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In 1982, an American Antarctic research station is alerted by gunfire and explosions. Pursued by a Norwegian helicopter, an Alaskan Malamute makes its way into the camp as the science station's crew looks on in confusion. Through the reckless use of a thermal charge, the helicopter is destroyed and its pilot killed shortly after landing. The surviving passenger fires at the dog with a rifle, grazing Bennings (Peter Maloney), one of the American researchers. The passenger is subsequently shot and killed by Garry (Donald Moffat), the station commander. Not knowing what to make of the incident, the station crew adopts the dog.

Unable to contact the outside world via radio, helicopter pilot R.J. MacReady (Kurt Russell) and Dr. Copper (Richard Dysart) risk a flight to the Norwegian camp to find it destroyed, its personnel missing or dead. Finding evidence that the Norwegians had dug something out of the ice, the pair return to the station with the partially-burned remains of a hideous creature which bears some human features. An autopsy of the cadaver by Dr. Blair (Wilford Brimley) is inconclusive, save to find that the creature had what appeared to be a normal set of internal organs.

At Bennings' request, the station veterinarian, Clark (Richard Masur), kennels the stray with the rest of the station's sled dogs. Noises from the kennel cause Clark to return, finding almost the entire sled team in the process of being messily assimilated by the stray dog, which has transformed into a monster. MacReady summons the rest of the crew to the kennel with the fire alarm and orders Childs (Keith David) to incinerate the creature with a flamethrower. A subsequent autopsy by Blair reveals that the stray dog was an alien capable of absorbing and perfectly imitating other life-forms. Realizing the implications of this, Blair quickly becomes withdrawn and suspicious of the rest of the crew. A second helicopter expedition discovers an alien spacecraft unearthed by the Norwegian research team, revealing that the creature had awakened after being buried within the ice for thousands of years.

Bennings and Windows (Thomas G. Waites) quarantine the burnt remains of both the dog-creature and the Norwegian cadaver in the storage room, but in the process Bennings is left alone. Moments later, Windows discovers Bennings in the process of being assimilated. The crew burns the Bennings replica before its transformation is complete. Determining that all life on Earth would be assimilated in just over three years if the creature were to reach the mainland, Blair goes berserk, destroying the helicopter and radio equipment and killing the remaining sled dogs. The team overpowers him and confines him in the tool shed. With all contact to the outside world cut off, the crew wonders how to determine who is still human. Paranoia quickly sets in as the first attempt to develop a test is sabotaged by an unknown party.

Fuchs (Joel Polis), attempting to continue Blair's research, goes missing shortly afterwards during a power failure. While searching for Fuchs' body, MacReady comes under suspicion and is locked outside in a severe blizzard. Somehow finding his way back to camp without a guide line, MacReady breaks into a camp storage room and threatens the rest of the crew with dynamite. In the course of MacReady's standoff, Norris (Charles Hallahan) suffers a heart attack. When Dr. Copper attempts to revive him, Norris' body transforms and kills Copper. Norris' head detaches from his body, sprouts legs and attempts to escape as the others burn the body, leading MacReady to theorize that every piece of the alien is an individual animal with its own survival instinct. In an altercation that precedes a test proposed by MacReady, Clark tries to stab MacReady, who shoots and kills him. The rest of the crew complies with the test; blood samples are drawn from each member of the team and jabbed with a hot wire to see whose blood will react defensively. Palmer (David Clennon), the backup pilot, is soon unmasked as an imitation, and manages to kill Windows before being lit on fire by MacReady.

Confirming that MacReady, Childs, Garry, and Nauls (T.K. Carter) are still human, the surviving crew set out to administer the test to Blair, only to find that he has escaped. After discovering that Blair had been constructing a small flying craft of alien design underneath the tool shed and witnessing Childs inexplicably abandon his post at the main gate, the facility loses all power. Realizing that the creature now wants to freeze again so a future rescue team will find it, the remaining crew acknowledge that they will not survive and set about destroying the facility with dynamite and molotov cocktails in hopes of killing the creature. While setting explosives in the underground generator room, Garry is killed by Blair. Nauls follows the sounds of the creature and is never seen again. Suddenly alone, MacReady prepares to detonate the charges when the creature, now a towering menace, emerges from beneath the floor. MacReady kills it with a stick of dynamite, which sets off the rest of the charges and destroys the entire facility.

After some time, MacReady is shown wandering alone in the flaming rubble. He encounters Childs, who claims to have seen Blair and gotten lost while chasing him in the snow. With the polar climate closing in around them, they acknowledge the futility of their distrust, sharing a drink as the camp burns. It is never revealed if either of them had been infected or if they survived long enough to be rescued.

The screenplay was written by Bill Lancaster, son of Burt Lancaster in 1981. The film's musical score was composed by Ennio Morricone, a rare instance of Carpenter not scoring one of his own films. The film was shot in northern British Columbia. The research station in the film was built by the film crew during summer, and the film shot in sub-freezing winter conditions. The only woman in the film is the voice of a chess computer, voiced by Carpenter regular (and then-wife) Adrienne Barbeau.

The film took three months to shoot on six sound stages, with many of the crew and actors working in cold conditions. The final weeks of shooting took place near Stewart, British Columbia, where snow was guaranteed to fall. John Carpenter filmed the Norwegian camp scenes at the end of production. The Norwegian camp was simply the remains of the American outpost after it was destroyed by explosion.

The film is cited as the first installment in Carpenter's "Apocalypse Trilogy", followed by 1987's Prince of Darkness and 1995's In the Mouth of Madness. While the plots and characters of the films are not related, they all feature a potentially apocalyptic scenario. The film is also notable in Carpenter's career for two reasons--it was his first foray into studio film-making and it was Carpenter's first film to be made without Debra Hill as co-producer. The Thing was the fourth film shot by cinematographer Dean Cundey (following Halloween, The Fog and Escape from New York) and the third to feature Kurt Russell as the lead actor (Russell would appear in two additional Carpenter films following The Thing: Big Trouble in Little China and Escape from L.A.).

In the documentary Terror Takes Shape offered on the DVD, film editor Todd C. Ramsay states that he made the suggestion to Carpenter to film a "happy" ending for the movie, purely for protective reasons, while they had Russell available. Carpenter agreed and shot a scene in which MacReady has been rescued and administered a blood test, proving that he is still human. Ramsay follows this by saying that The Thing had two test screenings, but Carpenter didn't use the sequence in either of them, as the director felt that the film worked better with its nihilistic conclusion.

According to the 1998 DVD release, the "Blair Monster" was to have had a much larger role in the final battle. However, due to the limitations of stop-motion animation, the "Blair Monster" appears for only a few seconds in the film.

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