Plot
In 1995, Chuck Noland (Tom Hanks) is a time-obsessed systems analyst, who travels worldwide resolving productivity problems at FedEx depots. He is in a long-term relationship with Kelly Frears (Helen Hunt), whom he lives with in Memphis, Tennessee. Although the couple wants to get married, Chuck's busy schedule interferes with their relationship. A Christmas with relatives is interrupted by Chuck being summoned to resolve a problem in Malaysia.

Flying through a violent storm, his airplane crashes into the Pacific Ocean. Chuck is able to escape the sinking plane and is saved by an inflatable life-raft but in the process, loses the raft's emergency locator transmitter. He clings to the life-raft, loses consciousness, and floats all night before being washed up on an island.

After he awakens, he explores the island and soon discovers that it is uninhabited. Several FedEx packages from the crashed plane wash up on the shore, as well as the corpse of one of the pilots (whom he buries). He initially tries to signal for rescue and makes an escape attempt with the remnants of his life-raft, but he cannot pass the powerful surf. He searches for food, water, shelter, and opens the packages, finding a number of potentially useful items. He leaves one package, with a pair of wings painted on it, unopened.

During a first attempt to make fire, Chuck receives a deep wound to his hand. In anger he throws several objects, including a Wilson Sporting Goods volleyball from one of the packages. A short time later he draws a face in the bloody hand print on the ball, names it Wilson and begins talking to it.

Four years later Chuck is dramatically thinner, bearded, his hair is longer, and he is wearing a loincloth. He has become adept at spearing fish and making fires. He also has regular conversations and arguments with Wilson.

After a large section from a portable toilet washes up on the island, Chuck uses it as a sail in the construction of a raft. After spending some time building and stocking the raft and deciding when the weather conditions will be optimal (using an analemma he has created in his cave to monitor the time of year), he launches, using the sail to overcome the powerful surf. After some time on the ocean, a storm nearly tears his raft apart. The following day, "Wilson" falls from the raft and is lost, leaving Chuck overwhelmed by loneliness. Later, he is found drifting by a passing cargo ship.

Upon returning to civilization, Chuck learns that he has long been given up for dead; his family and friends held a funeral, and Kelly has since married Chuck's dentist and has a daughter. After reuniting with Kelly, the pair profess their love for each other but, realizing a future together would be impossible due to her commitment to her family, they part. Kelly gives Chuck the keys to the car they once shared.

Chuck then travels out into the country to return the unopened FedEx package to its sender. The house at the address is empty, so he leaves the package at the door with a note saying that the package saved his life. He then departs and stops at a remote crossroads. A woman passing by in a pickup truck stops to explain where each road leads. As she drives away, Chuck notices the illustration on her truck is similar to the one on the parcel. Chuck is left looking down each road and then toward the departing woman in the truck.

Awards
58th Golden Globe Awards
Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama (Tom Hanks)

6th Critics' Choice Awards
Best Inanimate Object (Wilson)

Nominations
73rd Academy Awards
Best Actor in a Leading Role (Tom Hanks)
Best Sound Mixing (Randy Thom, Tom Johnson, Dennis S. Sands and William B. Kaplan)

BAFTA Awards
Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role (Tom Hanks)

Screen Actors Guild Awards
Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role (Tom Hanks)

2001 MTV Movie Awards
Best On-Screen Team (Tom Hanks and Wilson)

Production
The film was not shot consecutively. Hanks gained fifty pounds during pre-production to make him look like a pudgy, middle-aged man. After a majority of the film was shot, production was halted for a year so that he could lose the weight and grow his hair and beard to look like he had been living on the island for years. During the year-long hiatus, Zemeckis used the same film crew to make another film, What Lies Beneath.

Cast Away was filmed on Monuriki, one of the Mamanuca Islands in Fiji. It is in a subgroup of the Mamanuca archipelago, which is sited off the coast of Viti Levu, Fiji's largest island. The island became a tourist attraction following the film's release. Although it is identified by Kelly after Chuck's return as being "about 600 miles south of the Cook Islands," there is actually no land between the southern-most Cook Islands of Mangaia and Antarctica.

The producers made up a list of seemingly useless items that would be in the packages that Noland recovered: party dress, ice skates, divorce papers, video tapes, and other sundries. They turned this over to a group of survival experts who decided how the protagonist might be able to use them.