Beca, a freshman at Barden University, is cajoled into joining The Bellas, her school's all-girls singing group. Injecting some much needed energy into their repertoire, The Bellas take on their male rivals in a campus competition.

The Barden Bellas are a collegiate, all-girls a cappella singing group thriving on female pop songs and their perfect looks. After a disastrous failing at last year's finals, they are forced to regroup. Among the new recruits is freshman Beca, an independent, aspiring DJ with no interest in the college life. But after she meets Jesse, from the rival all-male a cappella group, Beca has a new outlook and takes it upon herself to help the Bellas find their new look and sound and get back into the competition.—napierslogs

Barden College sports four different a cappella singing groups, the all-male Treblemakers and the all-female Bellas, who are the most antagonistic toward each other of the four, making it into the national finals of the International Championship of Collegiate A Cappella (ICCAC), held annually at Lincoln Center in New York City. The Bellas are the first all-female group to make the finals, but what strides they make forward for all women singing take two major steps backward at the finals with tired, uninspired arrangements solely of twentieth century girl songs, and an unfortunate incident by their controlling lead, Aubrey Posen, whose choice of singers has to be clones of her pretty self. As such, Aubrey and co-lead Chloe Beale have to rebuild the group from scratch for the upcoming season, which will be difficult due to the notoriety from the incident at the finals. Meanwhile, Beca Mitchell is a reluctant freshman at Barden, her Barden professor father paying for her tuition for one year just so that she can be exposed to college life. Her reluctance is that she is a loner, she preferring to work on her music mixes in solitude in her want to be a Los Angeles DJ or music producer. Although she is made aware of the Bellas in her wanderings around campus, Beca has no intention of auditioning, until she meets Chloe, who encourages her to do so. Beca is accepted with a more diverse group than has ever been the Bellas, but Beca and Aubrey end up clashing over Aubrey's direction for the group, which she mistakenly believes is the winning direction. One of Aubrey's other zero tolerance policies is no sex with any Treblemaker. Although Beca has no intention of breaking that policy, she does admit that one of the few people on campus she has befriended beyond the other women in the Bellas is fellow music lover and singer Jesse Swanson, an aspiring film score composer and a freshman Treblemaker. Beca will have to decide how far to break out of her shell and stay true to her own musical leanings, which if she does so means taking on Aubrey for some control of the group. What Beca decides may also affect what happens in her friendship with Jesse.—Huggo

A feisty coed joins a collegiate a Capella group and upgrades their song selection for the 21st century during the run-up to a major competition in this melodic comedy from Tony-nominated Avenue Q director Jason Moore. Drifting past the various cliques after arriving at college, Beca (Anna Kendrick) pays more attention to the jams pumping in her headphones than the people she passes on her way to class. But all that changes the moment she stumbles into the one place where every misfit has a voice -- the campus a Capella group. Although the competition among st the singers proves surprisingly fierce, there's just one aspect of the group Beca can't wrap her head around: All of the songs they perform are at least a decade old. Convinced that they can do better by adding some contemporary tunes into the mix, Beca whips up an exciting new set list that will set the group apart and leave their rivals in the dust.

During the 2011 International Championship of Collegiate A Cappella (ICCA) Finals at the Lincoln Center, Barden University's all-female A Cappella group, the Barden Bellas, perform well until Aubrey Posen (Anna Camp) projectile vomits on stage during her solo under the pressure of her peers. They are publicly humiliated, losing any chance of winning, and losing to their all-male rival group, the Barden Treblemakers. After the performance Aubrey and Chloe take over the leadership of the Bellas from outgoing leader Alice (Kether Donohue).

John Smith (John Michael Higgins) and Gail Abernathy-McKadden (Elizabeth Banks) are commentators for the ICCAs. Gail is exasperated with John's sexist and misogynist comments on air. John believes that an all girls group is an aberration since women cannot hit the low notes.

Four months later, newly arrived Barden freshman Beca Mitchell (Anna Kendrick) has no desire to attend college, but she is forced to do so by her father Dr. Mitchell (John Benjamin Hickey), a professor (of comparative literature) at the university, with whom Beca has a strained relationship. Wishing she could instead pursue a career as a music producer in Los Angeles, Beca spends her time making mash-up mixes of songs and takes up an internship at the school radio station, where she gets to know fellow freshman Jesse Swanson (Skylar Astin). Kimmy Jin (Jinhee Joung) is Beca's Korean American roommate.

When Beca's father discovers she has not been attending classes, he comes to her with a proposition: if she joins a club and still does not want to remain at college after one year, he will allow her to leave college, and he will pay for Beca to move to Los Angeles to pursue her music career.

At the university's activities fair, now-seniors Aubrey and Chloe Beale are attempting to recruit new members for the Bellas but find that interest in their group has decreased significantly after last year's on-stage incident. Beca is invited to join but declines and claims she can't sing. Later, Chloe hears Beca sing in the shower. They were both naked at the time, and Chloe wouldn't let go till Beca agrees to audition. It is indicated that Chloe has lesbian feelings for Beca.

After some persuasion from Chloe Beale (Brittany Snow) the co-leader of the Bellas along with Aubrey, she reluctantly auditions for the Barden Bellas. At auditions, Beca sings a rendition of "Cups (When I'm Gone)".

Aubrey does not initially approve of recruiting Beca but yields nonetheless due to a desperate need for members and Beca's talent. Beca joins alongside a group of other women who do not fit the Bellas' typical mold (super-hot girls with a bikini ready body, who can harmonize and have a pitch): Cynthia-Rose (Ester Dean), Stacie Conrad (Alexis Knapp), Lilly Onakuramara (Hana Mae Lee) (can beat-box), and Fat Amy (Rebel Wilson) (from Tasmania). Jesse is also revealed to have joined the Bellas' all-male rival group, the Treblemakers, but his roommate Benji (Ben Platt) was rejected after being called "weird" by Bumper (Adam DeVine) (the egotistical leader of the Barden Treblemakers). Aubrey takes control of the Bellas and they practice for 2 hours every day for 7 days a week. Aubrey sticks to the song list of the Bellas even though Beca points out that the list has no songs from the current century. Nobody can hear Lilly speaking. Chloe finds out that she has vocal nodes and has to undergo corrective surgery to have any chance of a career in singing.

The Bellas participate in the southeastern regional competition at Carolina University where, at Aubrey's insistence, they perform the same medley that helped the Bellas advance to the finals the previous year. In spite of their old set list, the group manages to place second, which sends them to the semi-finals. After the competition, the Bellas try to break up a fight between the Treblemakers and the Tonehangers, a male alumni Acappella group. Beca and Fat Amy accidentally smash a window with the Treblemakers' trophy. This alerts a police officer standing outside who then arrests her.

Jesse tries to help by calling Beca's father, who is furious and tells Beca that he will no longer pay for her to move to Los Angeles because of the incident. This infuriates Beca, which turns her budding friendship with Jesse sour. In the meantime, Beca suggests to the Bellas to try to be more daring, but Aubrey insists that they will win with the repertoire the group has always used in the past.

At the semi-finals, Beca provides an impromptu back-up of one of her favorite songs into the "traditional" song on the Bellas' set list to reinvigorate the crowd after they seemed to have lost interest. The Bellas come in third in the competition behind the Treblemakers and the Footnotes. Even though the audience seemed to enjoy Beca's remix, Aubrey becomes furious with Beca. Aubrey berates Beca after the performance and accuses her of hooking up with Jesse, a Treblemaker- a rule violation punishable by ejection from the Bellas. Jesse attempts to deny it, causing Beca to snap at them both and quit the Bellas.

When the Footnotes are later disqualified from the national competition because the lead singer was in high school, the Bellas are called to take part instead. The Bellas reform after spring break, with the notable exception of Beca. During rehearsals, Chloe stands up against Aubrey's stubbornness. The group starts to fall apart, which sparks a fight. Meanwhile, Beca tries to apologize to Jesse, which he declines. Beca then apologizes to the Bellas for her actions during the semi-finals and asks to have another chance, which Aubrey eventually allows. After having a group heart-to-heart conversation, the Bellas decide to adopt Beca's more modern and original music style. Beca rejoins the group, and Aubrey relinquishes her half of the Bellas' leadership to Beca. Chloe discovers that she is able to sing bass notes after her node removal surgery.

Meanwhile, group leader Bumper leaves the Treblemakers after being offered a job as a back-up singer for John Mayer. With Bumper gone, Jesse persuades the Trebles to let his previously rejected roommate Benji (Ben Platt) join the group in Bumper's place.

At the A Cappella national competition, the Bellas sing a piece arranged by Beca, which includes "Don't You (Forget About Me)" a song featured in The Breakfast Club, one of Jesse's favorite movies. This acts as a more effective apology from Beca, and after the performance, she and Jesse kiss. The Bellas win the national competition, and six months later, auditions for new members take place.