Captain America: The Winter Soldier

Captain America: The Winter Soldier is a 2014 American superhero film based on the Marvel Comics character Captain America, produced by Marvel Studios and distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures. It is the sequel to Captain America: The First Avenger (2011) and the ninth film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). The film was directed by Anthony and Joe Russo from a screenplay by the writing team of Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely. It stars Chris Evans as Steve Rogers / Captain America alongside Scarlett Johansson, Sebastian Stan, Anthony Mackie, Cobie Smulders, Frank Grillo, Emily VanCamp, Hayley Atwell, Robert Redford, and Samuel L. Jackson. In the film, Captain America joins forces with Black Widow (Johansson) and Falcon (Mackie) to uncover a conspiracy within the spy agency S.H.I.E.L.D. while facing a mysterious assassin known as the Winter Soldier (Stan).



Plot
Two years after the Battle of New York, Steve Rogers works in Washington, D.C., for the espionage agency S.H.I.E.L.D., while adjusting to contemporary society. During a mission alongside Agent Natasha Romanoff and S.H.I.E.L.D.'s counter-terrorism S.T.R.I.K.E. team, led by Agent Brock Rumlow, to free hostages aboard a S.H.I.E.L.D. vessel from pirates led by Georges Batroc, Rogers discovers Romanoff has another agenda: to extract data from the ship's computers. Returning to the Triskelion, S.H.I.E.L.D.'s headquarters, Rogers confronts Director Nick Fury and is briefed about Project Insight: three Helicarriers linked to spy satellites, designed to preemptively eliminate threats. Unable to decrypt Romanoff's data, Fury becomes suspicious about Insight and asks senior S.H.I.E.L.D. official and Secretary of Internal Security Alexander Pierce to delay the project.

On his way to rendezvous with Maria Hill, Fury is ambushed by assailants led by an assassin called the Winter Soldier. Escaping to Rogers' apartment, Fury warns him that S.H.I.E.L.D. is compromised, but is wounded by the Winter Soldier, before handing Rogers a flash drive containing the ship's data. Fury is pronounced dead during surgery, and Hill recovers the body. The next day, Pierce summons Rogers to the Triskelion. When Rogers withholds Fury's information, Pierce brands him a fugitive. Hunted by S.T.R.I.K.E., Rogers meets with Romanoff. Using the data, they discover a secret S.H.I.E.L.D. bunker in New Jersey, where they activate a supercomputer containing the preserved consciousness of Arnim Zola. Zola informs them that after being captured by Rogers during World War II, he was recruited to S.H.I.E.L.D., where he secretly reformed Hydra within its ranks, sowing global chaos with the objective of making humanity surrender its freedom in exchange for security, using the Winter Soldier as their primary assassin. The pair narrowly escape death when a S.H.I.E.L.D. missile destroys the bunker, and realize that Pierce is Hydra's leader within S.H.I.E.L.D.

Rogers and Romanoff enlist the help of VA employee and former USAF pararescueman Sam Wilson, whom Rogers befriended, and acquire his powered "Falcon" wingpack. They capture S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Jasper Sitwell, a Hydra mole, forcing him to divulge that Zola developed a data-mining algorithm that can identify individuals becoming threats to Hydra. The Insight Helicarriers will sweep the globe, using satellite-guided guns to eliminate them. Sitwell is killed in an ambush by the Winter Soldier, whom Rogers recognizes as Bucky Barnes, his longtime best friend previously thought dead; he had survived his previous fall due to Zola's experimentation, and has been repeatedly brainwashed and cryogenically frozen to perform Hydra's missions. Hill manages to extract the trio to a safehouse where Fury, who had faked his death, plans to sabotage the Helicarriers by replacing their controller chips.

After the World Security Council members arrive for the Helicarriers' launch, Rogers broadcasts Hydra's plot to everyone at the Triskelion. Romanoff, disguised as one of the Council members, disarms Pierce. Fury arrives and forces Pierce to unlock S.H.I.E.L.D.'s database so that Romanoff can leak classified information, exposing Hydra to the public. Following a struggle, Fury kills Pierce. Rogers and Wilson storm two Helicarriers and replace the controller chips, but Barnes destroys Wilson's suit and fights Rogers on the third. Rogers fends him off and replaces the final chip, allowing Hill to take control and have the vessels destroy each other. Rogers refuses to fight Barnes in an attempt to reach his friend, but as the ship collides with the Triskelion, Rogers falls into the Potomac River. Barnes rescues the unconscious Rogers before disappearing into the woods. With S.H.I.E.L.D. in disarray, Romanoff appears before a Senate subcommittee, while Fury, under the cover of his apparent death, heads to Eastern Europe in pursuit of Hydra's remaining cells. Rogers and Wilson decide to find the Winter Soldier, while Rumlow, who was a Hydra agent, is hospitalized following the Triskelion's destruction.

In a mid-credits scene, Baron Wolfgang von Strucker, at a Hydra lab, proclaims that the "age of miracles" has begun as scientists examine an energy-filled scepter and two test subjects: one with superhuman speed, the other with telekinetic powers. In a post-credits scene, Barnes visits his own memorial at the Smithsonian Institution.