In the near future, the earth is no longer able to sustain humanity. Crops are routinely ravaged by blight, dust storms scour the land, and mankind has regressed to a stateless, agrarian society. Cooper, a former NASA test pilot and engineer turned farmer lives with his family, including his father-in-law Donald, son Tom, and ten year-old daughter Murphy — better known as "Murph."
Cooper: We've always defined ourselves by the ability to overcome the impossible. And we count these moments. These moments when we dare to aim higher, to break barriers, to reach for the stars, to make the unknown known. We count these moments as our proudest achievements. But we lost all that.
Or perhaps we've just forgotten that we are still pioneers. And we've barely begun. And that our greatest accomplishments cannot be behind us, because our destiny lies above us. We used to look up at the sky and wonder at our place in the stars, now we just look down and worry about our place in the dirt. Mankind was born on Earth. It was never meant to die here.
Donald [watching a baseball game]: Popcorn at a baseball game? It's unnatural. I want a hot dog. . . . In my day we had real ball players. Who are these bums?
Young Murph: Dad, why did you and mom name me after something that's bad?.
Cooper: Well, we didn't.
Young Murph: Murphy's law?
Cooper: Murphy's law doesn't mean that something bad will happen. It means that whatever can happen, will happen.
While driving through the fields, they discover a wandering probe and lock on to it with a laptop to bring it down.
Young Murph: What are you going to do with it?
Cooper: I'm going to give it something socially responsible to do.
Young Murph: Can't we just let it go? It's not harming anyone.
Cooper: This thing needs to learn how to adapt, Murph. Like the rest of us.
Cooper arrives at Murph's school to meet with the principal and teacher to discuss his kid's progress in class.
Principal: We didn't run out of planes and television sets. We ran out of food.
Cooper: You don't believe we went to the Moon?
Ms. Kelly: I believe it was a brilliant piece of propaganda, that the Soviets bankrupted themselves pouring resources into rockets and other useless machines...
Cooper: Useless machines?
Ms. Kelly: And if we don't want to repeat of the excess and wastefulness of the 20th Century then we need to teach our kids about this planet, not tales of leaving it.
Cooper: You know, one of those useless machines they used to make was called a MRI, and if we had one of those left the doctors would have been able to find the cyst in my wife's brain, before she died instead of afterwards, and then she had been the one sitting here, listen to this instead of me which'll be a good thing because she was always the... calmer one.
Murph believes their house is haunted by a ghost that is trying to communicate to her. Challenging Murph to prove the ghost's existence through scientific inquiry, Cooper discovers that the "ghost" is an unknown form of intelligence sending them coded messages by means of gravitational waves altering the dust on the floor, directing them to a secret NASA installation led by Professor Brand.
Brand reveals to Cooper that a miraculously formed wormhole has been discovered in the solar system orbiting Saturn, and that humanity's only chance for survival is to traverse through the wormhole to colonize new worlds in another galaxy.
Professor Brand: We must confront the reality that nothing in our solar system can help us.
Cooper: Now you need to tell me what your plan is to save the world.
Professor Brand: We're not meant to save the world. We're meant to leave it, and this is the mission you were trained for.
Cooper: I've got kids, professor.
Professor Brand: Then get out there and save them. We must reach far beyond our own lifespans. We must think not as individuals but as a species. We must confront the reality of interstellar travel.
Cooper is recruited to pilot Endurance, an experimental spacecraft, to follow the Lazarus Mission, a series of manned capsules sent through the wormhole.
Professor Brand: We need the bravest humans to finds us a new home.
Cooper: But the nearest star is over thousand years away.
Doyle: Hence the bravery.
Professor Brand: Your daughter's generation will be the last to survive on Earth. You're the best pilot we ever had. Get out there and save the world.
They are to survey a dozen potential planets as to their long-term sustainability. The data from Lazarus has given NASA three potential habitable planets: Miller, Edmunds and Mann, named for the astronauts who carried out the surveys. Once the viability has been confirmed, humanity will follow aboard the NASA facility, which is an enormous space station.
Cooper's decision to join Endurance breaks Murph's heart, and the two part on bad terms.
Cooper: Murph. You have to talk to me, Murph. We need to fix this before i go.
Young Murph: You have no idea when you're coming back. . . . Stay dad!
Cooper: I'm coming back...
Young Murph [crying]: When?
Cooper [comforting his daughter]: Murph, I love you, forever.
He joins Brand's daughter Amelia, physicist Romilly, geographer Doyle, and multi-purpose robots designated CASE and TARS on a two-year spaceflight to the wormhole before crossing over into the new galaxy.
Professor Brand: Do not go gentle into that good night; Old age should burn and rave at close of day. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Cooper: It is hard leaving everything... my kids, your father...
Amelia: We're gonna be spending a lot of time together.
Cooper: We should learn to talk.
Amelia: And when not to? [laughs] Just being honest.
Cooper: I don't think you need to be that honest.
They arrive at the Endurance and prepare it for it's long journey.
With the Endurance locked on to it's destination, the crew retire into their cryo-beds.
They approach Saturn and see the formed wormhole.
Cooper: Everybody ready to say goodbye to our solar system?
Romilly: To our galaxy.
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