During the Napoleonic Wars, a brash British captain pushes his ship and crew to their limits in pursuit of a formidable French war vessel around South America.

An insurance salesman begins to suspect that his whole life is actually some sort of reality TV show.

Painfully shy Todd Anderson has been sent to the school where his popular older brother was valedictorian. His roommate, Neil Perry, although exceedingly bright and popular, is very much under the thumb of his overbearing father. The two, along with their other friends, meet Professor Keating, their new English teacher, who tells them of the Dead Poets Society, and encourages them to go against the status quo. Each does so in his own way, and is changed for life.

A sheltered Amish child is the sole witness of a brutal murder in a restroom at a Philadelphia train station, and he must be protected. The assignment falls to a taciturn detective who goes undercover in a Pennsylvania Dutch community. On the farm, he slowly assimilates despite his urban grit and forges a romantic bond with the child's beautiful mother.

A Sydney lawyer defends five Aboriginal Persons in a ritualized taboo murder and in the process learns disturbing things about himself and premonitions.

English teacher John Keating inspires his students to look at poetry with a different perspective of authentic knowledge and feelings.