Arthur throws a brick at Mr. Hampton after seeing him wearing a motorcycle cap that belonged to Arthur's recently deceased father.

Arthur spends three weeks in juvenile detention wondering why he attacked a man he had never truly meant to hurt.

Mr. Hampton speaks privately with Judge Warner and requests that Arthur be assigned to work for him rather than return to juvie.

Judge Warner assigns Arthur 120 hours of community service helping Mr. Hampton collect the seven most important things.

Arthur arrives at his first probation session to find a note directing him to collect seven specific items from the trash.

Officer Billie calls Arthur to say Mr. Hampton is dissatisfied because Arthur collected close substitutes instead of the exact items on the list.

Arthur and his mother laugh together while botching the Christmas tree decoration, and Arthur briefly feels like their family isn't broken.

Arthur pulls Squeak out of a trash can where bullies stuffed him and gets sent to the principal's office as punishment.

Despite Vice's warning to stay away, Squeak sits with Arthur at lunch and shares foil-wrapped food with him.

Arthur enters Mr. Hampton's open garage for the first time and is dazzled by a glittering sculpture made entirely from trash.

Arthur finds Mr. Hampton collapsed on the garage floor and brings Groovy Jim to help; Mr. Hampton says they have been building heaven.

Officer Billie tells Arthur that Mr. Hampton has stomach cancer, and Arthur refuses to continue his probation assignment.

Garage landlord Tony dismantles the sculpture to clear the space; Groovy Jim pays fifty dollars to buy Arthur three weeks to save the art.

Arthur and Squeak label coffee cans with messages about Mr. Hampton's artwork and scatter them across Washington DC to raise money.

The Smithsonian museum agrees to acquire Mr. Hampton's sculpture, and years later Arthur helps open the exhibit to the public.

Thirteen-year-old Arthur Owens throws a brick at his neighborhood junk man, Mr. Hampton, after spotting him wearing a motorcycle cap that belonged to Arthur's recently deceased father. Rather than return Arthur to juvenile detention, Mr. Hampton intervenes at his hearing, and Judge Warner assigns Arthur 120 hours of community service collecting trash for the old man. Arthur struggles with the strange assignment and is reprimanded for not following the list exactly, but slowly he begins to accept his role and even makes a friend named Squeak along the way. Everything changes when Arthur enters Mr. Hampton's open garage and discovers a dazzling sculpture of heaven built entirely from discarded objects — and finds Mr. Hampton collapsed on the floor, dying from stomach cancer. After Mr. Hampton's death, Arthur fights to save the sculpture from the garage landlord and launches a desperate fundraising campaign to keep the art alive. His efforts eventually lead the Smithsonian to acquire the sculpture, and years later Arthur stands at the exhibit's ribbon-cutting, finally understanding the gift Mr. Hampton gave him.

Arthur's journey from brick-thrower to guardian of heaven.

From his hospital bed, Mr. Hampton tells reporters that the brick attack was an act of God.

Judge Warner asks Arthur directly whether he attacked Mr. Hampton because of Mr. Hampton's race, a question Arthur never considered.

Arthur returns home after juvie and his mother sets strict new house rules, fearing Arthur is becoming too much like his father.

Arthur finds his father's motorcycle cap on the porch steps with a note from Mr. Hampton reading sorry, he took it for the wings.

Arthur meets Groovy Jim at a nearby tattoo shop and lies about needing items on Mr. Hampton's list for a school project.

Vice principal Barber moves Arthur's locker away from the other seventh graders to keep Arthur from being a bad influence.

Arthur finds a new message added to the bottom of Mr. Hampton's list quoting that where there is no vision, the people perish.

Arthur's mother gives him his father's coin collection as a Christmas gift, though Arthur would far rather have the motorcycle cap.

Squeak argues that the sculpture may be the only thing keeping Mr. Hampton alive and convinces Arthur to return to the garage.

Mr. Hampton tells Arthur and Squeak how a wartime vision inspired him to build heaven from broken things, and shows them the first box he made from war debris.

Barbara tells Arthur that their mother has a new boyfriend named Roger Dent, making Arthur feel like his father is being thrown away.

Roger comes to dinner and presents a handmade birdhouse; Arthur expects to dislike him but reluctantly finds he doesn't.

Mr. Hampton asks Arthur to promise to finish the sculpture if anything happens to him, naming Arthur Director of Special Projects for the State of Eternity.

Arthur tells Groovy Jim that Mr. Hampton has died and confesses for the first time that he was the one who threw the brick.

Arthur makes a final visit to the now-empty garage, takes Mr. Hampton's old shopping cart home, and discovers a cardboard sign reading fear not.

Before and during Arthur's probation, a series of smaller but significant events shape the world around him. Mr. Hampton's gracious response to being attacked, a judge's racial assumptions, and a mother's fearful house rules all establish the pressures Arthur navigates. Arthur begins to encounter people who challenge his expectations — a tattooed shop owner named Groovy Jim, a vice principal who exiles him to a distant locker, and eventually a round carpenter named Roger who joins Arthur's family. As Arthur grows closer to Mr. Hampton and the sculpture, he receives the most important promise he ever makes — to finish heaven if Mr. Hampton cannot. After Mr. Hampton's death, Arthur confronts his grief, comes clean with Groovy Jim about the brick, and takes one final quiet trip to the empty garage to say goodbye. These events form the connective tissue between Arthur's most dramatic turning points, revealing the texture of his healing.

The supporting moments that built Arthur's world and relationships.

Barbara asks Arthur whether their father is in heaven, and Arthur realizes he is not sure heaven is real.

Arthur nearly abandons his first probation session but decides to stay rather than prove Judge Warner right or let his mother down.

Groovy Jim speculates that Mr. Hampton's quotation about vision means a person's soul will die if they stop looking for deeper meaning in things.

After accepting his assignment fully, Arthur finds all the exact items on the list in a single session, including lightbulbs he had nearly given up on.

Officer Billie surprises Arthur with a Christmas gift of caramel corn, making him realize for the first time that people can surprise you.

On the seventh Saturday of probation, Arthur's assignment changes to finding a throne chair and he spends his entire session searching for the perfect one.

Arthur has a nightmare in which he must collect empty beer bottles from the trash in order to save his father's life.

Squeak stands on a cafeteria table holding a sign reading go ahead and throw things at me, and Arthur realizes he has badly misjudged Squeak's courage.

Mr. Hampton asks Arthur to make angel wings for the sculpture, and the two bond while Arthur shares memories of building things with his father.

Mr. Hampton places soda bottles upside down on a nearby bush and tells Arthur the ritual lets guilt that people have bottled up inside run free.

Arthur accidentally implies his mother threw away his father's things without caring; she cries, he apologizes, and they finally talk honestly about their grief.

Arthur spots a coffee can collecting donations for the school band in Vice's office and gets the idea to do the same thing for the sculpture.

A museum visitor explains that seven is the number of completeness and perfection in the Bible, and Arthur suddenly understands the true meaning of Mr. Hampton's list.

A museum visitor suggests that the sculpture's reflective foil surfaces may mean heaven is designed to mirror the people who stand before it.

After the exhibit ribbon-cutting ceremony, Arthur watches a flock of pigeons rise into the sky and thinks about his father and Mr. Hampton.

Arthur's transformation is driven not just by big events but by a series of quiet revelations and hard choices. From the moment his sister plants doubt about heaven to the moment a museum visitor explains why Mr. Hampton loved the number seven, Arthur is slowly decoding a message left for him across every item on the list. He chooses to stay when he wants to quit, learns that people are never quite who they seem, and discovers that even small acts — placing soda bottles on a bush or breaking a mirror — can crack open something important inside him. Mr. Hampton's conversations with Arthur about angel wings and his father help Arthur stop grieving in secret and start healing out loud. Each of the seven items turns out to represent not just a building material, but something Arthur needed in his own life, and understanding that fully completes his character arc. By the epilogue, Arthur watches pigeons rise into the sky after the exhibit opening and finally makes peace with every loss he has carried.