Finding Dory is a 2016 computer-animated film by Pixar Animation Studios. It was released on June 17, 2016, and a sequel to Finding Nemo.
Plot[]
Dory is a very young blue tang who suffers from short-term memory loss. While she finds this as a weakness, her parents constantly tell her that it is all right, but they warn her to stay away from the undertow. Later, young Dory has been separated from her parents and is trying to find them. Years pass, but she cannot find anyone who can help, and as she grows older, she even forgets who she is looking for. She then suddenly sees a white boat and a frantic clownfish named Marlin. Running into him, she promises to help him find something himself: his kidnapped son, Nemo, thus the events of Finding Nemo take place.
A year later, Dory now rests in a little cave next to Marlin's anemone and constantly sleep swims in the middle of the night, much to the dismay of Marlin. Then, one day, Dory joins Nemo on a class field trip: a stingray migration. Dory is excited, but when the class mentions an "undertow," she wanders off and gets caught in the migration. While unconscious, Nemo hears her mention "the Jewel of Morro Bay, California," and these magic words remind Dory that she is still looking for her family. She wants Marlin to help her, and after being reminded of what happened to Nemo, he joins in.
After taking the California Current, with the help of an old friend, Crush, Dory remembers that her parents' names are Jenny and Charlie. Her excitement, however, awakens a giant squid. As they try to escape, Nemo is captured and nearly killed. Getting stuck in plastic six-pack rings, Dory pulls Marlin and Nemo to safety. Angry, Marlin blames her for nearly endangering Nemo and claims that "forgetting things" is all she is good at.
Heartbroken, Dory wanders to the surface and is captured by some rescuers from the Marine Life Institute. A plastic tag is attached to her fin which reads "Transfer," marking her as a specimen due to be shipped to an aquarium in Cleveland. Here Dory meets Hank, an ill-tempered, seven-legged octopus (or septopus). Noticing the tag, he makes a deal with Dory: Hank wants to go to the Cleveland aquarium. He will help her find her family in exchange for the tag.
As they move through the Marine Life Institute, Dory remembers more and more; she meets a whale shark named Destiny, who reminds her that they used to be friends and that she is from the Open Ocean exhibit. Destiny and a beluga whale named Bailey, who believes he cannot use his echolocation, help her find the exhibit by traveling through the pipes of the building.
Meanwhile, Marlin feels guilty about how he spoke to Dory. In his sadness, he wakes up Fluke and Rudder, two sea lions napping. Nemo wants to ask for directions, but Marlin tells him that they eat fish. Marlin tells Nemo that he will ask them. After an interruption from Gerald, another sea lion who covets the rock, the sea lions introduce the clownfish to Becky, a black loon. She takes Marlin and Nemo into the institute via a green bucket that Fluke and Rudder obtain from Gerald in exchange for (very temporary!) access to their rock.
Hank and Dory make their way through the Aquarium in a push pram, ending up in a touching tank, where Hank scares off the children poking them by releasing ink, and they find the Open Ocean Exhibit.
Dory gives her tag to Hank and heads into the exhibit, following a trail of shells left by her parents when she was a child to her old home, remembering various little snippets of their lives along the way. Finally, when she reaches her old home, she remembers how she became separated from them: while finding a purple shell (her mom's favorite) to cheer her up, she was sucked into the undertow and out of a pipe into the open ocean.
She meets two small crabs, who inform her that all blue tangs, like herself, are tagged and taken to quarantine to be shipped to their own exhibit in Cleveland. The two crabs tell her she can get to quarantine through the pipes, and Dory heads off to pursue her parents.
Dory gets lost inside the pipes, forgetting the directions the crab gave her, but Destiny hears her, and with the help of Bailey, who relearns to use his echolocation with encouragement from Destiny, guides Dory to quarantine, bumping into Nemo and Marlin along the way.
Dory worries that her parents will not want to see her, but Marlin reassures her that her parents will be thrilled to see her, recounting how Dory has helped him and Nemo in their lives, apologizing for not appreciating her enough. As they continue their search, Nemo asks his dad if they will have to say goodbye to Dory, to which Marlin replies that they will.
The gang makes it to quarantine and hop through tanks to reach the blue tangs, who are waiting to be packed into the transport truck to Cleveland until they bump into the side of a tank being lifted and get knocked into a mop bucket. Hank rescues them in a glass beaker and tells them they have three minutes to get everyone out before he leaves for Cleveland with the quarantined fish.
In the tank, the other blue tangs are shocked to see Dory. When she asks where her parents are, the other fish tells them that a young Dory disappeared and that her parents went to quarantine to look for her but never returned.
Dory is shocked at the news and, believing her parents to be dead, zones out as the tank is taken. Hank rescues her from the tank, leaving Marlin and Nemo behind by accident. Distracted by being spotted by a human, Hank drops the beaker that contains Dory, smashing it and causing Dory to be dropped down into a drain and flushed out back into the ocean. Dory panics, asking other fish for help in finding "them," but her memory problem makes her forget who she was looking for. Asking herself what Dory would do, she begins to look around, heading to a kelp field. She despairs, remarking that there is nothing but kelp until she spots some shells in the sand. Remembering that following shells would bring her home when she is younger, she follows the trail to see more shells, all leading to the same point. At this point, Dory sees two fish swimming toward her and is finally reunited with her parents. They have an emotional reunion, with Dory apologizing for her problem (her memory loss) and remarking that she has tried to fix it. Her parents reassure her that she has nothing to apologize for and that she has finally found them, and they had been waiting for all this time, making shell trails to guide her home.
When they ask her if she had been by herself for all that time, she remembers Marlin and Nemo and that they have been taken to the truck.
Inside the truck, Marlin and Nemo ask if anyone saw where Dory went, spotting a fish they think is Dory until it turns out to be Hank in disguise. He apologizes for losing her as the truck doors close. Dory, in the ocean, heads back towards the Institute with her parents to rescue her friends, recounting their tales from Finding Nemo along the way. Jenny and Charlie do not think that they will be able to help, but Dory says that she misses them and that they are family, convincing them to help.
Dory says that meeting Marlin and Nemo was destiny, reminding her of the whale, Destiny, who she calls to. Inside their enclosure, Destiny and Bailey hear Dory and escape their tanks, leaping over a wall to help her. Fluke and Rudder leave their rock to follow them, joining in on the chase to stop the quarantine truck as it heads towards the freeway.
At a bridge, Dory asks a group of otters for help in stopping traffic and tells Destiny to flip her up onto the truck when she asks. Dory's parents worry that she is leaving them again, but she tells them that she can find them again even if she forgets.
Destiny flips Dory up onto the bridge where the group of otters is waiting, one of them catching her in its paws. She instructs the otters to have a cuddle party, stopping the traffic on the bridge, which includes the quarantine truck.
The otters break into the quarantine truck, reuniting Dory with Marlin and Nemo, as well as Hank, who scoops her up and drops her back into the tank of blue tang. Nemo tells Dory he thought they would never see her again, but she remarks that she could not live without the rest of her family. Marlin calls Becky for help, but she leaves Dory behind, dropping Marlin and Nemo into the ocean with the rest of the gang. He manages to send Becky back for Dory inside the truck, where Hank tried to say his goodbyes. Dory tells him that he is not going to "the Cleveland" and is instead coming to the ocean to live with her. He argues, but Dory convinces him to come with her instead. As they try to leave, the truck's doors close, and it drives off with them still inside.
Hank and Dory escape through the truck's roof and get into the cabin, where Hank attempts to drive the truck. They escape, driving the wrong way back down the freeway, hitting a roadblock before veering off and driving the whole truck into the ocean, freeing all the other fish and Becky, as well.
Dory, Marlin, Nemo, and her parents head back to the reef, where they play a game of hide and seek, although Dory forgets what they were doing before she remembers and finds both pairs with Nemo's class. Destiny and Bailey pop out, remarking that Dory had not found them, as Hank gathers the class back up. A student inquiries after Mr. Ray, whom the viewers find out, has joined in the stingray migration. Hank remarks that if Mr. Ray is smart, he will stay away for a long time, and until he is back, Hank is the teacher. Bailey asks who wants to learn about echolocation, upon which the students groan.
Dory's parents leave for a swim, and when Marlin asks Dory if they are going home, she remarks that she is going to the drop-off. Marlin panics, thinking she will swim off again, and follows her, stopping her to ask if it is a good idea. She tells him that she will enjoy the view, and he lets her go, although he follows her.
Dory and Marlin enjoy the view at the drop-off, and Marlin says that Dory has done it. The film flashbacks briefly to Dory and her parents, who tell her she can do anything. Dory agrees, and Marlin says that it really is quite a view, to which Dory remarks "unforgettable."
The credits scene is a mini-prequel featuring clips of Hank set before the events of the film's main plot.
In a post-credits scene, the Tank Gang (from Finding Nemo), still trapped inside their (now covered in algae) plastic bags, reach California one year after floating across the Pacific Ocean, where they are picked up by staff members from the Marine Life Institute.