| Director | Doug Liman |
|---|---|
| Budget | $60 million |
| Box office | $214 million |
In the Mediterranean Sea, Italian fishermen rescue an American man adrift with two gunshot wounds in his back. Tending to his wounds, they find he has amnesia but shows fluency in several languages. A tiny laser projector found implanted in his hip gives the number of a safe deposit box in Zurich, so he goes to investigate. While there, he discovers he is highly trained in hand-to-hand combat after incapacitating two Zurich police officers in a park.
In the deposit box he finds various currencies, passports, IDs with different names, and a handgun. The man takes everything but the gun and starts using the name on the American passport, Jason Bourne. After Bourne's departure, a bank employee contacts Operation Treadstone, a CIA black ops program. Its head, Alexander Conklin, issues alerts to police to capture Bourne and assigns three agents – codenamed Castel, Manheim, and the Professor – to kill him.
CIA deputy director Ward Abbott contacts Conklin about a failed assassination attempt against exiled African dictator Wombosi, who promises to deal with the agent who failed. Bourne evades the Swiss police by using his U.S. passport to enter the American consulate but is pursued by Marine guards.
Bourne escapes after offering $20,000 to Marie Kreutz, a 26-year-old German woman he saw at the consulate, to drive him to an address in Paris. From the apartment, Bourne uses the phone to contact a hotel to inquire about the names on his passports. A "John Michael Kane" was registered but died two weeks before in a car crash. Castel ambushes Bourne and Marie in the apartment, but Bourne gets the upper hand. Instead of allowing himself to be interrogated, Castel throws himself from a window to his death.
While searching through Castel's belongings, Marie finds wanted posters of Bourne and herself and so she agrees to help him. After they evade the police in Marie's car, they spend the night in a Paris hotel.
Meanwhile, Wombosi obsesses over the attempt on his life. Conklin, having anticipated this, has planted a body identified as John Michael Kane in a Paris morgue to appear to be the assailant. Wombosi is unconvinced and threatens to report the CIA's actions to the media. The Professor then assassinates Wombosi on Conklin's orders.
Bourne, posing as Kane, learns about the failed assassination attempt on Wombosi's yacht, and that the assassin was shot twice in the back during the escape, ultimately realizing that he was responsible for the attempt. He and Marie take refuge in the French countryside home of Marie's half-brother Eamon and his children.
Under pressure from Abbott to handle the matter, Conklin tracks Bourne's location and sends the Professor to kill him. Bourne mortally wounds the Professor, who reveals their shared connection to Treadstone before dying. Bourne sends Marie, Eamon, and the children away for their protection. He then contacts Conklin via the Professor's phone, and they agree to meet alone in Paris.
When Bourne sees that Conklin is not alone, he abandons their meeting but places a tracking device on his car, leading Bourne to the Treadstone safe house in Paris. He breaks in and holds Conklin and logistics technician Nicky Parsons at gunpoint. Conklin reveals his association with Treadstone and presses him to remember his past. Bourne recalls his attempt to assassinate Wombosi through successive flashbacks.
Under orders from Treadstone, Bourne had infiltrated Wombosi's yacht and got close enough to assassinate him and make it appear as if he had been murdered by a member of his own entourage. However, Bourne could not kill Wombosi while his children were present, and believing he would have to kill the children too, he instead fled, being shot during his escape and losing his memory.
Bourne announces he is resigning from Treadstone and warns Conklin not to follow him. As agents descend on the safe house, he fights his way out. As Conklin leaves, he is killed by Manheim under Abbott's orders. Abbott later shuts down Treadstone using Conklin's right hand Danny Zorn. Both of them report to an oversight committee that Treadstone is a "decommissioned" former program of theoretical game-scenario exercises before diverting the discussion to a new project codenamed "Blackbriar".
Some time later, Bourne finds Marie renting out scooters to tourists on Mykonos, and they reunite.