Finding Nemo

When the clownfish Marlin (Albert Brooks) loses his wife, Coral (Elizabeth Perkins), and all but one of his unborn children to a barracuda, he promises that he will never let anything happen to the remaining egg, which he names Nemo.

Years later, Nemo (Alexander Gould) begins his first day at school and is frustrated and embarrassed by his overprotective father. Marlin has constantly warned Nemo about the dangers of the ocean. To show his father that there's nothing to be afraid of, Nemo deliberately disobeys his father by swimming out into open water but, in the process, is captured by a scuba-diver. Marlin races after the diver's boat but quickly loses it. He soon runs into a regal tang named Dory (Ellen DeGeneres), who unfortunately suffers from short-term memory loss. Seemingly abandoned, she decides to help Marlin search for his son. She helps him recover a diver's mask that had fallen from the diver's boat and finds he has been taken to Sydney.

Meanwhile Nemo is placed in a fish tank and soon finds out that he is to be the birthday present of a young girl named Darla (LuLu Ebeling), who is described as "a fish killer" (she inadvertently killed the last goldfish she was given by violently shaking the bag it was in). He soon discovers the other fish in the tank are all bent on escape, with Gill (Willem Dafoe) proposing an escape plan that involves Nemo jamming the filter in the tank. The first attempt fails and Nemo is nearly killed by the filter.

While Marlin and Dory are traveling with sea turtles on the East Australian Current, Marlin tells some of them about how he is looking for his son. This story travels among the sea creatures and eventually Nemo hears it. Nemo is inspired by this and attempts to jam the filter again. The tank begins to get dirty, which the fish believe will make the dentist take them out of the tank to clean it. However, he instead installs a laser filter which cleans the tank while the fish are sleeping.

Marlin and Dory arrive in Sydney and meet a brown pelican named Nigel (Geoffrey Rush) who agrees to take them to the dentist's office. The dentist has put Nemo in a bag to give to his niece, but Nemo pretends to be dead so that the dentist will flush him down the toilet. Marlin, Dory and Nigel arrive at the office and, seeing Nemo, believe he is truly dead. After they are thrown out the window, Gill helps Nemo escape down the dentist's sink to the ocean.

Marlin thanks Dory and heads home on his own. Dory then bumps into Nemo and she is able to reunite them. Moments later, Dory is caught in a fishing net. Nemo has a plan to save Dory by telling the fish caught in the net to swim down, but Marlin is reluctant to let him go for fear that he will lose him again. Marlin, however, realizes he must let him go and they are able to save Dory. After the rescue, Marlin apologizes to his son for being overprotective.

In the epilogue, Nemo leaves for school, with Marlin telling him to "go have an adventure" and the fish in the dentist's tank are able to escape; however, they are still in their plastic bags. In the last line of the movie, one of the fish asks "now what?". As the credits scroll, the dentist's fish are shown swimming freely, having somehow escaped their bags. The viewers also see Monsters, Inc.'s Mike Wazowski swimming by near the end.