In the wake of Pearl Harbor, a young lieutenant leaves his expectant wife to volunteer for a secret bombing mission which will take the war to the Japanese homeland.
Maverick teacher John Keating returns in 1959 to the prestigious New England boys' boarding school where he was once a star student, using poetry to embolden his pupils to new heights of self-expression.
An idealistic Dutch colonial officer posted to Indonesia in the nineteenth century is convinced that he can make the kinds of changes that will actually help the local people of whom he is in charge.