Plot

A posthumous message from the previous M (Dame Judi Dench) leads MI6 agent James Bond (Daniel Craig) to carry out an unauthorized mission in Mexico City on the Day of the Dead, where he stops a terrorist bombing plot.

Estrella (Stephanie Sigman) is a Mexican agent who accompanies Bond on his mission to assassinate Marco Sciarra. Bond kills Marco Sciarra (Alessandro Cremona), the terrorist leader, who makes a reference to the Pale King which Bond overhears. During the assassination, a bomb is detonated in the target apartment. This destabilizes the building, which collapses the roof on which Bond is standing, collapsing his building. Outside, he pursues a man who escaped the bomb through a festival parade into a main square when a helicopter approaches to evacuate his target. Bond jumps on the helicopter and fights him as the helicopter spins, climbs and plunges above the crowd. After a desperate fight, both inside and outside the helicopter, Bond pushes the man and lastly the pilot out, and manages to get the chopper under control as he inspects the confiscated ring, emblazoned with an octopus emblem. Upon his return to London, Bond is suspended from field duty by Gareth Mallory (Ralph Fiennes), the current M.

Mallory is engaged in a power struggle with politically connected Max Denbigh (Andrew Scott), whom Bond dubs "C," the Director-General of the new, privately backed Joint Intelligence Service formed by the merger of MI5 and MI6. C campaigns for Britain to join the global surveillance and intelligence initiative "Nine Eyes," and uses his influence to close down the '00' field agent section, which he believes is outdated. Secretly, C is an agent for Spectre, heavily involved with their plan to merge nine national intelligence agencies into the Nine Eyes Committee, thus allowing Spectre the power to take over the world.

Bond shows Moneypenny a video from the previous M, sent to Bond, after her death. In that, M asked Bond to track Marco if she were to die. She also asks Bond to attend his funeral. Bond asks Moneypenny to be his mole to investigate Macro's history and associates. The previous M also left Bond a personal folder, which had the partially burned letter of guardianship for Bond to his foster father. and a photo, in which the picture of the foster father's real son was burnt.

He visits Q's (Ben Whishaw) new digs. Q adds injects him with microchips to allow vital-sign monitoring from the MI6 base ordered by the new M. Bond asks him to cover for him for a day or two to enable him to get to Rome undetected. He later steals the new fitted-out Aston-Martin and gives Moneypenny a smart phone before leaving.

Bond travels to Rome to attend Sciarra's funeral, as was also mandated by the previous M in her video message to Bond. He seduces Sciarra's widow, Lucia (Monica Bellucci), who tells him Sciarra belonged to an organization of businessmen with criminal and terrorist connections. Bond first saves Lucia from the hit-men send to kill her, and then he seduces her to extract information that the Organization Marco worked for never met, but they called an emergency meeting in Rome to chose Marco's replacement.

Bond uses Sciarra's ring to infiltrate a meeting to select Sciarra's replacement, where he identifies the leader, Franz Oberhauser (Ernst Stavro Blofeld (Christoph Waltz)). After hearing Oberhauser give the order for the "Pale King" to be assassinated. When Oberhauser addresses Bond by name, Bond is pursued across the city in his Aston Martin DB10 by the organization's assassin, Mr. Hinx (Dave Bautista), driving a Jaguar C-X75. In mid car chase, Bond discovers the car hadn't been loaded with ammunition and other evasive tools. He is able to evade his pursuer when he uses a submerge mode with the car in a nearby canal.

Eve Moneypenny (Naomie Harris) informs Bond that the Pale King is Mr. White (Jesper Christensen), a former member of the organization's subsidiary Quantum who had fallen afoul of Oberhauser. Bond asks her to investigate Oberhauser, who was presumed dead 20 years earlier. Meanwhile C presents his vision of the Nine Eyes initiative to the security heads of nine countries in Tokyo. But South Africans vote against the initiative and since the vote is not unanimous, it is not adopted. M is happy and tries to counsel C that Nine Eyes will be against the spirit of privacy.

Bond locates White in Altaussee, Austria, where he is dying of thallium poisoning by Quantum. He admits to growing disenchanted with Quantum and he tells Bond to find and protect his daughter, psychiatrist Dr. Madeleine Swann (Léa Seydoux), who will take him to L'Américain in order to locate Oberhauser; White then commits suicide with Bond's gun. Hink is then seen in Mr. White's home after Bond left.

In London, C meets with M and plays a surveillance tape of Bond's call to Moneypenny from Rome, revealing C is already secretly performing surveillance on MI6 agents.

Bond confronts Swann and rescues her from Hinx and his forces. Bond pursues them in an airplane after they kidnap her. He lands, breaks off the plane's wings, landing gear and tail and reunites with Swann.

The pair meet Q, who links Oberhauser to Bond's previous missions, identifying Le Chiffre, Dominic Greene and Raoul Silva as agents of the same organization, which Swann identifies as SPECTRE. Swann reveals that L'Américain is a hotel in Tangiers. At the same time, news breaks of a massive terrorist strike in South Africa, which inevitably leads to an emergency meeting of the security heads of state, called by C which leads to Nine Eyes program being sanctioned unanimously. C also closes down the OO program with immediate effect. This pisses M off. Q and Moneypenny try to update M on Bond's movements. Instead, he tells them delete all Bond's info to prevent leaking his info to Nine Eyes.

Swann takes Bond to L'Américain, a hotel in Tangier, and they discover that White left evidence directing them to Oberhauser's base at a crater in the Sahara. They find a hidden Chamber in Mr White's usual room, which had the coordinates for the base.

Taking a train to a remote station, Bond and Swann encounter Hinx, who gets ejected from the train in the ensuing brutal fight. Bond and Swann fight together in tandem and Swann even shoots Hinx in the shoulder. They then make love.

Later, they are escorted to Oberhauser's base after they disembark at a desolate train stop where a Rolls Royce Silver Wraith comes to pick them up.

Oberhauser reveals that SPECTRE has funded the Joint Intelligence Service while staging terrorist attacks around the world, creating a need for the Nine Eyes program. In return, C will give SPECTRE unlimited access to intelligence gathered by Nine Eyes, allowing them to anticipate and counteract investigations into their operations.

Bond is tortured as Oberhauser discusses their shared history: after Bond was orphaned, Oberhauser's father, Hannes, became his temporary guardian. Jealous of his father's affection for Bond, Oberhauser killed his father, staged his own death, adopted the name Ernst Stavro Blofeld and went on to form SPECTRE and target Bond; he reveals that he is ultimately responsible for several tragedies in Bond's life, such as the deaths of M and Vesper Lynd. Blofeld also shows Swann the video of Bond confronting her father and helping him commit suicide. Blofeld then proceeds to torture Bond on a modern rack with drills into his head. Bond and Swann stun Blofeld by setting off an explosive wristwatch next to him, and the two escape to London to prevent Nine Eyes from going online. After setting off an explosion which completely destroys blow field facility. They fight their way to hijack a helicopter.

In London at night, Bond and Swann meet M, Q, Bill Tanner (Rory Kinnear) and Moneypenny in a safe-house with the intention of arresting C. Their deadline is midnight when the new surveillance system goes live.

Swann and Bond are separately abducted by SPECTRE operatives, while the rest of the group proceed with the plan. After Q succeeds in preventing Nine Eyes from going online, a fatal struggle between M and C ends with C falling to his death. Bond is taken to the ruins of the old MI6 building, scheduled for demolition after Silva's bombing. Blofeld - still alive, but now scarred over his right eye - tells Bond that he must escape before explosives are detonated in three minutes' time, or die trying to save Swann. Bond finds Swann and they escape by boat as the building collapses. Bond shoots down Blofeld's helicopter, which crashes onto Westminster Bridge. Blofeld survives and manages to crawl away from the wreckage, only for Bond to confront him at gunpoint. Blofeld dares Bond to kill him, but Bond refuses. He walks away, throwing his gun into the Thames. He instead leaves him to be arrested by M. Bond then reunites with Swann and the two leave the bridge. Early the next morning, Bond collects the repaired classic silver Aston Martin DB5 from Q and drives away with Swann.