Plot
Adam Stanheight, a photographer, awakens in a dilapidated bathtub with his ankle chained to a pipe. Across the room is oncologist Dr. Lawrence Gordon, and between them is the corpse of a suicide victim holding a revolver and a microcassette recorder. Both men find a tape in their pockets, and Adam retrieves the recorder. Adam's tape urges him to survive, while Lawrence's tape orders him to kill Adam by 6:00, or his wife, Alison, and daughter, Diana, will be murdered. After listening to the tapes, the duo uncovers a clue leading Adam to find a bag containing two hacksaws inside the toilet. Both men try to saw through their chains, but Adam's saw breaks. Lawrence realizes that the saws are intended for their feet, and identifies their captor as the Jigsaw Killer, a serial killer who tests his victims' will to survive through murderous contraptions known as "games"; Lawrence knows about him because he was once a suspect.
Five months prior, Lawrence, after discussing the terminal brain cancer of patient John Kramer with his medical interns, was interrogated by detectives David Tapp and Steven Sing, who found his penlight at the scene of one of Jigsaw's games. Lawrence's alibi cleared him, but he agreed to view the testimony of heroin addict Amanda Young, the only known survivor of one of Jigsaw's traps. Tapp and Sing later found Jigsaw's warehouse using the videotape from Amanda's game. There, they detained Jigsaw and saved a man from a trap, but Jigsaw managed to escape after he critically injured Tapp; Sing was killed by a shotgun trap.
In the present, Alison and Diana are tied up and gagged in their apartment, as their captor watches Adam and Lawrence through a hidden camera. The house is simultaneously watched by Tapp who, after being discharged from the police following Sing's death, has become obsessed with the Jigsaw case, and remains convinced that Lawrence is the killer. Meanwhile, Lawrence finds a box containing two cigarettes, a lighter, and a one-way cellphone. Adam asks Lawrence for the cigarette but Lawrence discourages this. He recounts his abduction in a parking garage by a pig-masked figure. Adam recalls his own abduction when he returned home to find a puppet in his darkroom, where he stored photos of Lawrence.
Held at gunpoint, Alison calls her husband and warns him not to trust Adam, who admits to Lawrence that he was paid by Tapp to spy on him, and reveals his knowledge of Lawrence's affair with one of his medical students whom he had visited on the night of his abduction. Lawrence deduces that the affair is the reason why he is being tested. Adam finds a photo of Alison and Diana's captor, whom Lawrence identifies as Zep Hindle, an orderly at his hospital.
Zep, seeing that Lawrence has still not killed Adam, moves to murder Alison and Diana while Lawrence listens, but Alison frees herself and fights him. The struggle attracts Tapp's attention, and he saves Alison and Diana before chasing Zep to the sewers, where he is shot in the chest after a brief fight. Lawrence, only aware of the gunshots and screaming, is shocked but cannot reach his cell phone. In desperation, he saws off his foot and shoots Adam with the corpse's revolver. Zep enters the bathroom to kill Lawrence, but Adam, having survived the gunshot, bludgeons him to death with the toilet tank lid. Lawrence crawls out of the bathroom to find help while Adam searches Zep's body for a key. He finds another tape, which reveals that Zep was just another victim of Jigsaw, following rules to obtain the antidote for a slow-acting poison in his body.
The "corpse" lying in the room suddenly rises to its feet; it turns out to be John Kramer, who is the real Jigsaw Killer. John tells Adam that the key to his chain was in the bathtub; it went down the drain when Adam had first awoken and drained the water. Adam attempts to shoot John with Zep's gun, but John electrically shocks him through his chain. John exits the bathroom before sealing the door, leaving Adam alone to die.
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