Wonder WomanSave

The film is framed as a flashback. In present-day Paris, Diana Prince — historian at the Louvre — receives a delivery from Wayne Enterprises: a black briefcase containing an old photographic plate from the Great War. The image shows Diana herself, in armor, standing among four men in a Belgian village in 1918. Diana writes a thank-you note to Bruce Wayne and sits down to remember.

On the hidden island of Themyscira, sometime in the modern era but visually evoking ancient Greece, an entire warrior society of immortal Amazons lives in isolation. The story of how they came to be is recounted in fresco paintings: Zeus created mankind to live in love and harmony, but the war god Ares poisoned humanity's heart with envy and conflict. Zeus crafted the Amazons as protectors and gave them an island hidden from men's sight, plus a secret weapon — the "Godkiller," capable of slaying Ares himself. Princess Diana, daughter of Queen Hippolyta, grew up there as the only child on the island. Hippolyta forbade her training as a warrior; Diana's aunt General Antiope trained her in secret anyway, and eventually Hippolyta relented.

An adult Diana watches one day as a propeller plane crashes through the sky over the bay surrounding the island. She dives in and rescues the pilot — Captain Steve Trevor, an American spy working for British intelligence. As Steve reaches the beach, German soldiers in pursuit also penetrate the island's invisible barrier and attack. The Amazons engage in their first real combat in centuries. Antiope dies blocking a bullet from Diana. The Amazons capture Steve, who explains under the Lasso of Truth: there is a war out in the world, the worst war in history, the war to end all wars. Diana is convinced this must be Ares's doing. Despite her mother's warnings, she steals the Godkiller sword and the Amazon armor and leaves the island with Steve.

Steve and Diana reach London. Diana is bewildered by everything — the smog, the misogyny, the bureaucracy, the trapping of women's clothes. Steve takes her to British military command, where he reveals what he was investigating in Germany: a German general named Erich Ludendorff and a chemist named Dr. Maru ("Doctor Poison") have developed a new generation of mustard gas powerful enough to penetrate gas masks. They plan to deploy it on the Western Front before the imminent armistice can be signed. The British high command refuses to act. Steve goes rogue, taking Diana and a small band of mercenaries — Sameer the disguised soldier, Charlie the Scottish marksman with PTSD, and the Chief, a Native American smuggler — toward the Belgian front. Diana believes she is heading to confront Ares, who she's certain is hiding in human form among the German leadership.

The team reaches a Belgian village, Veld, occupied by German forces. The villagers are starving. To reach them, the team must cross No Man's Land — the trench wasteland between British and German lines that no soldier has crossed in years. Steve tells Diana it cannot be done. Diana climbs over the parapet anyway, alone, and walks into the open as bullets whip past her face. She is wearing her Amazon armor for the first time in front of an army; she deflects machine-gun fire with her bracers. The British troops, seeing one woman charge into hell, follow her. The team breaks through the German line and liberates Veld. Diana and Steve share a slow dance to a soldier's accordion in the snow that night — falling in love, both knowing the war isn't done.

The team infiltrates a German gala hosted by Ludendorff. Diana is convinced Ludendorff is Ares. Steve tries to plant explosives in the chemical lab where the gas is being manufactured. While he succeeds in destroying a stockpile, Ludendorff escapes with a single canister of the new gas and a stash of pills that artificially boost his physical strength. He uses both. Diana tracks him to a high tower at the edge of the front and they fight. She runs him through with the Godkiller sword, expecting his death will end the war. But the war does not end. Soldiers in the field continue fighting. Aircraft still drop bombs. Diana realizes Ares cannot be Ludendorff, that humanity is not freed of corruption by killing one man.

Then a mild-mannered British politician named Sir Patrick Morgan — Steve's actual handler in London, the one who provided the intelligence — appears at the airfield where Ludendorff was preparing to deploy the new gas. He reveals himself as the true Ares. He has been goading humanity toward this final, perfect war for years; the Treaty of Versailles is, in his telling, just intermission. Ares does not want to control humanity but to convince Diana that humans deserve their suffering. The Godkiller sword shatters in their fight. Diana realizes she herself is the Godkiller — Zeus's last weapon, his daughter, hidden among the Amazons.

Steve, in the meantime, has hijacked the plane carrying the chemical weapon. He cannot land it without Diana being able to disarm Ares first. He gives Diana the lover's farewell: he tells her what he wishes he could have for them, kisses her, hands her his pocket watch, and flies the plane high into the sky. He detonates the gas at altitude, dying instantly to ensure none of it reaches the front. Diana, watching him die, channels her grief and her power into a final blast that destroys Ares. The German soldiers, freed from his subtle influence, lay down their weapons. Diana cradles Steve's pocket watch as the war ends around her.

The film returns to present-day Paris, with Diana writing her note to Bruce Wayne. She has spent a hundred years in quiet humanitarian work, never taking up the warrior's mantle openly. The photograph reminds her of Steve, of Veld, of what she once believed in. She steps off her balcony in costume and takes flight across the Paris skyline. The film closes on her thesis statement, delivered in a soft voiceover: war is the inheritance of all of us, and so is love, and only love can save the world from ourselves. Wonder Woman became a critical and commercial milestone for the DCEU, grossing over $820 million globally, and confirmed that audiences wanted superhero films grounded in genuine emotion. Patty Jenkins' direction — and Gal Gadot's pairing of warrior physicality with deep empathy — would shape every subsequent entry in DC and Marvel cinema.

Wonder Woman was a turning point for the DCEU, which had stumbled critically with Batman v Superman and Suicide Squad the year before. Patty Jenkins became the first woman to direct a major superhero blockbuster, and her career-best film proved a female-led action movie could open globally to enormous numbers. The No Man's Land sequence — Diana stepping over the trench parapet and walking forward as bullets bounce off her bracers — became the most-discussed image in superhero cinema for that year, frequently cited as one of the great heroic moments of the entire genre. Composer Rupert Gregson-Williams's electric-cello main theme (originally introduced by Hans Zimmer for Batman v Superman) became Diana's signature motif. The 2020 sequel Wonder Woman 1984 received mixed reviews, but the original retains its critical reputation as the high-water mark of Warner Bros' first DCEU era and one of the most important superhero films of the 2010s.