In the year 2035, convict James Cole reluctantly volunteers to be sent in time for you to detect the source of a virus that destroyed the majority of the planet's population and pushed the priests into communities that are subterranean. However, when Cole is mistakenly sent to 1990 alternatively of 1996, he is arrested and locked up in a hospital. There he meets psychiatrist Dr. Kathryn Railly, and patient Jeffrey Goines, the son of a renowned virus expert, who might hold the secret to the mysterious rogue group, the Army of the 12 Monkeys, believed to be in charge of unleashing the killer disease.