The film starts in Co-Op City, in a dystopian future America. Ben Richards (Glen Powell) has been let go from his job and has brought his infant daughter Cathy to talk to his boss about keeping his job. The boss refuses and thinks Ben brought Cathy to guilt trip him, but Ben says it was to prevent him from beating the shit out of his former boss.
At home, Ben watches FreeVee, a network that shows ridiculous reality and competitions shows, like a Kardashians-esque show called “The Americanos”, or several game shows that feature dangerous tasks. The most popular and deadly one is The Running Man, where contestants must survive 30 days without being detected, or a team of “Hunters”, led by the masked Chief Evan McCone (Lee Pace), will take down and kill the Runners. Ben talks to his wife Sheila (Jayme Lawson) about being on one of the shows to earn more money since Cathy is sick and they cannot afford her medication, but she worries he will be risking his life and effectively abandon her and Cathy.
Ben walks to the FreeVee Game Network to try out for one of the less risky game shows, where he meets contestants Jenni Laughlin (Katy O’Brian) and Tim Jansky (Martin Herlihy). Ben displays a ton of anger and aggression in his tryouts, though he also shows heroism when saving Tim during one trial (and helping is illegal). Ultimately, Ben is selected to be a Runner for The Running Man, along with Jenni and Tim.
Ben goes to speak with the Network’s head producer, Dan Killian (Josh Brolin), to try and get himself selected for something other than being a Runner. Killian knows Ben was blacklisted from his last job because he was helping his coworkers, and he quickly offers Ben a signup bonus, as well as money to help Sheila and Cathy while he is away. Ben is reluctantly forced to agree. He calls Sheila to tell her the news and apologizes for getting himself into the situation.
Ben is told by a liaison that Sheila and Cathy will be protected under fake identities in a new home. He is then brought before the studio audience where The Running Man’s host, Bobby Thompson (Colman Domingo), introduces Ben to the audience. Bobby makes disparaging remarks about Sheila, who works as a hostess at a gentlemen’s club, as well as Cathy and her sickness, which enrages Ben. McCone and his Hunters are gathered, ready to go after the Runners.
The Runners are set loose into the city with $1000 and a 12 hour headstart. Before the show actually begins, Ben goes to find one of his contacts, Molie Jernigan (William H. Macy), to get himself a fake ID and a gun. Ben then travels to a hostel to hide out and must submit tapes of himself each day to the Network. It is shown that McCone and his goons tortured and presumably killed Molie after he gave up Ben’s new identity and location.
On the second day of the show, Ben watches on TV how Tim was spotted in Boston and stupidly bragged about being on the show before he was easily spotted and executed by the Hunters. This forces Ben to get himself ready to leave, but he wants to take a shower first. Unfortunately, the Hunters have already infiltrated the hostel, so Ben has to sneak back into his room in nothing but a towel by climbing across the windows and making his way back for his bag. The Hunters bust in and go after Ben, but he runs through the place evading gunfire until he slides into an elevator. He narrowly avoids getting blown up by his own grenade but manages to get out through the sewers as McCone blows up the hostel, killing eight of his Hunters.
The explosion is quickly treated as an act of terrorism on Ben’s part against people that the public sees as heroes. He is seen escaping from the sewers by a kid, who brings Ben to his home that he shares with his brother Bradley (Daniel Ezra) and their mother. Bradley shows Ben his room of tapes where he breaks down the types of contestants on The Running Man: the “Hopeless Dude”, like Tim, who lasts barely two days due to their cockiness or overall failure to prepare; the “Negative Dude” who knows he doesn’t have a chance at survival and goes out on his own terms; or the “Final Dude”, the one who lasts the longest due to his will to survive and how much he helps the ratings, which is where Ben is right now. He also learns from Bradley that his sister has cancer as a result of The Network covering up their dirty deeds.
Ben tries to report this information in his daily tapes, but the Network intercepts it before airing it and creates an AI deepfake of Ben saying he took joy in killing the Hunters and burning the hostel down. This causes Bradley’s mother to order Ben to leave. Bradley and his brother smuggle Ben in the trunk of their car and drive through the streets, avoiding the Hunters. They end up spotted by Hunters on bikes, but Bradley is able to kill them and get Ben out of there.
Bradley gives Ben the address to a place in Derry, Maine (currently free of killer clowns) to the home of a fellow activist named Elton Parrakis (Michael Cera), who lives with his paranoid mother Victoria (Sandra Dickinson). On his way there, Ben disguises himself as a priest but is identified by a civilian who tries to report him, but Ben knocks him out and hops on a train. He also learns that Jenni had been caught at a casino and managed to escape the Hunters, but she was killed in a barn by two psychopath little boys who used their flamethrowers on her.
Ben makes it to Elton’s home. He learns that Elton’s father was a cop who was killed by his fellow officers when he started to protest The Network’s wrongdoings. He thinks that Ben has become a resistance icon since people are now adopting “Richards Lives” as a slogan against The Network.
Elton offers Ben a place to stay, but eventually, Victoria threatens to report Ben by summoning the Hunters there after seeing him on the news. Although they stop her, Elton decides to alert them anyway so he can kill as many of them as possible. They run through the house and set off booby traps, like Elton electrocuting some Hunters and then dousing/blowing them up with chemicals. Elton is stabbed in the sewers by Hunter Frank (Karl Glusman). Ben fights him and gets out through the tunnels in an all-terrain buggy, but Elton is shot in the head by McCone sniping from a chopper. With nowhere to run, Ben charges back across the bridge toward Frank, leaping from the buggy as the vehicles collide and blow Frank up, while Ben hits the water.
Ben gets onto the road and hijacks a car from a wealthy girl named Amelia Williams (Emilia Jones), forcing her to drive him as his hostage. Amelia believes the Network’s propaganda about people in Co-Op City, as well as Ben being a terrorist and bad stuff about Sheila and his family. They are stopped by two militia men who are promptly gunned down by the Hunters, as they don’t want civilians ending the show so early. Amelia is then convinced that Ben is telling the truth about the Network’s lies when she sees The Running Man airing a clip of her crying for help, when she was never doing that.
Amelia drives Ben to a Hunter airfield where a crowd of fans and Hunters are gathered. Ben pretends to be carrying a powerful explosive weapon and threatens to set it off unless the Hunters let him and Amelia go through and board a jet to Canada. The Hunters comply and let them onboard, where Ben forces McCone to remove his mask for the audience, which Killian agrees with.
On the jet, Killian, speaking from HQ, tells Ben that he knows that there is no explosive device since their scanners detected nothing on him. Killian offers Ben a chance to become a Hunter if he kills McCone and the others. To drive this incentive further, Killian shows Ben footage of McCone going against his orders and leading his men to kill Sheila and Cathy in their home to fuel Ben’s rage.
Ben fights and kills the pilots, who are Hunters, before battling McCone. The villain reveals that he was the last surviving Runner from the first season, and he took Killian’s deal to become a Hunter. He more or less confirms that Killian lied to Ben about Sheila and Cathy’s deaths to make him look like more of a vengeful hero over the treacherous Hunter. With Amelia’s help, Ben shoots a hole out the window and causes McCone to get stuck with his parachute, and Ben fatally stabs him. Amelia takes her parachute and some of Elton’s zines to spread the truth about The Network. With the plane heading down towards Co-Op City, Killian gives Ben one last chance to comply, or he will air a fake video about Ben threatening to crash the jet into millions of people. Killian then has the jet shot down.
Sometime later, Bradley airs a video showing what happened in the aftermath. Amelia became an activist and spread the word about Ben and Elton, and she recovered the jet’s black box which documented the unedited conversations between Ben and Killian, exposing the Network’s conspiracies and lies. Bradley also points out that the jet had an escape pod that Ben most likely stowed away in.
Sheila and Cathy are seen at a supermarket, where the cashier tells Sheila that someone has already paid for her stuff. She goes outside and reunites with Ben.
Killian is getting ready to air the next season of The Running Man, but the studio audience has already begun to revolt, holding up “Richards Lives” signs. Bobby quits immediately, leaving Killian to try and handle things himself. As he tries to start, the audience throws Molotovs at the stage, inciting a riot. Ben then approaches the stage as Killian is on the ground, and he counts down from five before executing Killian with a bullet to the head.[wide]
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