V for Vendetta

In the mid 2030s, the world is in turmoil and warfare, while the United Kingdom remains stable under the fascist regime of the Norsefireparty. Political prisoners, homosexuals and other undesirables are imprisoned in concentration camps. Evey Hammond, a woman who works at the state-run British Television Network, is rescued from an attempted rape by members of the "Fingermen" secret police by aGuy Fawkes-masked vigilante known as "V". He leads her to a rooftop to watch his destruction of the Old Bailey. Norsefire explains away the incident as an "emergency demolition" of a structurally unsound building, but V takes over the television broadcasts to claim responsibility. He urges the people of Britain to rise up against their government and meet him in one year, on November 5, outside theHouses of Parliament, which he promises to destroy. Evey helps V to escape, but is knocked out in the process.

V brings Evey back to his lair, the Shadow Gallery, where she is told she must stay in hiding until the fifth of November, Guy Fawkes Night, the following year. After learning that V is killing government officials, she escapes to the home of her boss, comedian and talk show host Gordon Deitrich. In return for Evey's trusting him with her safety, Deitrich reveals to her a collection of prohibited materials such as subversive paintings, an antique Quran, and homoerotic photographs by Robert Mapplethorpe. Deitrich explains that he has to conceal his sexuality to retain his television career. After he does an over-the-top satire of the government on his television show, his home is raided, and Evey is captured while trying to escape. She is incarcerated and tortured for days for information about V, with her only solace in the notes written by another prisoner, an actress named Valerie Page, who was arrested for being a lesbian.

Evey is told that she will be executed unless she reveals V's location, but when she says she would rather die she is immediately released, at which point it is revealed that her imprisonment and torture were staged by V as an exercise to free her from her fears. The notes are real, having been passed by Valerie to V years earlier when he was similarly imprisoned. Although Evey initially hates V for what he did to her, she realizes she is a stronger person. She leaves him with a promise to return before November 5.

Inspector Finch, Scotland Yard's chief of police, searches for the true identity of V, eventually tracing him back to a bioweaponsprogram at a detention centre for "social deviants" and political dissidents in Larkhill. Finch eventually realizes that the program, directed by then-under secretary Adam Sutler, resulted in the creation of the "St. Mary's Virus" and its release in a false flag terrorist attack. The deaths of 80,000 people and the resulting fear allowed the Norsefire party to win the next election, thereafter silencing all opposition and turning the United Kingdom into a totalitarian state.

As November 5 nears, V's distribution of thousands of Guy Fawkes masks begins causing chaos in the UK and the population starts questioning Norsefire's rule. On the eve of the 5th, Evey visits V, who shows her an explosive-laden train in the abandoned London Underground set to destroy Parliament. He leaves it up to Evey to decide whether to use it, believing that he is unfit to decide. V leaves to meet secret police chief Creedy, who made a deal with V to hand over Sutler in exchange for V's surrender. When Creedy executes Sutler as V watches, V refuses to surrender and is shot by Creedy's bodyguards. V survives, partially because of his concealed armour, and kills Creedy and his men. Mortally wounded, V returns to Evey to thank her and admits he is in love with her before dying in her arms.