Scott Pilgrim vs. the WorldSave

Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera) is a 22-year-old slacker bassist in a Toronto-based indie-rock band called Sex Bob-omb. Scott has been dating 17-year-old high school student Knives Chau (Ellen Wong) — a relationship Scott's bandmates consider creepy and his sister considers embarrassing. Scott's emotional life is otherwise stagnant: he lives in a single-room apartment with his roommate Wallace (Kieran Culkin), works at a record store, and obsesses over his musical career while showing minimal commitment to actual practice. The opening establishes Scott as an emotionally immature young adult.

Scott meets Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) at a Toronto library party — and is immediately captivated. Ramona, a recent Toronto transplant from New York City, agrees to date Scott despite reservations about his emotional immaturity. Their relationship begins as a casual encounter that gradually deepens; Scott's break-up with Knives Chau — handled with characteristic immaturity — provides the film's primary moral-development arc. Scott's gradual realisization that his casual treatment of Knives was wrong is the film's primary character-development beat.

Scott's relationship with Ramona is complicated by the appearance of the first of her 'evil exes' — a mysterious group of former boyfriends and girlfriends whom Ramona has dated and who now exist as a coordinated organisization against her new relationship. Ramona's first ex to appear is Matthew Patel (Satya Bhabha) — a turban-wearing demon-summoning mystic who challenges Scott to a duel during a Sex Bob-omb performance. The duel is fought as a video-game-style combat sequence; Scott defeats Matthew Patel using a combination of his bass guitar and demonic-summoning magical attacks.

Ramona's evil-ex roster is introduced gradually throughout the film. After Matthew Patel, Scott must defeat Lucas Lee (Chris Evans) — a Hollywood action star and former Ramona boyfriend who challenges Scott to a battle on a movie set. Lucas Lee is defeated when Scott manipulates him into being attacked by his own movie-set special effects. Then Todd Ingram (Brandon Routh) — a vegan bass player from another indie band — must be defeated; his vegan powers make him initially invincible until Scott exposes him for breaking the vegan code by eating chicken.

Roxy Richter (Mae Whitman) — Ramona's only female evil ex — provides the franchise's most-cited gender-fluidity subplot. Ramona's brief but significant relationship with Roxy is treated as a normal part of Ramona's romantic history; the relationship's representation in mainstream comic-book cinema was widely cited as progressive for 2010. The Roxy battle is the film's most-cited single-fight sequence; Scott defeats her using a combination of musical-attack-based combat and clever positioning.

The Katayanagi twins (Shota and Keita Saito) — Ramona's Japanese ex-boyfriends, who form their own indie rock band — challenge Scott during a Battle of the Bands competition. The dual-twin battle uses musical-energy-attack combat where Sex Bob-omb's performance must defeat the Katayanagi twins's. The battle ends in a draw musically, but Scott uses his improvised charisma to defeat the twins by transcending the musical-combat framework.

Gideon Graves (Jason Schwartzman) — Ramona's most-recent ex and the founder of the evil-ex organisization — is the franchise's primary antagonist. Gideon has been controlling Ramona's emotional life through a sword called the Power of Self-Respect, which Ramona has been trapped wearing throughout the film. Gideon's confrontation with Scott takes place at his secret Toronto skyscraper compound. The third-act battle is the film's most cinematically composed sequence; Scott uses the Power of Love sword (acquired earlier in the film) to defeat Gideon and free Ramona from his control.

The film's epilogue shows Scott and Ramona walking through Toronto together, their relationship having survived the evil-ex challenges. Knives Chau has gradually moved on from Scott to a more emotionally appropriate young romantic interest. Scott's bandmates have completed their album. The film's tonal commitment to character-development-through-comic-book-combat is widely cited as one of the most-cinematic translations of comic-book storytelling to live-action film.