This new version of the saga of CIA analyst Jack Ryan begins as Jack attends the London School of Economics. 9/11 happens. He subsequently enlists in the Marines, sustaining severe injuries when the chopper deploying him to Afghanistan is shot down. While in intense rehab, he grabs the attention of Harper, a man who works for the CIA and who would like Jack to finish his studies, get a job on Wall Street, and seek out terrorist plots through their financial transactions. Ten years pass. Jack finds anomalies in the accounts of a Russian named Cherevin and thinks he should go to Russia to check out what's going on. He's told not to tell anyone who he is, including his girlfriend Cathy, which makes her doubt him when she catches him in some lies. In Russia, Cherevin assigns someone to assist Jack, but when the two are alone, the man tries to kill Jack instead, so Jack kills him. Obviously, Cherevin is hiding something. Jack goes to meet him and says he'll bring his fiancée along, but ...

Self-made billionaire Thomas Crown is bored of being able to buy everything he desires. Being irresistible to women, he also does not feel any challenge in that area. But there are a few things even he can't get, therefore Thomas Crown has a seldom hobby: He steals priceless masterpieces of Art. After the theft of a famous painting from Claude Monet, the only person suspecting Thomas Crown is Catherine Banning. Her job is to get the picture back, no matter how she accomplishes her mission. Unfortunately, Catherine gets involved too deeply with Thomas to keep a professional distance to the case. Fortunately, Thomas seems to fall for her, too.

On the last day of the first manned mission to Mars, a crew member of Tantalus Base believes he's made an historic discovery; fossilised evidence of bacterial life. Unwilling to let the relief crew claim the glory, he disobeys orders to pack up, and goes out on an unauthorised expedition to collect further samples. But a routine excavation turns to disaster, when the porous ground collapses, and he falls into a deep crevice and near certain death. His devastated colleagues attempt to recover his body. However, when another vanishes, they begin to realise; the life-form they've discovered is highly dangerous to all human life.

In 1971, twenty-four male students are selected to take on randomly assigned roles of prisoners and guards in a mock prison situated in the basement of the Stanford psychology building.