The film is set in Washington, D.C. in 2054, where murderers are apprehended based on foreknowledge. This is provided by three psychics termed "pre-cogs", nicknamed Agatha (Morton), Dashiell, and Arthur. The group making use of the pre-cogs is the Department of Pre-Crime, a high-tech policing division who arrest criminals predicted by the pre-cogs. Thanks to it, the city has gone six years without a single murder. At the start of the film, Pre-crime chief John Anderton (Cruise) is in the midst of apprehending a suspect, aided by his team. It is revealed that the pre-cogs only relate the time/date of the murder, the murderer's name, and the victim's name. All other facts, chiefly the location, can only be ascertained by clues given by the various images relayed around the time of murder. Images transfer from the pre-cogs' minds to a computer display, where Anderton manipulates the images in a manner similar to virtual reality to better determine how the murders might happen. Anderton is watched by Danny Witwer (Farrell), an observer from the Department of Justice sent to evaluate the system because the country is about to vote on whether to expand the Pre-Crime program nationally.
Later Anderton goes to his apartment, where he watches home movies of his deceased six-year old son and his ex-wife. The next morning, Witwer is given a tour of the pre-cogs' chamber. The pre-cogs float in a translucent substance, which helps enhance the images they produce. Anderton stays behind and Agatha suddenly emerges from the pool and grabs him. She draws his attention to the ceiling, which also displays images in a pre-cog's mind, now a woman named Ann Lively being murdered. Intrigued by a murder which he's never seen, Anderton decides to investigate. He learns that the other pre-cogs' images of the murder are on record, but Agatha's recorded images are missing. Anderton tells this to Burgess (Von Sydow), his boss and the director of Pre-crime, who appears unconcerned.
The next day, Anderton finds a new case unfolding: a murder is to take place in 36 hours. This is unusual: because the pre-cogs are public knowledge, few plan to murder someone in any given time; most crimes are acts of passion, decided upon the spot. The victim is a man named Leo Crowe. The murderer is revealed to be Anderton himself. Believing that he is being set up since he doesn't even know the victim, Anderton takes it on the lam. He manages to escape Witwer and his own team in a car factory, and seeks refuge in the country home of Iris Hineman, one of the pioneers of Pre-crime. She reveals that the three pre-cogs were actually the children of people who experimented with a new drug that did serious damage to their bodies, and that the pre-cogs do not always agree in their opinions about the future. On occasion, those convicted of a pre-crime may have an alternative future other than the one where the murder is committed, and, when this happens, the dissenting opinion is left out. Anderton's only hope at proving his innocence is acquiring the hidden "minority report", which Hineman explains is contained in Agatha, the most gifted pre-cog.
Traveling undetected is difficult, since everyone is subjected to constant public retinal scans. Anderton visits a shady doctor (Peter Stormare) to receive an eye transplant. While recovering - during which he must keep bandages over his eyes or go blind -, he dreams of his son, abducted from a swimming pool. He awakens to discover that the pre-crime team is investigating the building with "spyders", robotic eye scanners. He tries to hide in a bathtub full of ice water to mask his body heat, but is scanned. The surgery proves successful, however, and he is not identified. Later, he manages to reach the Pre-crime offices. He takes Agatha out of the nutrient water disrupting the pre-cog hive mind that makes Pre-crime work and escapes again. Anderton finds a hacker friend who accesses Agatha's vision of the murder, which appears identical to the one he saw earlier. An anguished Anderton begins to wonder if a minority report even exists for his future crime. Agatha then begins showing the Ann Lively murder again, prompting Anderton to realize that she wants him to see who killed Lively, but they are forced to flee as the Pre-crime team enters the building.
Inexorably, Anderton ends up in Leo Crowe’s empty apartment. Searching the room, he finds a pile of photos of children, including his son. Anderton suddenly realizes that there is no minority report for himself, and that Leo Crow is responsible for kidnapping his son. Anderton had pre-planned this murder, a long standing wish to kill the previously anonymous person who took his son. Crowe then enters and Anderton viciously attacks him, eliciting a confession. Agatha tries to convince Anderton that he does not have to kill Crowe, that his future isn't set because he actually knows what it could be, unlike everyone else caught by the Pre-crime system. As he is about to shoot Crowe, Anderton reconsiders and reads him his Miranda rights. Crowe then says that if Anderton doesn’t kill him, Crowe’s family will get nothing: the entire murder was a set-up. Crowe refuses to tell Anderton who set him up, grabs Anderton’s gun to point it at his chest and manages a suicide by cop by worrying Anderton's hand. Anderton and Agatha leave.
The Pre-crime unit arrives and investigates the scene. Witwer sees the photos and raises questions as to what sort of child killer would leave so much evidence lying around. Witwer then discusses his doubts with Burgess and shows him the Ann Lively pre-vision, but two different ones; one from recorded images at Pre-crime, and the other from Agatha, downloaded by Anderton's hacker friend. The images have slight differences, which Witwer infers that represent two different murders; the first was the one Pre-crime witnessed and someone else, who had set up the first suspect, would then, right after the first suspect was apprehended, kill Lively. Witwer intuits that only someone high up would even have access to the pre-cog's pre-visions. Burgess interrupts his analysis by shooting him; since Agatha is with Anderton, Pre-crime is not able to prevent the murder.
Anderton hides in his ex-wife Lara’s house; there he realizes he was set up because of his discovery of the Ann Lively murder. Lively is revealed to be Agatha's mother, and was killed because she wanted to re-unite with Agatha and thus ruin Pre-crime. The police arrive and arrest Anderton. Later, Burgess accidentally reveals to Lara that he killed Lively. Lara then releases Anderton from prison, and as Burgess is giving a speech, Anderton confronts him by showing the audience Agatha's pre-vision of Burgess killing Ann Lively. Burgess takes a gun and starts after Anderton; the pre-cogs are back online, they predict the murder and the Pre-crime team race away to apprehend him. Anderton shows Burgess that he's at a dead end. If he doesn't shoot him, Pre-crime would end due to incorrectly predicting a murder; if he does shoot him, he would be arrested, but it would prove that the system works. Anderton then explains the fatal flaw of the system: if someone knows their own future, he or she can choose to change it. Burgess commits suicide.
In the final sequence, Anderton explains in voiceover that the pre-crime experiment was shut down. All the criminals imprisoned by the program were unconditionally pardoned, although some were kept under surveillance by police for years afterward. The pre-cogs were taken to an undisclosed location where they could live out their lives in seclusion and peace, no longer tormented by their talents. Anderton reconciles with Lara, who is now pregnant.
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