Philadelphia, 2035. After the mid-1990s humankind was devastated by an unidentifiable contagious disease that killed five billion people, the rest of the human race survived deeply beneath Earth's surface. The surface is devastated and wild animals are dominated by it. In order to save the remaining people, the authorities send prisoner James Cole (Bruce Willis) in the past to isolate the dangerous virus there and thus make it possible to create a vaccine in the future. Cole was mistaken in 1990, not in 1996 when a pandemic occurred, where he immediately closed and handed over Dr. Kathryn Railly (Madeleine Stowe) physicians. Dr. Railly initially thinks there is a heavy schizophrenic in front of him who is crazy about the future cataclysm ...