Plot
In 1976, amidst armed political conflict that is affecting daily life in Jamaica, Bob Marley announces that he will perform at Smile Jamaica Concert, promoting peace amongst the warring factions. While preparing for the concert, Marley, his wife Rita, and several other members of his band, Bob Marley and the Wailers, are shot by assailants. Rita and Marley are hospitalized, but survive and recover from their injuries in time for the concert. After performing, Marley, saddened that his own countrymen would try to kill him and his wife, shows the crowd his bullet wounds and walks off stage. He tells Rita to take their children to Delaware, United States, as he and the rest of his band venture to London to record their next two albums.
After struggling to come up with a new album concept, Marley asks Rita to rejoin him and the band in England. Taking inspiration from the soundtrack of the film Exodus and their own situation, he and the band begin recording what would become their album of the same name, in conjunction with a second album that is released in 1978. The album becomes a hit and helps further popularize reggae music and the Rastafari movement around the world. When the recording company schedules a tour in Europe, Marley also aims for stops throughout Africa to inspire the people there. That leads to friction with Rita, as she and Marley argue about his responsibilities and about their infidelities, in addition to having given up on promoting peace back in Jamaica. Marley also gets into an altercation with manager Don Taylor over a financial dispute.
After a toenail infection, caused by being hit by a football, raises concern from Rita and his record producer Chris Blackwell, Marley is later diagnosed with a rare skin cancer. Blackwell confronts Marley about treatment choices, but a firm Marley reluctantly dismisses him. Marley, faced with his own mortality, reconciles with Rita and Taylor and finally decides to return to Jamaica in 1978, where he is welcomed back by a crowd at the airport. Back home, the gunman who had shot him and the others arrives and begs for forgiveness, to which Marley states he "keeps no vengeance." After Marley debuts Redemption Song to Rita and the children about reconciliation, she finally deems him ready to perform a peace concert. The film ends as Marley and his band gear up to perform again for the Jamaican crowd with the song "One Love."
A pre-credits montage shows clips of the real Marley and his band during the One Love Peace Concert, which sees them joined on-stage by the heads of both of Jamaica's political parties, and also reveals that Marley and his band performed in Zimbabwe to celebrate the nation's independence before he died of his cancer in 1981, at the age of 36.
