| Director | Roland Emmerich |
|---|---|
| Budget | $150 million |
| Box office | $205 million |
U.S. president James Sawyer makes a controversial proposal to sign a peace agreement with other nations to remove military forces from the Middle East. Divorced veteran John Cale works as a Capitol Police officer assigned to Speaker of the House Eli Raphelson, whose nephew he saved while serving in Afghanistan. Cale hopes to impress his 11-year-old daughter, Emily, by interviewing for the Secret Service and getting tickets for them to tour the White House. His interviewer, Deputy Special Agent-in-Charge Carol Finnerty, a college acquaintance, deems him unqualified for the job.
A bomb is detonated in the United States Capitol, sending Washington, D.C. into lockdown. Finnerty escorts Raphelson to an underground command center in the Pentagon, while Vice President Alvin Hammond is taken aboard Air Force One. A paramilitary team led by corrupt ex–Delta Force operator Emil Stenz infiltrates the White House, kills various Secret Service agents, and seizes the building. The tour group is taken hostage in the Blue Room by white nationalist Carl Killick, but Cale escapes to search for Emily, who was separated from the rest of the tour group. Retiring Head of Presidential Detail Martin Walker brings Sawyer to the Presidential Emergency Operations Center (PEOC), beneath the White House Library. Inside, Walker kills Sawyer's task forces and reveals himself as the commander of the White House attack; he is evidently seeking vengeance against Sawyer for a botched mission in Iran that killed his Marine son Kevin a year ago. Cale kills a mercenary, taking his weapon and radio, and rescues Sawyer after eavesdropping on Walker.
Walker brings in ex-NSA analyst Skip Tyler to hack the PEOC's defense system, but he needed Sawyer to activate the nuclear football. Killick catches Emily for recording on her phone and takes her hostage. Cale and Sawyer contact the command structure via a scrambled satellite phone in the residence and try to escape via a secret tunnel, but find the exit rigged with explosives. They escape in the presidential limousine, but are chased by Stenz and crash into the White House pool. With Sawyer and Cale presumed dead, the 25th Amendment is invoked and Hammond is sworn in as president. Cale and Sawyer, still alive, learn Hammond has ordered an aerial incursion to retake the White House despite Cale's protests. Although he intervenes, the mercenaries shoot down the helicopters with Javelin missiles. Learning Emily's identity from the video, Stenz takes her to Walker in the Oval Office. Tyler hacks into NORAD and fires a laser-guided missile at Air Force One from a silo in Piketon, Ohio, killing Hammond and everyone on board. Raphelson is sworn in as president and orders an airstrike on the White House.
Sawyer surrenders himself to save Emily. Walker, blaming Iran, not Sawyer, for his son's death, demands Sawyer use the football to launch nuclear missiles against various Iranian cities. Cale sets fire to several rooms as a diversion. Tyler inadvertently triggers the tunnel explosives while trying to escape and is killed. Cale kills most of the mercenaries and frees the hostages, one of whom (White House tour guide Donnie Donaldson) fatally bludgeons Killick before he can kill Cale. Stenz engages with Cale and is blown up with a grenade belt. Sawyer attacks Walker, but in the fight, Walker uses Sawyer's handprint to activate the football and shoots Sawyer. Before Walker can finally launch the missiles, Cale crashes a reinforced Chevrolet Suburban into the Oval Office and kills him with the car's minigun. Emily runs outside and waves off the incoming fighter planes with a presidential flag, and the lead air strike pilot aborts the attack. Sawyer survives thanks to a pocket watch that once belonged to Abraham Lincoln stopping Walker's bullet.
With Finnerty’s help, Cale realizes that Raphelson was Walker's accomplice and the mastermind behind the attack, having acted at the behest of the corrupt military–industrial complex. Believing Sawyer dead and that nobody would trust Cale's story, Raphelson is double-crossed into confessing and is arrested for treason. He swears revenge before he is captured. Sawyer names Cale his new special agent and takes him and Emily on an aerial tour of D.C. on Marine One. During the tour, Sawyer receives word that other nations have agreed to his peace deal after learning of the events at the White House, calling for an end to all wars.