A failed stage magician named Naoko Yamada is once again out of work and facing eviction when she receives a peculiar offer. Representatives from the remote village of Itofushi hire her to pretend to be a god, hoping her modest illusions can calm the superstitious locals. Desperate for money, Naoko accepts, but upon arriving at the secluded settlement, she discovers three other individuals who also claim to be divine. Each possesses a seemingly impossible power: one can materialize objects from thin air, another sees through solid surfaces using his feet, and the third claims to control the very laws of probability. To earn her fee, Naoko must publicly debunk each of these rival gods using only her knowledge of magic tricks.

Meanwhile, the arrogant but brilliant physicist Jiro Ueda is researching his next book on supernatural phenomena. His investigation into the village's legends of a three-hundred-year-old turtle and an immortal woman leads him to the same remote location. He is also following a separate mystery: the dying message of an old classmate who claimed to have found the lost Tokugawa treasure. The message, Toiretsumaru, has sent government officials on a bizarre mission to modernize rural toilets. Ueda deciphers the clue, realizing it points to Itofushi village.

Naoko and Ueda reluctantly join forces. As they expose the tricks of the false gods one by one, each charlatan meets an untimely and mysterious death. They must navigate the village's eccentric residents, including a fortune-telling woman who cracks turtle shells, and the bumbling Detective Yabe, who has arrived to investigate the growing number of corpses. Working together, they uncover a hidden chamber and the secret of the lost treasure. The case ultimately reveals a tragic plot by the village representatives who hired Naoko. They had a child, considered cursed by the village's superstitious beliefs, and orchestrated the entire event to legitimize her as a true deity, securing her a place in the community. In the end, the rational explanations for the "miracles" are laid bare, yet one small, unexplained mystery remains, suggesting that true magic might still exist beyond logic.

The first film established the formula for the cinematic sequels. In Trick the Movie 2, Ueda hires Naoko to accompany him to a remote island where a girl vanished a decade earlier. They encounter a woman who can appear and disappear inside mysterious boxes. The third film, Trick The Movie: Psychic Battle Royale, sees Naoko enter a tournament of spiritualists for a large cash prize while Ueda is secretly brought in to expose the participants as frauds. As the contestants are killed off one by one, they must identify a murderer who claims to possess genuine psychic power. The final theatrical entry, Trick The Movie: Last Stage, follows the duo abroad to a picturesque foreign location where they are challenged to unravel the abilities of a tribal shaman. Throughout all their adventures, the odd-couple partnership between the perpetually impoverished magician and the fame-seeking physicist remains the core of the series, mixing clever deception with their signature comedic rivalry.