Plot

In a version of 1985 where superheroes exist, the murder of a colleague sends active vigilante Rorschach on the trail of a conspiracy that will change the course of history.

It's 1985 in an alternate reality. The Watchmen - comprised of the Comedian, Dr. Manhattan, Nite Owl II, Ozymandias, Rorschach and Silk Spectre II - are a disparate band of masked superheroes, modeled after the Minutemen, who were masked superheroes of a generation earlier, most of who are dead or afflicted by the ravages of life. The Comedian belongs to both groups. Despite the activities of the Watchmen leading to the west winning the Vietnam War which in turn has kept Richard Nixon in the White House, Nixon has now outlawed masks, resulting in the Watchmen disbanding and going into retirement, most hiding their Watchmen past under their human identities. However, the Comedian, in his human persona of Eddie Blake, and Dr. Manhattan - former physicist Jon Osterman who obtained his superhero powers through a scientific accident which almost killed him - now work for the government. Dr. Manhattan's powers in particular have kept a watch over nuclear proliferation, as he is able to stop any nuclear attack. Regardless, the Cold War is at its height with recent Soviet posturing regarding nuclear bomb buildup. In her human persona of Laurie Jupiter, Silk Spectre II is Dr. Manhattan's assistant and lover, as much as they can be in Dr. Manhattan's now non-human state. Meanwhile, Ozymandias has come out to the world as wealthy genius Adrian Veidt, capitalizing on his Ozymandias identity to better the world, and Rorschach continues to work as a vigilante, although one wanted by the law despite he the reason that many criminals are behind bars. When Blake is murdered, Rorschach, as the only one still on the streets, believes the murderer is out to kill all the Watchmen, despite any number of people wanting to kill the Comedian for being a misogynist. Evidence points to it perhaps having something to do with an imminent attempt of nuclear annihilation. Rorschach has to convince his colleagues, who he has not seen since their superhero days, of the validity of his theory for them to come out of retirement, which is no easy task. If they do, which will require them to overcome external forces which seem to be conspiring against them, they will have to discover both who killed the Comedian and why before they befall the same fate as him and/or before the mastermind is able to exact his larger grand plan.—Huggo

In a gritty and alternate 1985 the glory days of costumed vigilantes have been brought to a close by a government crackdown, but after one of the masked veterans is brutally murdered, an investigation into the killer is initiated. The reunited heroes set out to prevent their own destruction, but in doing so uncover a sinister plot that puts all of humanity in grave danger.

"Watchmen" is set in an alternate 1985 America in which costumed superheroes are part of the fabric of everyday society, and the "Doomsday Clock" - which charts the USA's tension with the Soviet Union - is permanently set at five minutes to midnight. When one of his former colleagues is murdered, the washed up but no less determined masked vigilante Rorschach sets out to uncover a plot to kill and discredit all past and present superheroes. As he reconnects with his former crime-fighting legion - a ragtag group of retired superheroes, only one of whom has true powers - Rorschach glimpses a wide-ranging and disturbing conspiracy with links to their shared past and catastrophic consequences for the future. Their mission is to watch over humanity... but who is watching the Watchmen?"—T-Hen

In 1985, a man living in a Manhattan apartment watches news about escalating Cold War tensions and the response from five-term President Richard Nixon (Robert Wisden) when an unknown assailant attacks and hurls him to the street below. A montage reviews the rise of costumed crime-fighters from 1939 to 1977, culminating in public backlash and the passage of an anti-vigilante act.

Masked, costumed vigilantes fight crime in America. In the 1930s and '40s, the vigilantes formed a group called the Minutemen to "finish what the law could not." The Minutemen included Sally Jupiter / Silk Spectre (Carla Gugino), Edward Blake / The Comedian, Hollis Mason / Nite Owl (Stephen McHattie), William Brady / Dollar Bill (Dan Payne), Byron Lewis / Mothman (Niall Matter) who created a costume with special wings that helped him glide, Ursula Zandt / The Silhouette (Apollonia Vanova) a gun-toting vigilante, motivated by the deaths of her parents and sister at the hands of the Nazis in their native Austria, Hooded Justice (Glenn Ennis) a violent vigilante who was trained in hand-to-hand combat, Nelson Gardner / Captain Metropolis (Darryl Scheelar) a former Marine Lieutenant, he was one of the more active members of the Minutemen, having organized its formation.

The original lineup was heroic and helped catch criminals and win World War II. But they often suffered early and violent deaths in action, or became suicides, or were arrested for breaking the law themselves, or in one case were committed to an asylum. Now, a second generation of heroes has formed, called the Watchmen.

"Watchmen" is set in an alternate 1985 America in which costumed superheroes are part of the fabric of everyday society, and the "Doomsday Clock", which charts the USA's tension with the Soviet Union, is permanently set at five minutes to midnight.

Walter Kovacs / Rorschach (Jackie Earle Haley), a 45-year-old masked vigilante who continues his extralegal activities after they are outlawed, discovers that the dead man was Edward Blake (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), better known as "the Comedian", a superhero and a former member of the Minutemen who is commissioned by the U.S. government as a black-ops specialist (a burly guy with a simple mask over his eyes and chomping on a cigar).

Meanwhile, Daniel Dreiburg is at the home of Hollis Mason, the original Nite Owl. The two have regular meetings and talk about old times. Hollis says that it all started with the gangs. The Minutemen were a masked response to the masked gangs. They discuss the Comedian's death and Rorschach's vigilante activities. Nixon's policies have outlawed masked vigilantes, but this hasn't stopped Rorschach.

Suspecting that other vigilantes could be attacked, Rorschach warns members of his former team, the Watchmen. Rorschach's former partner Daniel Dreiberg / Nite Owl II (Patrick Wilson) a 40-year-old retired superhero with technological expertise (in a trench coat and hat with a knitted mask that completely covers his face and displays swirling black ink blots), believes he is paranoid but relays his concerns to Adrian Veidt / Ozymandias (Matthew Goode), a crime-fighter turned businessman who has since made his identity public (whose costume is like that of a Greek god) and Laurie Jupiter / Silk Spectre II. Rorschach later visits Jon Osterman / Doctor Manhattan (Billy Crudup), a physicist whose accidental superpowers make him a national security asset, but Manhattan is preoccupied with energy research and ignores him. Doctor Manhattan is virtually omnipotent and works for the U.S. government. He is a scientist who suffered an accident during 1959, giving him superhuman powers and is called the naked blue humanoid.

The rich and brilliant Adrian Veidt is being interviewed. The reporter observes that only Adrian and Hollis ever revealed their true identities. Adrian talks about developing renewable energy sources, and that if he could eliminate fear of not having enough, war would be obsolete.

Manhattan can normally see the future, but he says that he cannot see it now due to temporal interference caused by Tachyons moving through time that may have resulted from a nuclear holocaust. Manhattan then tells Laurie that he has been working with Adrian to solve the energy crisis in an effort to avert the war. He also tells Laurie that he knows she wanted to have dinner with him, but that she will instead be going out to dinner with Daniel. When Laurie arrives at the restaurant, Daniel is obviously smitten.

At Blake's funeral, Manhattan, Veidt and Dreiberg each recall the Comedian's pessimism in his later years about the Watchmen's mission.

Laurie is Teleported to her mother's home by Dr. Manhattan, where she immediately throws up into the toilet. Laurie's mother is Sally Jupiter, the first Silk Spectre. Sally observes that she thought Laurie would have gotten used to that means of travel by now. "It beats flying coach," says Sally. She is drinking margaritas in the afternoon and reminiscing about her old Minuteman days, when she was the original Silk Spectre. She shows Laurie a pornographic comic that is based on Sally's super-hero of the 1940s.

In a flashback, Sally remembers the original Minutemen having a group photo taken in a wood-paneled club. Afterward, Sally goes to the billiards room to change out of her costume and the Comedian enters, making suggestive advances toward her. Sally tries to push him away, but the Comedian brutally punches her and is ready to sexually assault her when another member of their team, Hooded Justice, intervenes and beats Blake severely. Blake suggests that Justice gets off on beating men and Justice stops. Sally concludes the flashback with a cryptic observation about Eddie Blake.

At the cemetery, Manhattan remembers that during the Vietnam War, the Comedian and Manhattan fought the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army, turning the tide of the war and allowing the United States to win. In a bar, during the celebration of the war's end, a Vietnamese woman confronts the Comedian and tells him she is pregnant with his child. When the drunken Comedian refuses to take responsibility and insults her, she slashes his face with a broken bottle, causing a permanent scar. Infuriated, and over Manhattan's pleas for him to stop, the Comedian shoots and kills the woman.

Daniel recalls a time when the Comedian and the Night Owl tried to calm a rioting group of protesters during a police strike. The comic gleefully fought with the protesters, shooting them with tear gas bombs. Blake also mentioned that Congress was enacting new legislation that would outlaw costumed vigilantes.

After the service, a lone mourner pays his respects. Rorschach tracks down and questions the mourner, former super-villain Edgar Jacobi / Moloch (Matt Frewer). Edgar is a former super-villain. Moloch was jailed for a time during the 1970s.

Jacobi says that Blake had recently broken into his apartment while he was sleeping and says that Blake was tearful, unmasked, and incoherent. Rorschach is astonished but doubts that Jacobi would tell a lie so bizarre.

Laurie and Jon are having an intimate erotic moment when Laurie realizes Jon has replicated himself. At first, she is put off by making love to two people at the same time, but then she realizes that a third Jon is working on the energy design at the same time. Angry at not having his full attention she throws an object through the blue figure's head.

During a press interview with Doctor Manhattan, an investigative journalist tells him that several people who had been in contact with Manhattan have developed cancer, including his former girlfriend, Janie Slater. As other reporters mob Manhattan with questions, he snaps and exiles himself to Mars. There he recalls many events in a haphazard order. Years ago, he had a loving relationship with Janie. he reassembled a watch with his father. He was trapped in an atomic chamber by a time lock. The surge of nuclear energy released in the chamber obliterates his body. Over the next few months Manhattan is slowly "resurrected" as a nervous system, a skeleton, and finally the blue humanoid who can control all matter at an atomic level.

Dr. Manhattan is told he needs an emblem, and he draws a circle with a dot in the middle on his forehead, a symbol of a hydrogen atom. President Nixon enlists his help to end the Vietnam war, which he does within in a few months of his arrival in Southeast Asia. Many North Vietnamese fighters want to surrender to Manhattan directly, believing him to be a god. Alone, Manhattan reflects on his existence and his regrets at being turned into a weapon. In his absence, the Warsaw Pact countries make aggressive moves, and Nixon prepares for war. Dr. Manhattan observes that he is tired of humans, and he begins to build a large, watch-like device on Mars.

Laurie is confronted by government officials for "not doing her job" (appeasing Dr Manhattan both physically and emotionally) and allowing him to leave Earth. In a flashback, while dressed as the Silk Spectre, she meets the Comedian. Her mother intervenes and tells him to stay away from her daughter.

Nixon, Kissinger and the war cabinet consider the recent events with the Soviet Union and prepare for war. Nixon seems willing to lose the East coast in a nuclear war with the Soviets, and he tells them to begin fueling America's bomber planes. Nixon says Dr. Manhattan has two days to solve the problems, and he "hopes he's on our side".

Veidt survives an assassination attempt, suggesting that Rorschach's "mask-killer" theory is correct. Dreiberg takes in Laurie Jupiter / Silk Spectre II (Malin Akerman), a second-generation vigilante and estranged lover of Manhattan, to whom Dreiberg is attracted.

Rorschach later reviews the ID card of the man who tried to kill Adrian. The man worked for Pyramid International and Rorschach remembers he had seen a letter from Pyramid earlier at Moloch's apartment. Rorschach's investigation of the assassin leads him back to Jacobi. Rorschach finds Jacobi dead and himself framed for Jacobi's murder. After a battle with police, Rorschach is arrested and unmasked as Walter Kovacs, age 35.

In prison, Rorschach defends his vigilantism to a psychiatrist, saying he cannot ignore evil and the people who cause it. He recalls a seminal event, when he was a young Rorschach, and he uncovered the grisly murder of a 6-year-old girl by a pedophile. Finding a cleaver at the scene of the crime, he brutally cleaves the murderer's head in two with multiple blows.

Laurie snoops around in the basement of Daniel's building, and she finds the Night Owl's lab and his flying machine, which resembles an owl's head. She pushes a random button that activates the ship's flamethrower, starting a fire in the lab. Daniel comes down to help her put out the fire. He tells her that the ship is called "Archie" after Merlin's pet owl, Archimedes. He says that he inherited a lot of money from his father who was disappointed that he became a crime fighter. Daniel tells Laurie that Hollis was his hero. She tries on the night vision owl goggles, and she says that this must be how Jon sees.

Dreiberg and Jupiter, after donning their costumes and saving multiple people from a burning building, make love. Dan floats the idea that they try to rescue Rorschach from prison. Imprisoned crime boss Big Figure stages a riot as a cover for assassinating Rorschach. The attack fails, and Rorschach kills Big Figure and his accomplices before leaving the prison with Dreiberg and Jupiter, who have arrived to break him out.

Manhattan Teleports Jupiter to Mars while Dreiberg joins Rorschach's investigation of the Blake murder. Evidence points them to Veidt as the mastermind. Rorschach and Night Owl break into Adrian's office. Night Owl guesses that the password to Adrian's computer is "RamesesII" and they find out that Pyramid is owned by Adrian's company, Veidt International.

They find him at an Antarctic hideout, where he has just overseen the activation of Doctor Manhattan's energy reactors in New York City and other locations across the planet. On Mars, Jupiter tries to convince Manhattan that humanity is worth saving. She succeeds only when he learns that Jupiter is Blake's illegitimate daughter, a fact so unlikely (as Blake had once tried to sexually assault Jupiter's mother) that it restores his respect for life. Manhattan tells her that he was wrong about undervaluing miracles. He notes that against "unfathomable odds" Laurie came from the coupling of Sally and the Comedian, "a miracle".

Veidt admits orchestrating Manhattan's exile. He also spent $2 billion to manipulate Manhattan into not seeing the future and leaving the Earth, staging the assassination, framing Rorschach, and killing Blake, who was spying on his activities. He has also executed the final step of his plan: turning the world against Manhattan by rigging his reactors to explode, killing 15 million people. He explains that his plan is to unify the United States and Soviet Union and prevent nuclear war by "killing millions" in several of the world's largest cities, "to save billions."

Manhattan returns with Jupiter to a devastated New York, pieces together what has happened, and Teleports to Veidt's hideout. After a brief struggle, Veidt shows him that the world's countries have put aside their rivalries to focus on a common enemy: Doctor Manhattan.

Realizing the logic of Veidt's plan, the Watchmen agree to keep his secret, except for Rorschach, whom Manhattan reluctantly kills to preserve the new global peace. Manhattan departs permanently for another galaxy while Dreiberg rebukes Veidt's moral sacrifice, and Jupiter finally comes to terms with her parentage. A New York tabloid editor, disgusted that there is no war to report on, tells a staff member to choose something from the "crank file", which contains Rorschach's journal.