Plot

A huge alien spacecraft landed in a North African Village in 8000 BC. As most people ran away from the spacecraft, one man stood up and walked towards it. The man was "taken" by the spaceship. In 1928, Professor Langford discovers a massive stone ring in the sands of Giza, Egypt. When the ring is lifted, it reveals inscribed cover stones underneath them presumably with instructions on how to operate the rings.

In the present day, Langford's daughter Catherine (Viveca Lindfors) offers Egyptologist Daniel Jackson (James Spader), a down-on-his-luck linguistics professor, the chance to translate ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs that may prove his controversial theory regarding the Pyramid of Khufu. Jackson is an archaeologist and linguist whose theory was that the pharaohs of the Fourth Dynasty did not build the Great Pyramid of Giza. The scientific community does not believe in Jackson's theory, who says that the pyramids (the most significant structure, if built by the Egyptians), did not have any writings inside.

Jackson accepts and travels to a US Air Force installation inside Creek Mountain, Colorado. Dr. Barbara Shore (Rae Allen) and Dr. Gary Meyers (Richard Kind) are researchers who were studying the cover stones recovered in 1928 in Egypt.

Major General W. O. West (Leon Rippy) is the commanding officer of the facility housing the ring device & the cover stones. Rippy re-activates Colonel Jack O'Neil to take command of the project. O'Neil had recently lost his son and was contemplating suicide when contacted by West's men.

Jackson translates the hieroglyphs on the stone ring's cover stones, which read: "A million years into the sky is Ra (Jaye Davidson), sealed and buried for all time, his Stargate." Formerly retired Special Forces Colonel Jack O'Neil (Kurt Russell) arrives to take command of the project and declares it classified. O'Neil tells Catherine is that he has been assigned to the project in case she succeeds.

Jackson deduces that the symbols are star constellations that are coordinates for a location within space. Jackson says that there are 7-star constellations on the cover stone. 6 points are needed to exactly determine a point in 3-dimensional space and the 7th symbol is the point of origin. Jackson finds the 7th symbol at the base of the cover stone, which was a pyramid with a sun directly overhead (perhaps symbolizing the Earth). At this point, O'Neil reveals the existence of the ring to Jackson, which is the Stargate from Jackson's translation. The Stargate is made of a mineral not found anywhere on Earth.

The symbol sequence is entered into the star-gate, creating a wormhole to a location in another galaxy on the other side of the known Universe (which is determined by sending in a mechanical probe and the signal from the probe charts its position on the map of the Universe). The probe also reveals that there is a corresponding gate on the other side, and that the air composition is exactly the same as of Earth. Jackson says that he can translate the symbols on the other star-gate and chart a path home. Jackson is included in the away team, and Catherine gives him a medallion that she found with the Stargate.

O'Neil leads a team through the Stargate, and they find themselves inside a pyramid in the middle of vast sand dunes. The members of O'Neil's team includes Lt. Louis Ferretti (French Stewart), Lt. Freeman (Christopher John Fields), Senior Airman Brown (Derek Webster), Senior Airman Reilly (Jack Moore) and Lt. Porro (Steve Giannelli). O'Neil brings in a large amount of equipment which he leaves inside the pyramid. The world they are in has the pyramid and 3 moons orbiting the planet.

Jackson reveals they cannot dial home because the Stargate coordinates to go back to Earth are missing. He says that the Stargate on Earth had the cover stone, and a similar cover stone is required to get the coordinates for the return journey. Jackson says that he assumed that the cover stone would be next to the star-gate, which is not the case. O'Neil secretly assembles a nuclear bomb inside the Pyramid, which he had brought along with him. Some team members stay at the pyramid while Jackson, O'Neil, and others go out and discover a mining village inhabited by humans who assume them to be gods sent by Ra, when they see the medallion hanging around Jackson's neck. Kasuf (Erick Avari) is the local leader of the tribe. The mineral that the villagers are mining is the same as that of the Stargate.

Jackson realizes that the people speak a dialect of Ancient Egyptian and begins communicating with them. The team develops friendships with the people; O'Neil with Skaara (Alexis Cruz), and Jackson begins a budding romance with Sha'Uri (Mili Avital), a daughter of the leader.

Jackson learns from hieroglyphs in the catacombs how the Egyptian god Ra was actually an alien life-form who enslaved humans with his advanced technology. While these humans eventually rebelled and buried the Stargate, some had been taken to the other planet through the Stargate and used to mine the Quartzite-like mineral on which all of Ra's technology is based. Fearing another rebellion on this planet, Ra outlawed reading and writing. At this point, the team from Earth discovers the cover stone to get back to Earth, but the seventh symbol is eroded away.

O'Neil orders the team to return to the pyramid. A short time later, a huge spacecraft lands on top of the pyramid. All team members in the pyramid are either killed or taken into the pyramidal craft. O'Neil and Jackson are escorted to the throne room, where they meet Ra. Despite wearing fearsome armor, Ra's guards and servants are human children.

Ra reveals his intention to send the atomic bomb brought by O'Neil, which was to be used to destroy the Stargate to prevent invasion by any threat, back to Earth; it is now enhanced with his Quartzite-like material to produce cataclysmic results. O'Neil attempts to disarm the guards and kill Ra but relents when Ra uses his children courtiers as human shields. Jackson is killed during the altercation.

O'Neil is thrown into a dungeon with the captured team members, while Jackson is regenerated in a sarcophagus-like device. Ra states that he will kill Jackson and everyone who has seen him unless Jackson kills the rest of the team to show the villagers that Ra is their one true god.

However, once Ra has the local people gathered before the pyramid craft, several young villagers signal to Jackson that they have recovered the team's weapons. Jackson then shoots at Ra while the kids create a distraction. O'Neil, Jackson, and the rest of the team flee Ra's ship and take shelter in a cave with the boys. The next morning, when Skaara draws a picture of the people's victory against Ra, Jackson realizes that part of this drawing depicts the seventh symbol needed to reactivate the Stargate: three moons over a pyramid.

O'Neil convinces the locals that their "gods" are mere mortals and, with their help, O'Neil, Jackson, and the remaining members of the team make it back to the Stargate hoping to deactivate the bomb. When the locals begin an open rebellion against Ra's troops, Ra decides to retreat and prepares his ship for takeoff.

Sha'Uri is killed in the battle, but Jackson resurrects her in Ra's sarcophagus and manages to escape when O'Neil activates the ship's ring transporter. Unable to deactivate the bomb, O'Neil and Jackson transport the bomb to Ra's ship in orbit via the ring where it explodes, killing Ra.

The team is able to return to Earth through the Stargate, though Jackson decides to remain on the planet.