Mary (Elle Fanning), a nine-year-old girl, has a life of luxury, but lacks the company of her parents. On Christmas Eve, Mary received a precious gift from her uncle - a small house with puppets and a nutcracker. Mary, overjoyed, regarded the nutcracker as her close friend, and unexpectedly discovered that it could speak, and claimed that his name was NC (Charlie Rowe), the prince of the toy kingdom. However, in a nightmare, the beautiful kingdom was occupied by the brutal Rat King (John Turturro), who turned the prince into a puppet and expelled him forever. Only those who truly believed in fairy tales could lift the spell. Under the guidance of the Snow Fairy (Yuliya Vysotskaya), Mary helped NC restore his body, and bravely agreed to go back to the kingdom with him to defeat the Rat King and liberate his people. However, can these two children, who have no force but only an innocent heart, fight against the entire bloody and brutal army of mice and the despicable and cunning Mouse King? Most of the songs in the film are adapted from Tchaikovsky's symphonies, some of which are from the ballet "The Nutcracker".