Hundreds of years ago, a single drop of sunlight fell to Earth and bloomed into a magical flower with healing abilities. An old woman named Mother Gothel sings the song "Healing Incantation" to the flower, causing it to restore her youth and beauty. The song goes as follows:
- Flower, gleam and glowLet your powers shineMake the clock reverseBring back what once was mineHeal what has been hurtChange the fates' designSave what has been lostBring back what once was mineWhat once was mine
She lives for hundreds of years, keeping the flower hidden and never sharing it with anyone.
In the kingdom of Corona, the pregnant queen has become deathly ill, and the king sends out his people to search for the legendary golden flower. After Gothel accidentally knocks off the fake shrubbery she hides the flower in, the flower is discovered, uprooted and used to save the queen. The queen gives birth to Rapunzel, born with beautiful golden hair that glows with the magic of the flower. In honor of her birth, the king and queen release a floating lantern into the sky.
That night, Gothel sneaks into the palace and sings the song to Rapunzel, which causes her hair to glow. She tries cutting a lock of Rapunzel's hair, but cutting the hair loses its magic and turns it brown. She instead kidnaps Rapunzel and raises her as her own child in a hidden tower in the woods. Gothel tells Rapunzel not to leave the tower as there are many dangerous people out there who could steal her hair and use it for their own good. Each year on Rapunzel's birthday, the king and queen release lanterns into the sky, hoping they will guide Rapunzel home.
On the verge of her 18th birthday, Rapunzel still lives in the tower with her only friend, a chameleon named Pascal. Her hair has grown to be seventy feet long and extremely strong, and she loops it through a system of pulleys and hooks to hoist herself up and get around the tower. She sings "When Will My Life Begin?" about how she has grown quite bored of life in the tower and paints a picture of herself looking up at the hundreds of lanterns she sees in the sky every year on her birthday.
She asks Gothel to let her see the lanterns in person, feeling they're connected to her somehow. Gothel refuses and sings "Mother Knows Best", a song about how the world is a horrible and dangerous place and how she only wants to protect Rapunzel. She ends the song by telling her to never ask to leave the tower again.
Meanwhile, a thief named Flynn Rider steals Rapunzel's crown from the palace with the help of two other thieves, the Stabbington brothers. They get chased into the forest, where Flynn abandons the two brothers while carrying the satchel containing the crown. Flynn gets chased by a horse named Maximus, but manages to escape and finds the hidden tower. He climbs up into the tower using two arrows before getting knocked out by Rapunzel using her frying pan.
She hides him in her closet and finds the crown just as Gothel returns. Rapunzel is about to show Gothel Flynn's knocked out body as proof that she can defend herself, but Gothel yells at her that she is never leaving this tower before she can reveal him. Rapunzel realizes there's no way Gothel will ever let her leave and hatches a plan. She asks for new paint as a gift, sending Gothel on a three-day journey.
Once Gothel leaves, Rapunzel takes Flynn out and uses her hair to tie him to a chair. Pascal wakes him up by sticking his tongue in Flynn's ear. Rapunzel assumes Flynn is there to steal her hair, but he has no idea what she's talking about and only wants to get out of her hair, literally and figuratively. He asks where his satchel is, to which Rapunzel tells him that she's hidden it. She makes a deal with him: If he can take her to see the lanterns and return her home safely, she'll give him the satchel back. He reluctantly agrees despite telling her he and the kingdom are not on good terms. Once she steps outside the tower, Rapunzel alternates between running around and screaming for joy and wallowing in crushing despair and guilt for betraying her mother.
Meanwhile, Maximus comes across Gothel, and she becomes suspicious of a palace horse with no rider. She runs back to the tower to find Rapunzel not there, but finds the satchel containing the crown and a wanted poster of Flynn.
Flynn has taken Rapunzel to a pub called "The Snuggly Duckling" full of angry tough-looking men, hoping to scare her into going back home. However, the thugs recognize Flynn from his wanted posters and the thugs fight over him before Rapunzel tells them to quit it, as she needs him to fulfill her dream of seeing the lanterns. The thugs sing the song "I've Got a Dream" where they reveal their softer sides before guards arrive.
One of the thugs help Rapunzel and Flynn escape through a hidden passage, which Maximus then reveals to the guards. The Stabbington brothers, who have been captured by the guards, break their chains and follow into the tunnel. Gothel, having witnessed the whole thing, asks where the tunnel goes.
The tunnel leads to a dam, where Rapunzel and Flynn appear to be cornered until Rapunzel uses her hair to swing across to a ledge. She leaves Flynn her frying pan, and he uses it to fend off the guards and swordfight with Maximus. Rapunzel lassoes Flynn with her hair and pulls him off as Maximus kicks against a beam, breaking the dam and causing a huge flood of water to come crashing down on everyone.
Flynn and Rapunzel outrun the wave but become trapped in a small cave with water slowly filling up. Flynn tries finding an exit, but it's too dark for him to see anything. Seeing that they're about to die, Rapunzel apologizes to Flynn for dragging him into this, and he reveals his real name is Eugene Fitzherbert. Rapunzel remembers her hair can glow when she sings, and uses it to find an escape.
Gothel finds the Stabbington brothers and gives them the crown, but tells them that she could give them something worth a thousand crowns and that they can take revenge on Eugene while they're at it. Rapunzel sings to heal an injury in Eugene's hand. She explains to him that Gothel told her that people tried to cut off her hair and steal its magic when she was young. Eugene opens up about growing up as an orphan who became a thief and changed his name to Flynn Rider after the hero in a book. While Eugene leaves to get some more firewood, Gothel confronts Rapunzel and gives her the crown, telling her to give it to Eugene to test his loyalty.
The next morning, Maximus has found the two, and attempts to arrest Eugene, but Rapunzel calms the horse down and asks for a truce for her birthday. Maximus reluctantly agrees, though he and Eugene still occasionally fight each other. They make it to the kingdom, where Rapunzel gets her hair braided so people don't step on it. They spend the day attending a festival in honor of the "lost princess", dancing and hiding from guards. As sundown approaches, Eugene leaves Maximus with some apples, and takes Rapunzel out on the water on a boat, so she can get the best view of the lanterns.
The lanterns float out over the water, and Rapunzel and Eugene are soon surrounded by hundreds of beautiful glowing lights. Rapunzel gives Eugene the satchel with the crown, and he reassures her that he won't leave her. He is about to kiss her before seeing the Stabbington twins on the shore. He doesn't tell Rapunzel what's going on, but he brings the boat up to shore, tells her he'll just be a minute, and goes off with the crown.
Eugene gives the crown to the twins, but rather than accept it, they say they want Rapunzel instead. The brothers tie him up on another boat, tricking Rapunzel into thinking he abandoned her. They try to capture Rapunzel, but Gothel stages a rescue by knocking them out. Heartbroken by Eugene's supposed betrayal, Rapunzel lets Gothel take her home. Eugene's boat crashes into the ship dock, and he is arrested by the guards while calling out Rapunzel's name. Maximus sees this and realizes something is wrong.
Back at the tower, Rapunzel lies on her bed miserable. Gothel says she tried to warn her how horrible the outside world is, but she's just happy things can go back to normal. As Gothel prepares dinner, Rapunzel looks at the flag Eugene bought her at the festival, which has a sun-shaped royal crest on it. Rapunzel realizes she has been subconsciously incorporating the sun symbol into her artwork throughout her life. She has a hazy memory of the sun shape above her crib and of her parents' faces, and realizes she is the "lost princess." Rapunzel confronts Gothel about her true identity, and declares she will never let Gothel use her hair again.
As Eugene is being taken to be hanged, he confronts the twins about how they knew about Rapunzel, and they tell him it was "the old lady." The thugs from the Snuggly Duckling show up to break Eugene out. They get him out to the courtyard and use a wagon to catapult him over the jail wall, where he lands on Maximus, who was the one to recruit the thugs.
Riding on Maximus, Eugene makes it back to the tower and calls out to Rapunzel. Her hair is lowered to him but, upon climbing up, he finds Rapunzel chained and gagged. Gothel stabs Eugene from behind and tries to take Rapunzel away to find a new hiding place, but Rapunzel tells her that she will never, ever stop trying to get away from her. However, Rapunzel promises to stay with Gothel if she is allowed to heal Eugene. Gothel reluctantly agrees, but before she can heal him, Eugene cuts her hair with a shard of glass, choosing to die rather than let Rapunzel be held captive for the rest of her life. A horrified and infuriated Gothel suddenly ages rapidly, then falls from the tower and turns to dust.
Rapunzel tries to heal Eugene anyway, but it doesn't work. He stops her and tells her that she was his new dream, and she tells him that he was hers. As Eugene dies, Rapunzel tearfully sings a longer version of the healing song, "The Tear Heals". As she sings, one of her tears, which still has some of the flower's magic, revives him. They share a kiss, and Eugene takes her back to the kingdom.
Rapunzel and her parents share a tearful hug, and as Eugene watches, they invite him into it too. Eugene narrates the ending, stating that the thugs achieved their dreams, Maximus stopped crime throughout the kingdom, frying pans have been made the official weapon of the military, Pascal "never changed," and Rapunzel eventually agreed to marry Eugene.
