Magnolia exists within 24 rainy hours in the San Fernando Valley, using three separate events as a jumping off point to tell the intertwining stories of nine different characters. A children's quiz show that has produced a host (Phillip Baker Hall), former stars (William H. Macy) and future stars. A dynamic self-help guru (Tom Cruise) with an estranged father and a stepmother (Julianne Moore) who is cheating on him. All of these characters and other are missing something within their lives that they can only find through their relationships with each other. At the end of the film, all the lives come together in a epic scenario that brings both the characters and viewers together in an unlikely transcendence.