Sci-fi thriller based on the short film, 'Alive in Jo'berg' (2006), about the tense relationship that exists between a group of aliens who have been living on earth for 30 years and the humans who have been trying to keep them segregated and under their control. The aliens live in a place called District 9 in South Africa in squalid conditions and are now under the supervision of Multi-National United (MNU), a company who are solely interested in exploiting the aliens' superior technology to make money. However, the only way of getting the extraterrestrial technology to work is by using alien DNA, so when MNU worker Wikus van der Merwe (Sharlto Copley) becomes infected with a DNA altering disease, giving him alien DNA, he becomes a very desirable commodity. Realising he is alone and in serious danger, and as relations between the aliens and humans intensify, van der Merwe must enter District 9 to escape.