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V for Vendetta is a 2006 dystopian science fiction-thriller film directed by James McTeigue and produced by Joel Silver and the Wachowski brothers, who also wrote the screenplay. The film is an adaptation of the graphic novel V for Vendetta by Alan Moore and David Lloyd. Set in London in a near-future dystopian society, the film follows the mysterious V, a freedom fighter seeking to effect sociopolitical change while simultaneously pursuing his own violent personal vendetta. The film stars Natalie Portman as Evey Hammond, Hugo Weaving as V, Stephen Rea as Inspector Finch and John Hurt as Chancellor Sutler.

Somewhere between 2035 and 2039, Britain has become totalitarian and is ruled by the Fascist Norsefire regime. The story follows Evey Hammond, a young woman who is rescued from Finger agents (having broken curfew) by a Guy Fawkes-masked vigilante known as "V". After rescuing her, she witnesses V's destruction of the Old Bailey. The next day, the regime explains the incident to the public as an emergency demolition, but this is shown to be a lie when V takes over the state-run British Television Network (BTN) the same day. He broadcasts a message urging the people of Britain to rise up against the oppressive government on the fifth of November; one year from that day, when V will destroy the Houses of Parliament. When the police raid the building, Evey helps V escape, but because she was identified as being at the scene of the Old Bailey's destruction she is put in danger. V saves Evey from being captured and interrogated by officials and brings her to his lair, where she is told that she must stay in hiding with him. After helping V to kill a government official, she escapes to the home of one of her superiors at the BTN, television personality Gordon Deitrich. Deitrich explains that he is secretly a dissident of the regime, owning several banned works of art. However, after he broadcasts a comedic show critical of the country's current regime, the state police raid Gordon's home, capturing Evey. She is incarcerated in a Norsefire concentration camp and tortured for days. Finding solace only in a note left by another prisoner, a lesbian named Valerie, Evey is told that she will be executed unless she reveals V's whereabouts. Evey says she would rather die; she is then released. Evey discovers that her imprisonment was staged by V, to free her from fear of the fascist government — "Only when you have no fear are you free," V tells her. Evey also learns that Gordon was executed after the police found a Qur'an in his house. Upset, Evey leaves V, promising to return before the fifth of November.

Inspector Finch, through his investigation of V's murders, learns how Norsefire came to power. Fourteen years earlier, the British government had been on the verge of collapse. The openly fascist Norsefire party led a purge to restore order; enemies of the state (Muslims, blacks, homosexuals, communists) were kidnapped by the secret police during the night. The country was divided over the loss of freedom until a bioterrorist attack occurred, killing about 80,000 people. The fear generated by the attack allowed Norsefire to silence opposition and win the next general election by a landslide. A cure for the virus was discovered soon afterward by the Norsefire company, Viadoxin. With the silent consent of the people, Norsefire turned Britain into a police state, with their leader Adam Sutler as High Chancellor. However, the virus had been engineered by Norsefire as a plot to gain power, through deadly experimentation on "social deviants" and political dissidents at Larkhill detention centre. V had been one of the prisoners, but instead of being killed by the experiments, he had gained heightened mental abilities, though he lost his memories of before his incarceration. V eventually destroyed the centre and escaped, sustaining terrible burns, and vowed to take revenge on Norsefire's regime. The government officials he had been killing when he met Evey had all once worked at Larkhill, and had been subsequently retired into their new elevated positions.



As the fifth of November nears, V's schemes breed chaos in Britain and the population grows more intolerant and subversive towards government authority. On the fourth of November, Evey again visits V, who shows her a train that he has filled with explosives in order to destroy Parliament through an explosion in the abandoned London Underground. He delegates the destruction of Parliament to Evey, believing that the ultimate decision should not come from him. Evey tries to convince V not to leave and kisses his mask. He tells her he can't stay, and leaves to meet party leader Peter Creedy, who, as part of an earlier agreement, has agreed to bring V the Chancellor in exchange for V's surrender. Creedy kills the Chancellor in front of V, but V does not surrender, instead killing Creedy and his men. V, mortally wounded in the fight, returns to Evey. He tells her that he had fallen in love with her, thanks her, and then dies. She places his body upon the train with the explosives, and surrounded in Scarlet Carson roses, giving V a viking funeral.

Evey is about to send the train down the track, when she is discovered by Inspector Finch. Finch, having learned much about the corruption of the Norsefire regime, allows Evey to proceed. Meanwhile, thousands of Londoners, all wearing Guy Fawkes masks, march on Parliament to watch the event. Among these Londoners, we see the faces of those who have died, including a little girl shot by the police for wearing the mask; a pair of gay men seen in Valerie's flashback; Evey's parents and younger brother; Valerie, the lesbian prisoner in the cell next to V's whose words had given him his drive; Ruth, Valerie's partner; and Gordon Deitrich. Because Creedy and the Chancellor are dead, the British Army stands down in the face of a civil rebellion. Parliament is destroyed by the explosion, accompanied by the 1812 Overture. On a nearby rooftop, Evey and Finch watch the scene together, as she answers his question of who V was by stating he was "all of us".