In the future, ecological disasters and global conflict collapse modern civilization and cause
North America to become the country of Panem. It consists of a federal district called the Capitol,
where the fancy people live, and thirteen outlying districts, which are expected to provide economic
and material services. The Capitol behaves cruelly toward the districts, so one day a civil war known
as the First Rebellion led by District 13 breaks out. After three years of conflict, the rebellion
unfortunately collapses with the destruction of District 13, followed by a time known as "the Dark
Days". During these days, two upper-class kids are running through the deserted streets as they try
to find something to eat. Suddenly they’re found by a wild dog, so the boy throws something at
it to distract it while they run away. They hide behind a statue and watch how a man starts cutting
up a body so he can eat the meat. Afterward the kids return home to their grandmother,
who has bad news: the boy’s father has been killed by rebels in District 12. Three years later,
the Dark Days are over when the Capitol creates the Treaty of Treason to ensure peace. Part
of the treaty includes annually celebrating the “Hunger Games”, a brutal competition during which
two teens from each district must kill each other. This is to remind the districts that the Dark Days
can’t be repeated. Ten years after the treaty is created, the boy Coriolanus lives with his
grandmother and the other kid, who is his cousin Tigris. Unfortunately the family status has fallen
into decline after losing their factory during the war and now they live in poverty, but they
try to keep appearances not to be kicked out of the Capitol. Coriolanus has been studying hard at
the academy in hopes of winning a scholarship for the university, which would save him from having
to get a menial job. When the tenth Hunger Games are about to start, Coriolanus joins the mentor
program, which means assisting one of the tributes from the districts. Head Gamemaker Gaul arrives
to introduce Dean Casca, the man who created the games and is a serious addict. Since viewership
on the games has been going down, Casca wants the mentors to focus on having their tributes
entertain the audience rather than win. Now the scholarship prize won’t be decided by best grades
anymore, it’ll be given to the best mentor. Then they watch the Reaping ceremony on big screens,
showing how a girl and a boy are chosen from each district. As each chosen face appears, Casca
assigns them to a student, and Coriolanus is upset to hear he’ll get the girl from District 12. It’s
known that the lower districts are the poorest, so they usually die quickly in the games. The chosen
girl happens to be Lucy, who is making her way to the stage and pauses to put a snake down the
blouse of Mayfair for making fun of her. When she reaches the stage, the mayor hits her for harming
his daughter and the guards known as Peacekeepers have to take him away. The public begins singing a
song to support Lucy, so she stands up and sings along as a fact of defiance. Everyone laughs
when she adds an insult at the end, so Coriolanus starts to see she has potential. Sometime later,
all the tributes are brought to the Capitol by train and Coriolanus welcomes Lucy with a
flower to start gaining her trust, but Lucy isn’t impressed and eats a petal. Another tribute is
causing some trouble and the guards get distracted on a chase, so Coriolanus uses the chance to get
in the truck that will take the tributes to their quarters. The group doesn’t like seeing a fancy
guy and Reaper threatens to kill him, which the others agree with. However Lucy stops them by
pointing out they’ll be executed if they do so. Suddenly the truck stops and opens the doors to
throw the group into a cage. It turns out the tributes are put in a zoo so visitors can look
at them as if they were exotic animals. A reporter notices that Coriolanus is among them and asks for
an interview, so he comes forward with Lucy to make a good presentation. Lucy charms the
children and explains that she isn’t originally from District 12, she’s from a nomadic group
that got stuck in that district after the war. Coriolanus is also very charming to the camera,
but soon the Peacekeepers come to take him away. Before he leaves, Lucy asks him to get
them some food because some of them haven’t been fed for days. Later at the academy, Casca scolds
Coriolanus for what he did since it’s against the rules, but Gaul thinks it was a very smart
performance. His best friend Sejanus uses the chance to complain about the games being immoral
and how they don’t see the tributes as people, so Coriolanus comes up with an idea. They should
let the public know the tributes before the games, that way they’ll care more about watching the show
because they’ll have someone to root for, maybe they could even start letting people bet on them
too. Gaul tells him to make a written proposal for it. After class, Coriolanus and Sejanus bring food
to the tributes in the zoo. Sejanus’ tribute Marcus is wary and doesn’t accept it, but Lucy
does take the offering from Coriolanus. He doesn’t like the fact she shares it with others, but they
still get to chat and bond. Nearby a tribute is being taunted by her mentor with some water,
so she takes the bottle from her and uses it to stab the mentor’s throat. Everyone runs away in
fear but Coriolanus rushes to her classmate’s side, watching her die before the Peacemakers
take him away and shoot the tribute to death. The next day, Coriolanus hands in his proposal, which
includes the idea of viewers being able to send supplies to the tributes via donations. During
class, Casca announces that in the evening, there will be a televised presentation of the tributes,
so he gives the mentors an hour with them to discuss strategies. Casca wants Lucy to sing
to win people over, so she asks him for a guitar. Afterward Coriolanus is called to Gaul’s office,
and his classmate Clemensia comes along because they’re class partners. Gaul’s office is full of
mutated animals in jars, and she introduces them to a tank of special rainbow snakes she’s been
breeding. Clemensia tries to claim credit for the whole proposal and Gaul reveals it’s fallen
inside the tank, so she asks her to retrieve it. These snakes won’t attack someone if they’re used
to their smell, but since the paper doesn’t have Clemensia’s scent, the snakes bite her as soon as
she puts her hand inside. While the assistants provide an antidote, Gaul tells Coriolanus she
approves his proposal. Sometime later, the mentors and the tributes are given fifteen minutes inside
a huge dome which will be the arena for the games. Suddenly multiple explosions begin blowing up
the walls around them and soon the ceiling is destroyed as well, so debris starts falling.
Many people get killed while some tributes try to use the chance to escape, but Coriolanus gets
trapped under the debris. Thankfully Lucy comes back and frees him as his jacket catches on fire,
but then the Peacekeepers take her away and Coriolanus faints. He later wakes up in the
hospital with Sejanu and Tigris by his side. They explain it was a rebel bombing, which killed four
tributes and put a mentor on life support. Marcus has escaped and the Peacekeepers are chasing him,
but Sejanu thinks he’s safer that way. At that moment the tribute presentation starts on TV
and Coriolanus gets to see Lucy sing a beautiful song with her guitar, which makes lots of viewers
cry. Afterward, Coriolanus goes to the destroyed dome to understand the layout for future plans,
and he discovers a few hidden tunnels. When he returns home, he sees a dead rat in the
house and realizes the poison they use is pretty strong, so he takes some of it and hides it in his
dead mother’s compact mirror. Then he goes to the zoo and tells Lucy about all the potential hiding
places in the dome and gives her the mirror. He swears he wants her to survive and Lucy cries as
she tries to kiss him, but he moves his lips away as he cleans her face with his handkerchief. The
next day the remaining tributes are taken to the arena while the mentors gather at the academy with
Casca and the show host, who has an envelope with his prediction of the winner. As the Peacekeepers
push the tributes to their starting spots, they discover Marcus has been caught and is now hanging
on the dome as a warning. This causes Sejanus to snap, and he calls everyone “monsters” before
leaving the academy. After a countdown, the games finally begin, and the tributes run all over the
place. Some of them try to stay safe, but others immediately start attacking each other. While one
of his classmates pukes at the sight of so much violence, Coriolanus wishes Lucy would run and
hide, but she stays to find Jessup, her fellow District 12 tribute. As players die one by one,
their mentors leave the academy in a huff. Lucy does her best to dodge all the incoming attacks
and when she sees Jessup she tries to run to him, but she keeps getting her way blocked by
attackers. Thankfully she dodges those too and she reaches Jessup, who is looking rather sick
because he was beaten by a bat on their way to the Capitol. Lucy immediately takes him into
one of the tunnels, where there are cameras too. Soon more tributes come down to chase after them,
so the duo sneaks through a hole in a locked door. A tribute reaches inside to grab Jessup’s leg,
but at that moment, more tributes show up in the corridor and kill the ones already there,
including the one in the hole. Then the attackers consider getting into the hole too, but they’re
worried Lucy may kill them so they go back to the main area. For a few hours nothing happens as the
tributes hide to make a plan, and some people in the academy are even falling asleep while the
host starts telling the weather. Suddenly Lamina comes out to check on Marcus, who is still alive
and asks for mercy. Using an axe, Lamina kills him, which earns her some donations. Her mentor
sends her a bottle of water, but the drone crashes and the bottle breaks in front of her. That night,
vultures come down to feed on the bodies in the arena. While Coriolanus watches the screens,
Casca comes to tell him he’ll do anything to prevent him from winning, so he better act
fast. In the tunnel, Lucy finds some running water and tries to give it to Jessup, but he
doesn’t trust it and turns it down. A few hours later, Coriolanus is suddenly awoken by Gaul,
who wants him to do something about Sejanus. It turns out he’s sneaked into the arena to mourn
Marcus following the traditions of his district. Gaul refuses to send Peacekeepers because it’d
just prove the rebels right and promises that if Coriolanus does this favor for her, she’ll
get him the prize. Coriolanus immediately goes into the arena and after dodging a few bodies,
he reaches Marcus. He explains that Gaul has cut the feed so nobody is seeing Sejanus’ gesture,
and if someone kills him here Gaul will just tell the public that Sejanus died from an illness.
Before Sejanus can decide, a tribute shows up and starts chasing them. The boys run away but when
Sejanus trips, the tribute catches up to them. Coriolanus defends himself using some debris and
ends up killing the guy. Suddenly more tributes appear behind them, but this time the duo manages
to reach the gate just in time. Sejanus’ parents come to pick him up, and now Coriolanus is on
their good side. Afterward Coriolanus goes home and tells Tigris that he had to kill a person,
admitting that at first he felt awful but then he felt powerful. The next morning Coriolanus
returns to the academy with Tigris as his guest. The host tells everyone that another tribute died
while everyone was asleep, but he doesn’t share who did it, letting the audience believe it was
part of the games. Now only ten tributes remain. Meanwhile Jessup goes delirious from the bat bite
and tries to attack Lucy, who has to run away from him. The chase leads them out of the tunnel and as
they begin climbing some debris, the cameras show Jessup’s face, which makes Coriolanus realize he
has rabies. He asks Jessup’s mentor to send him some water, so a drone quickly drops the bottle
on him. The glass breaks and startles Jessup, who falls off and instantly dies. Lucy rushes to
his side to say goodbye, so the other tributes come out to try to attack her. Thinking fast,
Coriolanus sends more water drones to cause a huge mess that keeps the attackers distracted while
Lucy escapes with a bottle of her own. Next the group of tributes goes after Lamina, who has been
staying safe on top of Marcus’ pillar. A fight ensues and even though Lamina tries to defend
herself, soon she’s killed too. While everyone is distracted by that fight, Lucy sneaks rat poison
in her water bottle, then she leaves it for the group while emptying the ones they saved. After
Lamina’s body falls to the ground, Lucy runs away, hiding in the vents and closing the grate right
before the others can reach her. Afterward the group argues over the water bottle and a guy gets
killed in the process, so seven tributes remain. Then the group goes looking for another victim,
so the one that ends up grabbing the bottle is a small innocent girl, who dies as soon as she takes
a sip. Her friend Reaper comes out and screams in grief when he sees her while Lucy cries as
she feels guilty. Suddenly Reaper begins gathering all the bodies and places the Capitol flag over
them before turning to the camera, ready with a message in favor of rebelling. Unfortunately the
transmission is suddenly interrupted by Gaul, who has an important announcement: the mentor who was
sent to the hospital by the rebel bombs has died. That kid had been the president’s son and his
death is a political act, so Gaul will punish the districts by killing all the remaining tributes
even if means the games won’t have a winner. Because Gaul mentions she’ll send a “rainbow
of destruction”, Coriolanus guesses she meant her snakes and gets an idea. While the guards
are taking the snake tank out of Gaul’s office, he sneaks behind it and throws the handkerchief with
Lucy’s scent inside. In the arena, a tribute finds Lucy in the vent and starts poking a spear through
the holes in the grate. Lucy quickly backs away and notices there are other grates right above
a pair of tributes, so she throws down the rat poison. As one of the guys breathes it and dies,
the other one uses a trident to try to stab Lucy through the vent. She dodges all the hits,
but eventually the vent takes too much damage and breaks, causing Lucy to fall. At that moment
Gaul’s tank arrives and breaks open, releasing thousands of snakes that immediately cover a
young girl. Then they start chasing the tributes, killing them one by one. Reaper stays on his knees
and accepts his fate while a girl tries to use her last moments to kill Lucy, but the snakes kill
her too. Soon they start surrounding her without attacking, and since Lucy starts to sing to them,
Coriolanus tells Gaul that the song is calming the animals down and Lucy deserves to be declared the
winner. At first Gaul refuses, but soon all the other mentors begin chanting for her victory,
so Gaul has no choice but to announce Lucy is the winner. The host tears his envelope,
claiming he had voted for Lucy. Moments later Coriolanus is taken to see Casca,
who has found the mirror and the handkerchief. This goes against the rules, so Casca announces
that Coriolanus’ family won’t see any prize money and he’ll have to work as a Peacekeeper in
the Districts for twenty years. After Coriolanus gets all the proper testing and his head shaved,
he’s informed he’ll be sent to District 8, but he bribes the organizer to be sent to
12 instead. During the train trip, he’s shocked to be joined by Sejanus, who has volunteered to
do this as his punishment so he can start making a real difference. When they make it to District 12,
the boys are put through a strict training regime by the Peacekeepers. They also have to
watch how they execute any person who tries to rebel and take away those who complain,
and Coriolanus has to stop Sejanus from getting involved. When Coriolanus finally gets a day off,
he goes with the other newbies to the local bar, where he finds Lucy singing with her people. The
show is interrupted when Lucy’s ex Billy appears drunk among the crowd. Apparently he cheated on
her with Mayfair, that’s why Lucy had done the snake prank. When the crowd tries to stop him,
punches are thrown and a fight ensues. Billy gets on the stage to try to reach Lucy, so Coriolanus
jumps on him to beat him up. Sejanus immediately drags him out of the bar before they could get in
trouble. The next day, Coriolanus finds Lucy alone near the woods and they finally kiss. They’ll have
to keep their relationship hidden, so Lucy tells him about a secret lake where they can meet. From
then on, the couple begins spending lots of time together by the lake, bonding and having
fun. Coriolanus confesses he wants to go back to the Capitol one day, but Lucy disagrees, saying
they could build a life here. Sometime later, Coriolanus is informed that his test results
were exceptional because he’s one of the few who can read. Since he’s also the son of an important
general, he’ll be transferred to District 2, where he’ll get better pay. Coriolanus can’t
complain without looking suspicious, and later when he calls home, Tigris tells him they’ve been
evicted because they couldn’t pay rent. Coriolanus promises he’ll help them after he gets transferred
to District 2. On his way to work, Coriolanus sees Sejanus speaking to some of the rebels, so
when they’re alone during bird training, he calls him out on it. Sejanus gets angry and explains
he’s trying to make a difference by helping some people escape from Panem. At that moment
Coriolanus remembers the birds they’re handling were mutated and can record conversations, so he
secretly presses a button to record everything Sejanus is saying. Afterward that bird is sent
with the others to Gaul’s office. One night at the bar, Coriolanus finds Sejanus with the rebels,
which includes Mayfair and Billy. The rebels have lots of weapons that Sejanus didn’t know about,
and he feels betrayed. The situation is tense and it only gets worse when Lucy joins them,
causing Mayfair to get jealous because Billy immediately defends her. Mayfair threatens to
tell her father everything, so Coriolanus takes a weapon and shoots her dead. A furious Billy tries
to attack Coriolanus for revenge, but another rebel shoots him down. Lucy is having a breakdown,
so Coriolanus tells her to go to the stage and keep on singing to keep people distracted. Then
Coriolanus asks the rebels to get rid of the weapons and promises Sejanus he can always
count on him. The next day, the Peacekeepers are sent to search the entire District and find the
weapons that killed the major’s daughter. During his search, Coriolanus finds Lucy, who tells him
she wants to leave Panem because everyone suspects her and she’ll probably be hanged.
Coriolanus decides to leave with her and they agree to meet the next day at dawn. Afterward,
the Peacekeepers find the rebel who shot Billy and take him to be executed. During the ceremony, the
guards also bring Sejanus, who has been captured after they received orders from Gaul thanks to
the birds. Sejanus tries to ask Coriolanus for help, but he ignores him and has to watch his best
friend be hanged. When Coriolanus returns to their room, he finds a picture among Sejanus’ things and
he finally breaks down. At dawn, Coriolanus and Lucy meet and enter the forest to start making
their way out of Panem. It’s quite a long hike and while chatting, Coriolanus accidentally says
something that makes Lucy realize he was behind Sejanus’ death. Eventually it starts raining, but
thankfully they find a cabin where they can stay for a while. Under a loose floorboard, Coriolanus
finds the rebels’ weapons and realizes that if he gets rid of these, there won’t be any loose
ends. Lucy announces she’s going to pick some flowers, but hours pass and she doesn’t come back.
Coriolanus goes looking for her with a weapon in hand, but Lucy is nowhere to be found. Suddenly he
finds her shawl in the woods and tries to pick it up, only to get bitten by a snake. Realizing Lucy
has abandoned him, Coriolanus throws a tantrum until he sees someone moving among the trees.
He immediately opens fire, but when he approaches the spot there’s no body, only Lucy’s bracelet.
Coriolanus continues to look for her and hears her sing, which causes all the birds in the forest to
start singing too. Losing control, Coriolanus begins to wildly fire into the air until he
runs out of bullets. When he finally gives up, he throws the weapons into the lake and returns to
headquarters. Moments later, Coriolanus gets ready to be transferred to District 2, but his commander
tells him there has been a change of plans: he’ll be sent back to the Capitol since he has received
a spot at the university as a gift from Sejanus’s parents. At the Capitol, Coriolanus immediately
gets his family a nice home and new clothes, then he goes to see Casca to drop Sejanus’ things and
thank him for showing him how the real world works. Casca explains that he came up with the
idea for the games while he was drinking with his best friend, who was Coriolanus’s father.
He never planned to present it to the higher-ups, but Coriolanus’ father stole the idea and made it
happen under both their names. He also explains Lucy’s body hasn’t been found, so nobody knows
if she’s survived or not. After Coriolanus leaves, Casca takes a drink, only to die because he’s been
poisoned by Coriolanus. Afterward Coriolanus meets with Gaul to start his training as
the new Gamemaker. Eventually he’ll grow into President Snow, the bad guy from Katniss’ story.