There are three seasoned birders who each set out to achieve a
Big Year: Brad Harris, a 36-year-old computer programmer based in
Baltimore; Stu Preissler, founder and CEO of a
New York company bearing his name; and roofing contractor Kenny Bostick, who holds the current Big Year record of 732 birds. Bostick is obsessively possessive of his record, but his third wife Jessica is concerned; this was supposed to be the year they focused on conceiving a child. She also believes that Bostick's birding obsession is what destroyed his two previous marriages. He is so competitive that the others use his name as a kind of expletive: "Bostick!" Brad is a skilled birder who can identify nearly any species solely by sound, and hates his job maintaining the operational software of a nuclear power plant in
Lansdowne, Pennsylvania. Living with his parents after a failed marriage, an aborted career at Dell, and dropping out of grad school, he hopes that doing a Big Year will give him a sense of purpose and possibly even make his father proud of him. Stu is the founder and CEO of an enormous Manhattan-based chemical conglomerate which he built from the ground up, starting in his garage. After decades of corporate success, he is ready to retire to Colorado with his architect wife. Fear of an empty schedule led him to come back from a previous retirement, but now he wants to leave his company in the hands of his two lieutenants. The company is in the middle of complicated negotiations to merge with a competitor, so his two anointed successors keep calling him back to New York for important meetings. To some extents, he is a prisoner of his own success. A Big Year has been his lifelong dream and he's pursuing it with the full support of his wife. The movie portrays various incidents that take place during the Big Year event, while the trio compete with each other and many other birders to achieve the world record of sighting the highest number of birds. Brad and Stu become friends and help each other in the competition, and Brad is attracted to a fellow birder, Ellie. Meanwhile, the highly competitive Bostick resorts to dirty tricks to boost his own count while undermining the others. As the year draws to a close, Stu is happily retired and enjoying his newborn grandson; Brad develops a relationship with Ellie; and Bostick is alone, as his wife has left him. Stu and Brad, now close friends, congratulate each other on "a very big year", after each sighting 700+ bird species that year. When the Big Year results are published, Bostick won the competition with 755, a new record; Brad came in second; Stu was fourth. Brad opines that "he (Bostick) got more birds, but we got more everything," as he looks at Ellie, who has come for a weekend visit. Stu smiles, looking at his wife. The film ends with Brad and Ellie birding together on a rocky coastline, while Brad confesses that birding is no longer the biggest part of his life. Stu is hiking with his toddler grandson (already enamored by birds) in the
Rockies. Bostick is on a birding adventure in China, alone and gazing wistfully at a happy couple walking with their newborn child. ==Cast==