When mysterious spacecrafts touch down across the globe, an elite team - led by expert codebreaker Louise Banks (Amy Adams) - is brought together to investigate. As mankind teeters on the verge of global war, Banks and the team race against time for answers - and to find them, she will take a chance that could threaten her life, and quite possibly humanity.

In the waning days of World War II, the Navy warship USS Indianapolis secretly delivered one of two atomic bombs that would eventually end the war. The Japanese attacked and sank the heavy cruiser. The USS Indianapolis' mission was so classified it was not reported missing, and no one knew the ship had been attacked until four days later. Of the 1,197 crewmembers, nearly 300 went down with the ship. Stranded in the shark-infested waters of the Philippine Sea, the remaining survivors of the USS Indianapolis endured hunger, thirst, heat, delirium, relentless shark attacks and the death of many shipmates. Five days later only 316 men survived and were eventually rescued.