| Director | Michael Bay |
|---|---|
| Budget | $145 million |
| Box office | $709.7 million |
The planet Cybertron was ravaged by a civil war between two Transformer factions — the Autobots, led by Optimus Prime, and the Decepticons, led by Megatron. Both search for a lost artifact called the AllSpark, the source of all Cybertronian life. The Autobots want to find the AllSpark to rebuild Cybertron and end the war, while the Decepticons want to use it to conquer the universe. Megatron found the AllSpark on Earth, but crash-landed in the Arctic Circle and was frozen in the ice. Captain Archibald Witwicky and his crew of explorers stumbled upon Megatron in 1897. Captain Witwicky accidentally activates Megatron's navigational system, causing his eyeglasses to be imprinted with the coordinates of the AllSpark's location. Sector 7, a secret U.S. government organization, discovers the AllSpark in the Colorado River and builds the Hoover Dam around it to mask its energy emissions. The still-frozen Megatron is transported into the facility and is reverse engineered to advance human technology.
In the present day, the Decepticon Blackout attacks the U.S. SOCCENT military base in Qatar and tries to hack into the U.S. military network to find the location of Megatron and the AllSpark, but his mission is thwarted when the base staff severs the network cable connections. While Blackout wrecks the rest of the base, Captain William Lennox, Sergeant Robert Epps, and their small group of survivors escape the destruction with photographic evidence. Blackout sends his symbiont Scorponok to eliminate them. In the United States, Captain Witwicky’s descendant Sam Witwicky buys his first car which turns out to be the Autobot Bumblebee. Bumblebee helps him woo his crush, Mikaela Banes, and leaves at night to transmit a homing beacon to the Autobots, with Sam briefly seeing his robot form.
Another Decepticon named Frenzy infiltrates Air Force One to hack into the military network. He finds the map imprinted on Archibald's glasses, leading him and his partner Barricade to begin tracking Sam's location. The next day, Barricade confronts Sam and demands his grandfather's glasses, but Bumblebee rescues him and Mikaela. Meanwhile, Scorponok attacks Lennox’s team, who hold out until he is repelled by air strikes. Bumblebee soon introduces Sam and Mikaela to the other Autobots — Optimus, Jazz, Ironhide, and Ratchet. They all return to Sam's home and obtain the glasses. Government agents from Sector 7, led by Seymour Simmons, arrive to arrest Sam and Mikaela, and capture Bumblebee after the Autobots try to rescue them.
Frenzy secretly accompanies the group to the Hoover Dam, where he alerts Blackout, Barricade, Starscream, and the other Decepticons upon locating the AllSpark and releases Megatron, while Sam convinces the Sector 7 agents to release Bumblebee so he can get the AllSpark to Optimus. The Autobot-human convoy goes to Mission City where Decepticon forces attack them. Jazz and all the Decepticons save Starscream are killed in the ensuing battle, and Sam manages to ram the AllSpark into Megatron's chest as he battles Optimus, killing him and destroying the AllSpark. The U.S. government decommissions Sector 7 and sinks the deceased Decepticons into the Laurentian Abyss. Sam and Mikaela begin a relationship and Optimus sends a signal to other surviving Autobots, directing them to Earth. Meanwhile, Starscream retreats into space.