24 Movie: 24 Possible Plots

The Plot: Jack travels to Italy, where infamous art thief Francois Abney is rumoured to be living.

CTU believe that Abney has been funding the activities of a group of extremists responsible for bombing various US embassies across Europe. When Jack tracks him down, he chases Abney to the city’s port, and follows him onboard a cruise ship just before it sets sail.

The Cliffhanger: Trapped aboard the cruise ship, Jack discovers that the extremists Abney is working for are there as well. They’re packing a lot of heat and an Olympic pool full of sharks...

The Director: Martin Campbell

The Plot: Jack has retired from CTU. But when terrorists seize Paris, shooting out shops and taking citizens hostage, there’s only one man for the job.

Yup, it’s Jack. Sent over to figure out who these machine gun-toting marauders are and what they want, Jack faces some of his most conniving opponents yet.

The Cliffhanger: The terrorists set up shop atop the Arc De Triomphe. If their demands are not met, they’re going to launch a bazooka down the Avenue des Champs-Elysées and blow up La Louvre...

The Director: Paul Greengrass

The Plot: Jack is sent to face a Russian Mafia lynchpin known only as Temhota, who CTU believe is responsible for – among other things – smuggling illicit substances from China to America.

When he arrives in Moscow, Jack stumbles on deep-set corruption that extends from the Mafia into the police and the judiciary system.

The Cliffhanger: Jack’s passport is confiscated, along with his gun and all of his personal possessions. Unprotected, Jack goes to a bar rumoured to be owned by Temhota and finds himself in a 100-man fist fight...

The Director: David Cronenberg

The Plot: Jack is paired up with a new CTU agent, Agent Annabel Fines, and dispatched to the remote jungle land of north Thailand. There, a military craft carrying explosive devices crash landed 20 years ago and was never seen again.

Now, dangerous smugglers have got wind of the plane’s whereabouts, buried deep in a collapsed temple. It’s a race against the clock to stop them from seizing the cargo and wreaking all kinds of destruction.

The Cliffhanger: Jack and Annabel find the temple, but it's a death-trap littered with explosive devices...

The Director: Joe Dante

The Plot: After his drug addiction relapses, Jack is fired from CTU and decides to take a rare break.

Escaping to the sun and fresh air of Madrid, Jack is apprehended and tied up in his hotel room by a masked assailant. Tortured for information about the CTU, he must choose between his life and betraying his former employers.

The Cliffhanger: Jack’s torturer is revealed to be Nina Myers’ brother, Daniel, who wants revenge for his sister’s death. Will the demented sib off Jack by electrocuting him in the shower?

The Director: Quentin Tarantino

The Plot: Jack begrudgingly joins MI6 in London, where a serial killer is murdering one civilian every hour until his demands are met.

As random citizens are killed (one stabbed on the tube, another drowned in Trafalgar Square), tension mounts. Could the deaths be linked to a man on death row who was transferred from London to Texas on charges of terrorist activity?

The Cliffhanger: Jack chases a suspect into the underground, but loses him. Then Jack's assailant shoves him from behind right into the path of an oncoming tube train...

The Director: Sam Mendes

The Plot: Sonic blasts are being used to break open banks around the Aussie city. Could there be links to the Opera House?

Even more mysteriously, CCTV footage of one of the bank heists appears to implicate a well-known American mob boss. Jack goes to Sydney to help crack the case.

The Cliffhanger: Jack’s investigation leads him to the Opera House, where he’s locked in a newly-built sound booth and subjected to the sonic blasts. His ears start to bleed. Can he escape with his life and his hearing?

The Director: James Cameron

The Plot: Jack reconciles with his daughter Kim, and they both attend the wedding of a relative in the Caribbean.

But the ceremony is crashed by drug lords who claim the groom owes them millions of dollars. With everybody in attendance held hostage, can Jack and Kim figure a way out before it’s too late?

The Cliffhanger: Kim is the one being tortured this time ( 24 just loves a good torture scene). Strung up in a bathroom, a druggy lackey threatens to fillet her unless she gives him information about the groom...

The Director: Kevin Macdonald

The Plot: The birthplace of democracy comes under scrutiny when art critic Otis Keel discovers a cry for help scribbled in a library book.

Could the person who last checked out the tome – the wife of rich politician Acacius – be involved in modern day slave trading? Keel calls his old friend Jack Bauer to help him get to the bottom of it.

The Cliffhanger: In the National Library of Greece, Jack is beset by snipers who want to curtail his investigation...

The Director: Kathryn Bigelow

The Plot: Jack heads to Afghanistan to investigate when a drug ring trading opium offshore are linked with terrorist activity.

When he gets there, one of the ring members approaches him begging for help. But how does the stranger know who Jack is? And what is he so afraid of?

The Cliffhanger: Stranded in a literal minefield, Jack has to find a way to get out of it without getting himself blown to smithereens...

The Director: Steven Soderbergh

The Plot: The newly opened National Stadium in Bucharest is to host the 2012 UEFA Europa League Final.

But there have been threats of an attack if Real Madrid beat Germany. Nameless terrorists have promised bloodshed in the 55,000 capacity stadium.

Enter Jack and CTU, who stake out the building and attempt to avert a crisis.

The Cliffhanger: Real Madrid inevitably win. A giant explosion is detonated, causing one of the stadium’s towering floodlights to collapse on top of Jack. Will he survive?

The Director: Steven Spielberg

The Plot: A religious fanatic blows up the Statue of Liberty and gets away with it. The only person who might know the whereabouts of the destructive mastermind is a man currently residing in Guantanamo Bay for war crimes.

The CTU send Jack to speak to the prisoner, who’s known only as ‘Bob’. As he builds up a rapport with the criminal, Jack promises Bob release from Guantanamo for information, but can he make it happen?

The Cliffhanger: Bombs are planted across the span of the Brooklyn Bridge. Can Jack track down the detonator in time?

The Director: Jonathan Demme

The Plot: Jack goes undercover as a Catholic priest when the Vatican is threatened by anti-Christian forces. Just 'cos, y'know, he's the only guy who could pull that sort of thing off.

With the Pope's life in danger, Jack has to pull out all the stops to keep him safe. But with extremists closing in, and Jack unable to speak a word of Italian, this could proof his most difficult case yet.

The Cliffhanger: The Pope is kidnapped and held at the top of Saint Peter’s Basilica. One step in the wrong direction and he’s dead. Can Jack reach him in time?

The Director: Ang Lee

The Plot: A gang of nature terrorists (not to be confused with naturists) lay siege to a made-up chemical plant that they say is about to cause another Chernobyl-like disaster, this one even worse than the last.

The leader of the eco warriors is an American named Cal Hart, who has links to previous terrorist activity...

The Cliffhanger: With the workers of the chemical plant all locked inside a giant incinerator, Jack scrambles through vents to save them. Will everybody – including Jack – end up flame-grilled?

The Director: Michael Winterbottom

The Plot: Warheads being transported through Tokyo are hijacked by armed men. One of the guards is left alive, and says the hijackers were wearing a red phoenix icon on their armbands.

When the FBI pick this up on their feed, they enlist Jack Bauer to search for the hijackers. Why? Well, Jack used to work for a secret unit of Homeland Security that had a red phoenix icon as its identifying logo...

The Cliffhanger: Jack butts heads with old comrade Frank, who wants Jack to give up his CTU work and join the Phoenix’s shady political fight. If he doesn’t, it's bye-bye Jack.

The Director: Chris Nolan

The Plot: Jack gets into his car, but as soon as he starts driving he receives a phone call telling him that if he slows down below 60mph, a bomb in the car’s hood will activate.

Lucky for Jack, he’s mid-job in the Mojave Desert, with plenty of space ahead of him. Now there’s just gas to worry about. Yeah, yeah, it’s 24 does Speed . But who doesn’t want to see Jack in a one man show sweating it out in the Mojave?

The Cliffhanger: A sniper lying in wait on the roadside takes out one of the car’s back wheels. With the speedometer plunging ever downward, is this the end for Jack? (Clue: probably not.)

The Director: Terrence Malick

The Plot: As the overpopulation of China comes to a head, a top secret initiative called White Dragon is wiping criminals, the homeless and other 'undesirables' from the streets of Hong Kong.

When an investigating CTU agent is killed in the city, Jack goes to investigate and uncovers corruption borne out of desperation.

The Cliffhanger: A strip joint turns into a place of terror when it's targeted by the White Dragon lot. When Jack opens fire on the Dragons, the ensuing shoot-out could leave everybody in pieces...

The Director: David Fincher

The Plot: An immigration officer is killed in the Scottish capital. Sick of having Jack skulking around the office, CTU send him to look into if it’s related to immigration or terrorism issues.

Sure enough, Jack discovers that the dead officer was refusing immigrants entrance to the country. But is it as simple as all that? Or is the government involved somehow?

The Cliffhanger: Jack fights an assassin atop the perilously high Arthur’s Seat.

The Director: Gus Van Sant

The Plot: Apparently the European city with the best quality of life, Zürich is about to get a lot worse. Why? Jack Bauer’s just turned up to dig into accusations of money laundering among the elite classes, who are funding shares in terrorism.

See, an American disappeared here not too long ago after threatening to expose them. The FBI want answers, and they've called on Jack to get 'em.

The Cliffhanger: Jack’s digging gets someone upset, and he finds himself shackled, weighed down and dumped in Lake Zurich...

The Director: Doug Liman

The Plot: A small faction of Nazi sympathisers are hoping to make their mark anew on the German landscape.

Sent to Berlin to look into such claims, Jack uncovers an Aryan organisation who are attempting to get a financial and political foothold as they endeavour to complete the work that Hitler couldn’t.

The Cliffhanger: Two words: Jack and Guggenheim. We’re imagining a big shoot-out like in The International , but way better. ‘Cos it’s Jack.

The Director: John Woo

The Plot: An attempt to assassinate the American President leads Jack on a trail of corruption all the way to Goa, where he finds that excessive drug use has turned partygoers into little more than walking zombies.

Could it all be an elaborate scheme by the local drug pedlars to keep people there when they arrive? And what is their link with the President?

The Cliffhanger: Jack’s tempted off the wagon by the drugs on display in Goa. When he’s roofied in a bar, he has the trip of his life. But will he ever come down?

The Director: Danny Boyle

The Plot: The world’s tallest building: a marvel, or a deadly vantage point from which anybody can become a sniper’s target?

Jack accompanies the President to Dubai, where the leader’s many enemies are all just waiting to take a crack at him. But could the real threat come from the inside?

The Cliffhanger: An elaborate fight takes place in an elevator shaft at the Burj Khalifa, where Jack spots an assassin just waiting for a chance to take out the president.

The Director: David O Russell

The Plot: When convicts break out of a high security Seattle prison, the FBI are baffled about where they fled to. Then Jack Bauer, reappointed to the FBI, remembers that Seattle shares a sister port with Rotterdam in the Netherlands.

Tracing their journey, he goes on a breakneck mission to track down the criminals before it’s too late.

The Cliffhanger: Jack discovers these convicts know a thing or two about violence when they accost him, beat him to a pulp and play that song by The Beautiful South over and over until he tells them who he is. Chilling.

The Director: Clint Eastwood

The Plot: Jack’s kidnapped and wakes up on a desert island.

There, he finally cracks, thinks he’s seen a giant monkey, starts talking to a beach ball, and constantly presses a button to make sure that the island doesn’t explode. Also, there are dinosaurs (nature found a way).

The Cliffhanger: Jack thinks he’s seeing things when three polar bears appear on the beach with him. Sadly for him, they’re not figments of his imagination, and they’re very, very hungry...

The Director: JJ Abrams