When the horses are sold as a cost-saving measure, equestrian performer Holt Farrier (Farrell) is tasked with caring for the circus's newborn elephant. Upon discovering that the infant elephant has massive ears, his boss, Max Medici (DeVito), instructs him to keep the ears hidden from circus customers. However, the ears come free during the little elephant's first performance, and when the audience mocks him, throws peanuts at him and calls him "Dumbo," his mother flies into a rage, causing great devastation and even killing a man. With his mother sold off to prevent any further incidents, baby Dumbo is befriended by Holt's two children, who soon discover that the baby animal's huge ears give him a very special ability.
A year after the end of World War II, Rachael (Knightley) arrives in a shattered and frozen Hamburg, Germany, to reunite with her husband, Lewis (Clarke), a British colonel taking part in the efforts to rebuild the city. They've been assigned a grand old house to live in, but to Rachael's surprise, she learns that Lewis has allowed the home's previous owners to remain and live in its attic. The two families from opposing sides of the war have little trust for one another, but as their situation wears on, the distrust begins to give way to passion and lust.
Brothers Vincent (Eisenberg) and Anton (Skarsgård) Zaleski have an idea that they're convinced will make them billionaires: they want to build a fiber-optic cable that runs directly from a Wall Street databank in New Jersey all the way to Kansas, giving them a millisecond advantage over other stock market traders. With dollar signs in their eyes, they throw themselves at the project, determined not to let the seemingly endless setbacks hold them back from achieving their dream.