Ruth Duffy is getting by on an assistant’s salary at a pricey school for girls in Manhattan, managing to move beyond the trouble and loss of her teenage years. Jonny Collins is working local jobs near the Throgs Neck Bridge in the Bronx. When they cross paths after years apart, Jonny is as consumed with Ruth as he was in their high school days, and he infiltrates her life for love and profit.

Hard-nosed liberal lawyer Roman J. Israel has been fighting the good fight forever while others take the credit. When his partner, the firm’s frontman, has a heart attack, Israel suddenly takes on that role. He soon discovers some unsettling truths about the firm–truths that conflict with his values of helping the poor and dispossessed–and finds himself in an existential crisis that leads to extreme actions.

A representative of an alien race that went through drastic evolution to survive its own climate change, Klaatu comes to Earth to assess whether humanity can prevent the environmental damage they have inflicted on their own planet. When barred from speaking to the United Nations, he decides humankind shall be exterminated so the planet can survive.