The Terminal tells the story of Viktor Navorski, a visitor to New York City from Eastern Europe, whose homeland erupts in a fiery coup while he is in the air en route to America. Stranded at John F. Kennedy International Airport with a passport from nowhere, he is unauthorized to actually enter the United States and must improvise his day snd nights in the terminal's international transit lounge until the war at home is over.

As the weeks and months stretch on, Viktor finds the compressed universe of the termaminal to be richly complex world of absurdity, generosity, ambition, amusement, status, serendipity and even romance with a beautiful flight attendant names Amelia. But Viktor has long worn out his welcome with airport official Frank Dixon, who considers his a bureaucratic glitch, a problem he cannot control but wants desperately to erase.