In the year 2035, convict James Cole (Bruce Willis) reluctantly volunteers to be sent back in time by scientists to 1996 to discover the origin of a virus that wiped out nearly all of the earth's population. When Cole is mistakenly sent to 1990, he's arrested and locked up in a mental hospital, where he meets a psychiatrist (Madeleine Stowe) and the son (Brad Pitt) of a famous virus expert (Christopher Plummer).