Knowing is a 2009 American-British science fiction film mystery-thriller directed by Alex Proyas and starring Nicolas Cage. The project was originally attached to a number of directors under Columbia Pictures, but it was placed in turnaround and eventually picked up by Escape Artists. Production was financially backed by Summit Entertainment. Knowing was filmed in Docklands Studios Melbourne, Australia, using various locations to represent the film's Boston-area setting. The film was released on 20 March 2009, in the United States. The DVD and Blu-ray media were released on July 7, 2009.
In 1959 a child, Lucinda Embry, hears whispers as she stares at the sun. Later, she writes a page of seemingly random numbers to include in the school's time capsule, which will be opened after 50 years. When unable to complete this series of digits, she hides in the janitor's closet and is later found there by a teacher, scratching the remaining numbers into the door.
Fifty years later, Caleb Koestler is a student at Lucinda's school. When the time capsule is opened, Caleb gets Lucinda's page of numbers. Jonathan Koestler, (played by Nick Cage) Caleb's widower father, is a professor of astrophysics at MIT.
Hearing whispers, Caleb sees a mysterious stranger outside. Looking at the numbers, Jonathan notices the sequence 911012996 and realizes it is a reference to the date and number of deaths from the September 11th attacks (9/11/01/2996). Jonathan finds similar information based on other numbers on Caleb's sheet. The last three dates on the page are in the near future, and there are sequences between the dates which he cannot understand.
Caleb receives more visits from mysterious strangers who give him a small smooth stone, and show him visions of the world on fire. On his way to pick up Caleb from school, Jonathan notices the coordinates on his GPS, realizing that the numbers on the screen match those on Lucinda's list. His fears are realized moments later when a passenger jet crashes within view of the highway. He now understands that Lucinda's numbers pinpoint the time and place of disasters.
Jonathan tracks down Lucinda's daughter, Diana, and her daughter Abby, but scares them away when he reveals his interest in Lucinda's predictions. Jonathan pinpoints the next disaster to Worth Street in lower Manhattan. Guessing that it will be a terrorist attack and hoping to prevent the disaster, he phones in a terror warning. Traveling to New York, he is shocked to find the area has not been not closed off. He pursues a man into a subway station suspecting him to be a terrorist, but he is only a shoplifter. At that same moment an approaching train derails, smashing into the station and destroys much of the train Jonathan is on.
With the train disaster proving Jonathan's predictions, Diana decides to help Jonathan. She says that her mother used to hear voices, and that the next date, October 19, is the day she said she would die. In Lucinda's mobile home, they find pictures of the disasters she predicted, a copy of Matthäus Merian's engraving of Ezekiel's "chariot vision",[4] and a pile of small smooth stones near Lucinda's bed.
The last number appears to be "33" but is really "EE" written backwards. Jonathan and Diana soon learn that EE means "Everyone Else", representing a cataclysm that no one will escape. Outside, the Strangers appear around the car carrying the children. John drives them away only to hear from Abby that the "whisper people" want her and Caleb to go with them. The next day, John has a sudden revelation and rushes them to the MIT observatory, where he discovers that a massive solar flare will soon reach Earth.
Diana wants to hide in some caves. John agrees at first, but then returns to Lucinda's school for the numbers on the old door, thinking they may be coordinates leading to safety. Before he finds them Diana takes the children and heads for the caves. As Jonathan drives after them, he calls Diana and tries to persuade her against relying on the caves. He warns her that the solar flare will penetrate miles under ground.
While stopped for gas, Diana loses the children to the Strangers. Diana pursues them but is broadsided by a truck. John arrives just as Diana dies, finding the small stone in Diana's hand. He continues to Lucinda's mobile home, finding the children and the Strangers in a dry river bed covered with the stones. A vessel similar to the wheels in the engraving descends from the sky. John is refused entry but allows his son to leave as the Strangers dissolve into translucent alien figures resembling angels. The vessel departs with the children and a pair of rabbits, and a distant shot shows many similar vessels leaving earth.
The next morning the skies are full of smoke and heat. John makes it to the chaotic streets of New York City, arriving at his father's home. They embrace as the solar flare burns away the atmosphere and incinerates everything on the surface of the Earth and even below that. The film ends as Caleb and Abby arrive at an otherworldly valley, then run across a field of golden grass towards a large, white tree.
