Low-level bureaucrat Sam Lowry escapes the monotony of his day-to-day life through a recurring daydream of himself as a virtuous hero saving a beautiful damsel. Investigating a case that led to the wrongful arrest and eventual death of an innocent man instead of wanted terrorist Harry Tuttle, he meets the woman from his daydream, and in trying to help her gets caught in a web of mistaken identities, mindless bureaucracy and lies.
In Moscow in 1983, an American journalist interviews Guy Bennett, who recalls his last year at public school, fifty years before, and how it contributed to him becoming a spy.
Doctor Frankenstein creates a mate for his monster, a woman called Eva, who promptly rejects the male creature. In turn, the doctor becomes obsessed with Eva, and tries to make her a perfect victorian woman.