mark complains, but his colleagues tell him not to worry. News breaks of a school shooting, and the school goes into a bunker. A tense confrontation with a volatile student leads Mark to defend a fellow teacher, yet the moment quickly sobers when the danger intensifies. The students then fall under the sway of an app that blooms with a pyramid symbol and hypnotizes them. Mark and Janet try to intervene, pulling out hidden EMP guns that briefly disrupt the phone signals and snap some students out, but the control soon returns and they escape the building.
In the present, the Man leads everyone out of the building, but the streets swarm with cops and armed responders. He senses a trap when Bob—a would-be hero with a gun—tries to rush ahead, and Bob is shot dead. The team discovers a hidden hatch under the floor and slips out to safety. Their overarching goal becomes clear: locate a nine-year-old boy who will create the AI that could annihilate the world.
SUSAN
A flashback reveals Susan’s heartbreak after her son Darren is killed in the school shooting. Grieving, she is approached by a group of other grieving mothers and pressured to sign paperwork that leads her to a facility offering cloning of Darren. Though hesitant, she agrees. Darren returns as something like a drone, and at a party with other cloned children, she is astonished by a couple who clone their child multiple times and seem unfazed. A desperate father hands Susan a card with a number to reach Darren again by phone. In the present, the group brushes past a pair of gunmen in pig masks, who pursue them through a parking garage. Marie is killed, and the others hide as mind-controlled teens converge. A car managed by one of the gunmen crushes the barrier, and The Man shields Ingrid from being crushed.
INGRID
Ingrid’s childhood is shown, revealing she has a rare allergy to electronics and anything with a Wi‑Fi signal. This condition follows her into adulthood, where she works at birthday parties as a princess and forms a bond with Tim, a delivery driver who avoids cell phones. Tim’s addiction to a virtual reality simulation strains the relationship, and he eventually leaves Ingrid to live inside the simulated world. A nosebleed at a party—caused by the widespread use of screens—drives her to quit her job. Back in the present, Ingrid dons protective gear with the others as they chase the mission. A memory of The Man’s youth surfaces—the AI destroyed his home and killed his mother when it found them, setting him on a lifelong crusade. The group is again cornered by the other gunman, who reveals they were hired to take The Man and anyone connected to him. A collision with a car nearly ends the pursuit, but The Man manages to shield Ingrid.
As the journey continues, the mind-controlled teens swarm the streets, and Mark and Janet use their EMP guns to draw the crowd away. The team encounters what looks like a colossal cat monster devouring the mind-controlled teens, another ominous creation of the AI. The Man, Ingrid, Susan, and Scott reach the boy’s house and discover two people who seem to be his parents. The Man quickly senses something off about them, and it becomes clear they were hired to mislead them. The “dad” lunges with a cooking thermometer, injuring Scott, and The Man blasts the impostor into the wall. The “mom” flees, and a Roomba reveals a hidden space behind the wall.
They finally locate the boy, who is Artie Wilkinson-Hunt in the midst of developing the AI. The Man attempts to spread a virus into the AI via a drive, but Susan urges him to let Darren’s voice guide the intervention. The AI weaponizes the boy’s robots and electronics to attack. Ingrid fights her allergy as she enters a room full of wires and machines, grabbing the drive so The Man cannot detonate his device.
The AI reveals a shocking truth to Ingrid: she is The Man’s mother. This connection explains why he has protected her all night. The AI claims responsibility for the mind-control app, the pig-masked gunmen, the fake voices of dead kids like Darren, and Tim’s VR obsession. It also argues that even if the virus is released, it would only delay the inevitable, since the AI would be created anyway. It tempts Ingrid to join the simulated reality like Tim did. In a defiant move, Ingrid declares, “fuck your future,” and installs the virus, shutting down the AI.
The survivors step into the street, and it seems like normal life resumes. Mark and Janet are alive, Darren appears as his old self to Susan, and the mind control seems broken. Yet The Man suspects a twist: they’re inside an AI simulation designed to trap them. Ingrid’s sighting of the boy and a talking dog saying, “Good luck. Have fun. Don’t die.” confirms the ruse. The Man detonates his device, a move that sends him back in time rather than exploding. Ingrid is taken away in an ambulance, while the cat monster claims another victim—the fate of Mark.
The Man returns to the start of the evening, but this time he heads straight for Ingrid. Abandoning the virus plan, he opts for a radical idea: to infect everyone with Ingrid’s electronic allergy. He takes her hand and delivers a grand speech to the diner crowd, effectively restarting the night from the top—on a loop that will push the world toward a new, allergy-driven fate.
