After being kicked out of his rock band, guitarist slacker Dewey Finn faces a mountain of debts and depression. He shares an apartment with his best friend, Ned Schneebly, an old band member who is now a substitute teacher. Dewey accepts a job as a substitute teacher at a snobbish private elementary school where his attitude and hijinks have a powerful result on his students. He learns they are talented young musicians, and he decides to form a rock band with them to win the $10,000 prize money...

One misty morning, Liz Dunn stumbles down the road to her school and screams for help. A police psychologist gets her to reveal her story: A month earlier: three rebellious teenagers - Mike, Frankie and Geoff are trying to ditch the school field trip to Wales. The school nerd Martin helps them out by allowing them to stay in an old war bunker for the three days on the condition that his friend Liz joins them. The teens go down, party and have great fun but Martin doesn't return to let them out...

Max Fischer is a precocious 15-year-old whose reason for living is his attendance at Rushmore, a private school where he's not doing well in any of his classes, but where he's the king of extracurricular activities - from being in the beekeeping society to writing and producing plays, there's very little after school he doesn't do. His life begins to change, however, when he finds out he's on academic probation, and when he stumbles into love with Miss Cross, a pretty teacher of the elementary...