[1] Makoto Kido, a high school science and chemistry teacher, has decided to build his own atomic bomb.

Before stealing plutonium isotopes from Tōkai Nuclear Power Plant, he is involved in the botched hijack of one of his school's buses during a field trip.

Meanwhile, Makoto is able to extract enough plutonium from his stolen isotopes to create two bombs—one genuine, the other containing only enough radioactive material to be detectable, but otherwise a fake.

Flush with success, he follows a suggestion by a radio personality, nicknamed "Zero", to use the real bomb to extort the government into allowing the Rolling Stones to play in Japan (despite being barred from doing so due to Keith Richards being arrested for narcotics possession).

[2] In 2022, American writer and critic Nick Newman placed The Man Who Stole the Sun on his Sight and Sound list of the greatest films ever made, saying, "In anything like a just world this is seen concurrent with benchmarks of Japanese cinema.