No country for old men

Over wide shots of desolate, expansive West Texas country in June 1980, local sheriff Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) narrates his belief that the times are changing and that the area is becoming increasingly violent. As Bell's narration concludes, the film's antagonist, Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem), is arrested and taken into custody by a sheriff's deputy. The deputy scarcely has time to describe Chigurh's unique weapon, a captive bolt pistol, to authorities before Chigurh wraps his handcuffs around the deputy's neck -- strangling him to death, and allowing Chigurh to escape.
Miles away, Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin) hunts pronghorn antelope near the Rio Grande when he stumbles upon a group of corpses and a lone dying man: the aftermath of a drug deal gone awry. In addition to a shipment of heroin, Moss finds two million dollars in a satchel, which he keeps, leaving the lone survivor to die. Later that night in bed with his wife Carla Jean (Kelly Macdonald), Moss's conscience pushes him to return to the scene with water for the dying man, which shortly triggers a cat-and-mouse game between a gang of Mexicans, Moss, Chigurh, and Bell as they chase the money and each other across the West Texas and Mexico landscapes.
Chigurh, a professional hitman hired to retrieve the stolen money, tracks the satchel with a radio receiver corresponding to a small transponder hidden in the satchel. A meticulous, brooding psychopath, Chigurh does not hesitate to kill anyone impeding his mission; his victims range from Mexican gangsters and law enforcement officials to civilians he encounters by chance. Moss, unaware of the transponder's existence, sends his wife Carla Jean out of town while he darts from motel to motel in an attempt to elude both Chigurh and the Mexicans sent to retrieve the money. In the meantime, Bell focuses his efforts on locating and protecting Moss, following the trail of corpses left by Chigurh, while he tracks Moss and the money.
Chigurh tracks Moss through several Texas towns, climaxing in a border-hotel firefight that spills onto the streets. Narrowly escaping death by crossing the border, Moss wakes up in a Mexican hospital and meets Carson Wells (Woody Harrelson), an assassin dispatched by the drug buyer. After Moss disregards his offer to save Moss' life, Wells returns to his hotel where he is ambushed and killed by Chigurh. When Moss has second thoughts about the offer, he calls Wells' room and Chigurh answers. Chigurh offers Moss a deal, if Moss forfits the money and his own life, Chigurh will not go after Carla Jean.
Moss rejects the offer and orders Carla Jean to travel to El Paso, where he intends to give her the money and move her out of harm's way. Carla Jean agrees, but timidly informs Bell of Moss' destination. Bell travels to the El Paso rendezvous point only in time to see the finale of a firefight between Moss, and some Mexicans who have tracked him there. When Bell reaches Moss, Moss is lying dead on the floor of his motel room. Later that night, Sheriff Bell returns to the motel crime scene, where he finds the lock of Moss' hotel room door blown out in a fashion similar to that of Moss' trailer. Entering with his gun drawn, he remains unaware of Chigurh, hidden in the shadows silently observing the cautious sheriff. Surveying the room, Bell discovers the vent cover of the air conditioner has been removed with a dime, with drag marks inside denoting the former presence of the satchel. Bell sits in the darkened room, staring at shadows, before leaving without encountering Chigurh.
Days later, a weary Bell visits his Uncle Ellis (Barry Corbin), a former sheriff now confined to a wheelchair. Announcing his retirement because of the changing, violent times, Ellis points out that the region has always been violent, accusing Bell of "vanity" in thinking that he could change the condition of the world. Miles away, Carla Jean returns from her mother's funeral, where she encounters Chigurh waiting for her in her bedroom. Chigurh, reminding her of Moss's willingness to risk her life to save his own, flips a coin for her life and asks her to call it. Carla Jean, disgusted with the gesture, refuses to call it, surprising Chigurh. As Chigurh leaves the house, carefully checking the soles of his boots, he is involved in a car accident, leaving him nursing a broken arm as he flees the scene before the police arrive.
As Bell sits at home reflecting on his life choices, he relates to his wife (Tess Harper) two dreams he had, both involving his deceased father, also a lawman. Bell reveals briefly that in the first dream, he lost "some money" that his father had given him. Bell says that in the second dream, he and his father were riding horses through a snowy mountain pass. His father, who was carrying fire in a horn, quietly passed by Bell with his head down. Bell then relates that his father was "going on ahead, and fixin' to make a fire" in the surrounding dark and cold, and that when Bell got there, his father would be waiting. Bell closes the dream narrative, and the film, with the final words: "And then I woke up."