Doug Quaid (Arnold Schwarzenegger), a happily married construction worker living in the year 2084, is haunted by a recurrent dream in which he is living with a woman on Mars. Rekall Incorporated offer him the chance to live out his dream through a microchip which implants any memories their client desires into their brain. But something goes wrong during the installation of Quaid's memories of a trip to Mars and soon he lands up on the planet for real, unsure of his true identity and pursued by a gang out for his blood. He teams up with a group of resistance fighters to uncover a mystery which leads to the highest echelons of the planet's government.