When maladjusted orphan Jesse vandalizes a theme park, he is placed with foster parents and must work at the park to make amends. There he meets Willy, a young Orca whale who has been separated from his family. Sensing kinship, they form a bond and, with the help of kindly whale trainer Rae Lindley, develop a routine of tricks. However, greedy park owner Dial soon catches wind of the duo and makes plans to profit from them.
A hate crime on the campus of a New England college puts the school's dean (Parker) in a position where she has to examine her own feelings about race and prejudice, while maintaining her administration's politically correct policies.
A high school valedictorian who gets baked with the local stoner finds himself the subject of a drug test. The situation causes him to concoct an ambitious plan to get his entire graduating class to face the same fate, and fail.
Jesse becomes reunited with Willy three years after the whale's jump to freedom as the teenager tries to rescue the killer whale and other orcas from an oil spill.
Molly is a high school track coach who knows just as much about football as anyone else on the planet. When a football coach's position becomes vacant, she applies for the job, despite snickers from fellow staff members and her former husband.
A doctor's relationship with a terminally ill child adds pressure to her already rocky marriage as she spends more time with her patient and gradually neglects her home life.
In 1950s Pittsburgh, a frustrated African-American father struggles with the constraints of poverty, racism, and his own inner demons as he tries to raise a family.
Reeling from his mother’s death and his father’s abandonment, Zach, an All-State athlete, finds glory on the football field, working to earn a college scholarship and the brothers’ ticket out of town. When a devastating injury puts Zach—and his dreams—on the sidelines, David laces up his track cleats to salvage their future and point Zach toward hope.