The Shining

Jack Torrance takes a winter caretaker position at the remote Overlook Hotel in the Rocky Mountains, which closes every winter season. Manager Stuart Ullman divulges that a previous caretaker, Charles Grady, killed his family and himself in the hotel.

In Boulder, Jack's son, Danny, has a premonition and seizure. Jack's wife, Wendy, tells the doctor about a past incident when Jack dislocated Danny's shoulder during a drunken rage. Before leaving for the seasonal break, head chef Dick Hallorann informs Danny of a telepathic ability the two share, which he calls "shining". Hallorann tells Danny the hotel also has a "shine" due to residues from unpleasant past events, and warns him to avoid Room 237.

Danny starts having frightening visions. Meanwhile, Jack's mental health deteriorates; he gets nowhere with his writing, is prone to violent outbursts, and has dreams of killing his family. Danny gets physically bruised after visiting an unlocked Room 237 out of curiosity. Jack encounters a female ghost in the room, but blames Danny for self-inflicting the bruises. Staying sober ever since hurting Danny, Jack is enticed back to drinking by the ghostly bartender Lloyd. Ghostly figures, including the butler Delbert Grady, then begin appearing in the Gold Room. Grady informs Jack that Danny has reached out to Hallorann using his "talent", and says that Jack must "correct" his wife and child.

Wendy finds Jack’s manuscript with "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" written over and over again. When Jack threatens her life, Wendy knocks him unconscious with a baseball bat and locks him in the kitchen pantry, but she and Danny cannot leave due to Jack having previously sabotaged the hotel's two-way radio and snowcat. Jack is freed by Grady and goes after Wendy and Danny with an axe. Danny escapes outside through the bathroom window, and Wendy fights Jack off with a knife when he breaks through the door. Hallorann, having flown back to Colorado after Danny's telepathic SOS, reaches the hotel in another snowcat. His arrival distracts Jack, who ambushes and murders Hallorann in the lobby, then pursues Danny into the hedge maze. Wendy runs through the hotel looking for Danny, encountering the hotel's ghosts and a vision of cascading blood similar to Danny’s premonition.

In the hedge maze, Danny lays a false trail to mislead Jack and hides behind a snowdrift while Jack follows the false trail. Danny and Wendy reunite and leave in Hallorann's snowcat, leaving Jack to freeze to death in the maze. In a photograph in the hotel hallway, Jack is pictured standing amidst a crowd of party revelers from July 4, 1921.