At Cinemas Now - (Cert12A) Corprate billionaire Edward Cole and working class mechanic Carter Chambers have nothing in common except for their terminal illnesses. While sharing a hospital room together, they decide to leave it and do all the things they have ever wanted to do before they die according to their bucket list. In the process, both of them heal each other, become unlikely friends, and ultimately find the joy in life.
Motor mechanic Carter Chambers (Morgan Freeman) and billionaire hospital magnate Edward Cole (Jack Nicholson) meet for the first time in the hospital after both have been diagnosed with cancer. They become friends as they undergo their respective treatments. Carter is a brilliant historian and family man who had wanted to become a history professor, but in his youth had been "broke, black, and with a baby on the way" and thus never rose above his job at a body shop. Cole is an eccentric loner, four times divorced, who enjoys nothing more than tormenting his personal valet/servant, Matthew, whom he calls Thomas (Sean Hayes).
Both are diagnosed with a year or less to live. Carter begins writing a "bucket list," or things to do before "he kicks the bucket." While not a serious list of intentions, he is goaded into going through with it when Cole discovers the list. Cole pushes Carter, and promises to pay for everything. Despite the protests of his wife, Virginia (Beverly Todd), Carter agrees.
The pair then begin an around-the-world vacation, embarking on everything from race car driving to sky diving to climbing the Pyramids to hunting lions in Africa. Along the way they discuss faith and family, and learn from each other that Carter has long been feeling less in love with his wife and Cole is deeply hurt by his estrangement with his only daughter, who disowned him after he ran off her abusive husband.
As they criss-cross the entire globe, Carter finds that the love he had for his wife is still strong. He asks to return home, and in gratitude for helping him, he tries to reunite Cole with his daughter, but Cole lacks the courage to face her. He angrily storms off and Carter returns home to his wife, children, and grandchildren.
