History Film / DeadPoetsSociety

* TheFifties: The film is set in 1959. There are glimpses of the popular culture of the day, including early rock and roll music and teenagers openly smoking in (the public) high school without reprisal, in the scenes which take place outside Welton.

* MistakenFromBehind: When Knox arrives at Chris' school, he goes after a blond girl in the corridor who he thinks is her, but it turns out to be some other girl.

** Knox's crush, Chris Noel, may have been named after the real-life Chris Noel, a model, actress, and singer who became a favorite of American troops during UsefulNotes/TheVietnamWar. The real-life Chris Noel is a blonde, just like the fictional Chris Noel, and graduated high school in 1959, making both women similar in age.

** [[spoiler:Subverted with Neil and Todd. Like Keating, Neil spends much of the movie supporting Todd, notably over his terrible parents. When Mr. Perry turns up to take Neil away, Todd attempts to speak to Neil, but he's dragged off before Todd has a chance to do anything. [[TearJerker Neil commits suicide that night]].]]

* HourglassPlot: [[spoiler:Todd and Neil's arcs. At the beginning of the film, Todd is shy, timid, and hesitant to get involved with Keating's philosophy, while the outgoing Neil is the group's leader, determined to "seize the day", and is the one who most encourages and supports Todd. By the end of the film, it's Neil who is unable to stand up to the pressure on him from his father, and tragically commits suicide, while Todd finds his voice, leads the boys to defy the school, and is ultimately the one to live out Keating's teachings.]]

* BittersweetEnding: Bordering on DownerEnding, since Neil [[spoiler: is dead by suicide]], Keating [[spoiler: is treated as the scapegoat for Neil's death and fired]] and [[spoiler: Charlie is expelled for punching Cameron for his betrayal]]. On other hand, Keating did achieve his aim of instilling a passion for poetry in many of the students, and they show him their love and appreciation in the final scene. As an additional bright moment, the scene at Neil's performance of ''Theatre/AMidsummerNightsDream'' suggested that Knox may have succeeded in wooing Chris.

* DeadHandShot: Right before Mr. Perry finds [[spoiler:Neil's body]] in his study.

* GoreDiscretionShot: When Neil's father [[spoiler: finds Neil's body in his study]], we only see the gun and Neil's hand from behind the desk.

* PrisonersDilemma: After Charlie's prank where he "receives a phone call from God" saying that girls should be admitted to Welton following him sneaking an article into the school newspaper under the name of the Dead Poets Society to the same effect, he is taken into Nolan's office and spanked, where Charlie insists that he acted alone. Nolan warns him that if the Society has any other members, they will be expelled and Charlie will remain enrolled at Welton, but he apparently refuses to turn them in. Later on, after Neil commits suicide and Mr. Perry launches an investigation, Cameron goes to Nolan and informs against the other students, aligning himself with the faculty and the honor code to avoid personal punishment.

** After Neil commits suicide, Cameron accuses Mr. Keating of being responsible for Neil's death by encouraging him to pursue acting, even going as far as putting the accusation in writing:
--->'''Cameron''': They're not after us, we're the victims... us and Neil.\\

'''Cameron''': Why, Mr. Keating, of course. The Captain himself! You guys didn't really think he could avoid responsibilty, did you?\\

'''Cameron''': Well, who else do you think, dumbass? The administration? Mr. Perry? Mr. Keating put us up to all this crap, didn't he? If it wasn't for Mr. Keating, Neil would be cozied up in his room right now, studying his chemistry, and dreaming of being called Doctor.

** [[MeddlingParents Mr. Perry]] and [[ParentalNeglect Mr. Anderson]]. Both are emotionally AbusiveParents to Neil and Todd respectively, but Mr. Perry is overly controlling of Neil's life and determined that he'll have a successful future and career no matter the cost to his son's happiness and well-being, while the Andersons neglect and ignore Todd, viewing him as the failure of the family.

** When Todd is brought into Nolan's office, his parents urge him to sign papers that will blacklist Keating from ever teaching again. Mr. Anderson asks why Todd cares so much about Keating, and Todd bursts out, "He cares about me! You don't!"

* StandUpInSupport: Displayed at the end of the film. In the beginning, when he meets his students, new teacher Keating stands on his desk to remind the students they must force themselves to look at things from a different perspective. In the final scene, when Keating is being drummed out as a dangerous radical, Todd stands up on his desk and calls out "O Captain! My Captain!" [[note]]referencing the poem by Walt Whitman, which Keating read to his students earlier.[[/note]] One by one, other students join him standing on their desks to show their support for Keating, demonstrating just how much impact the teacher had on the whole class.

* AllForNothing: [[spoiler:After forcing Neil to quit some of his extracurricular activities and unenrolling Neil from Welton after his onstage performance in the hopes that Neil would become a doctor, Mr Perry's plans for Neil's future are tragically halted when Neil commits suicide]].

* AssimilationAcademy: Welton seems to be only a notch away from a military school. Its methods are centered on demanding total conformity to a program that puts every student on a pre-set path toward the Ivy League and eventually careers in the Establishment. Deviating from this is simply ''not'' tolerated. [[AbusiveParents Especially if you're Neil and the deviance involves acting.]]

* JerkassHasAPoint: Keating's antics don't go over well with the school administration and teachers. He has at least two conversations about this during the course of the film. While the audience is set up to believe their adherence to tradition and conformity are a bad thing, both conversations drive the point home.

* TragicBromance: [[spoiler:Neil and Todd. They're particularly close and share an intense friendship, and Todd is devastated by Neil's death.]].

* YouAreBetterThanYouThinkYouAre: Both Keating and Neil try to get Todd to realise this about himself. [[spoiler:They're more than [[invoked]][[CrowningMomentOfHeartwarming proven right in the end]].]]

It's [[TheFifties 1959]], and the prestigious, all-boys' Welton Academy in Vermont has just hired John Keating (Williams) as its new English teacher for the upcoming school year. A BlitheSpirit, Keating uses his classes to inspire his students to go against the flow and be themselves, somehow managing to make reading poetry seem like a cool, rebellious thing to do. A group of the students -- including [[ShrinkingViolet Todd Anderson]] (Hawke), [[TheAce Neil Perry]] (Leonard), [[ClassClown Charlie Dalton]] (Hansen), [[StalkerWithACrush Knox Overstreet]] (Charles), [[TheFriendNobodyLikes Richard Cameron]] (Dylan Kussman), [[TheSmartGuy Steven Meeks]] (Allelon Ruggiero), and [[TheBigGuy Gerard Pitts]] (James Waterston) -- form the [[TrueCompanions Dead Poets Society]], a secretive clique who sneak away from campus at night to read poetry in a secluded cave. But after witnessing Keating's unorthodox teaching methods and their effects on Welton's students, school [[DeanBitterman headmaster]] Gale Norman (Lloyd) is determined to rein in both him and the unsanctioned Society.

''Dead Poets Society'' is a 1989 drama film directed by Creator/PeterWeir starring Creator/RobinWilliams in one of his earlier "serious" roles.

It is [[TheFifties 1959]], and the prestigious, all-boys Welton Academy has just hired John Keating (Williams) as its new English teacher for the upcoming school year. A BlitheSpirit, Keating uses his classes to inspire his students to go against the flow and be themselves, somehow managing to make reading poetry seem like a cool, rebellious thing to do. A group of the boys, including [[ShrinkingViolet Todd Anderson]], [[TheAce Neil Perry]], [[ClassClown Charlie Dalton]], [[StalkerWithACrush Knox Overstreet]], [[TheFriendNobodyLikes Richard Cameron]], [[TheSmartGuy Steven Meeks]] and [[TheBigGuy Gerard Pitts]], form the [[TrueCompanions Dead Poets Society]], a group wherein they all sneak out at night to read poetry in a secluded cave. After witnessing many of Keating's unorthodox teaching methods and their effects on the students, Headmaster Nolan, the DeanBitterman of Welton, tries to put a stop to this.

* CaptainObvious: [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] when Neil re-convenes the Society:

* CommonalityConnection: The seeming opposites Todd and Neil are drawn together by their [[{{AbusiveParents}} poor experiences of parenting.]]

** [[{{RebelliousSpirit}} Charlie]] and [[{{TeachersPet}} Cameron]]. Charlie is rebellious, a poor student, and goofs around, but remains loyal to his friends. Cameron is a brown-noser, studious, hates breaking the rules, and [[spoiler:betrays everyone at the end of the film to save his own skin]].
** [[{{BigManOnCampus}} Neil]] and [[{{ShrinkingViolet}} Todd]]. Neil is confident, successful, and excited by Keating's ideas, while Todd is insecure, nervous and scared to act. [[spoiler:However, underneath it all, Neil is deeply beaten down and miserable, and ends up killing himself, while Todd reveals his inner strength and inspires the other boys in rebelling against Welton.]]
** [[{{DeanBitterman}} Nolan]] and [[{{CoolTeacher}} Keating]]. Both are English teachers, but Nolan is traditional, authoritarian, and regimented, while Keating is unorthodox, a friend to the boys and teaches them to think for themselves.
** [[{{MeddlingParents}} Mr Perry]] and [[{{ParentalNeglect}} Mr Anderson]]. Both are emotionally AbusiveParents to Neil and Todd respectively, but Mr Perry is overly controlling of Neil's life and determined that he'll have a successful future and career no matter the cost to his son's happiness and well-being, while the Andersons neglect and ignore Todd, viewing him as the failure of the family.

** [[spoiler:Subverted with Neil and Todd. Like Keating, Neil spends much of the movie supporting Todd, notably over his terrible parents. When Mr Perry turns up to take Neil away, Todd attempts to speak to Neil, but he's dragged off before Todd has a chance to do anything. [[{{TearJerker}} Neil commits suicide that night]].]]
* OddFriendship: Surprisingly, rebellious Charlie and geeky Meeks get on well, with Meeks helping Charlie with classwork and Charlie fondly calling Meeks "a genius" (in contrast to his irritation towards [[{{TeachersPet}} Cameron]]).
* OhCrap: Neil's reaction to seeing his father at the play -- ''during the performance'' no less.

* OneLinerEcho: "Oh, Captain, my Captain!" at the end.

* WhatTheHellHero: Keating chews Charlie out for his school newspaper/"phone call from God" prank, telling him that putting himself in danger of getting expelled from the school and jeopardizing his future isn't noble, it's just reckless and stupid. However, to lighten the blow, a moment later, Keating remarks that the prank call would have been more effective and daring if God had made a collect call.

* YouAreBetterThanYouThinkYouAre: Both Keating and Neil try to get Todd to realise this about himself. [[spoiler:They're more than [[{{CrowningMomentOfHeartwarming}} proved right in the end]].]]

* ShirtlessScene:
** The students have one after taking a shower.
** Neil takes off his shirt [[spoiler:before wearing his crown from his costume as Puck for a last time and committing suicide. It's suicide, so it's not played for {{fanservice}}.]]
* ShooOutTheClowns: [[spoiler:Charlie gets expelled before the climax of the film.]]
* ShoutOut:

* AbusiveParents:
** Mr Perry is unrelentingly controlling of Neil, forcing him into a life plan he hates and making him give up even Welton-encouraged extracurricular activities, and the normally outgoing, confident Neil is noticeably cowed around him. [[spoiler:When Neil goes ahead with performing in the local play, Mr. Perry immediately drags him home and plans to send him to military school]].
** Mr. and Mrs. Anderson treat Todd as TheUnfavorite, make a big to-do out of Jeff's accomplishments while ignoring him, and a deleted scene reveals they told Todd he was only worth his body's chemicals if he didn't improve, leaving Todd with crippling insecurity and shyness.

* RayOfHopeEnding: [[spoiler:Neil commits suicide to escape his abusive father; Todd is left even more unhappy than he was at the start of the film; [[DeanBitterman Dean Nolan]] fires Keating and intends to prevent him from ever teaching again; the Dead Poets Society is disbanded and forced to turn on Keating; and Charlie gets expelled for punching Cameron. In the final scene, Nolan takes over Keating's class, throwing aside everything he taught and reinstating the unfeeling, Pritchard approach to learning poetry... but just before Keating leaves for good, Todd -- the student he encouraged the most -- finds his courage and leads over half his class (including students who weren't in the Society) to bid farewell to Keating, proving to him they will see the world in new ways, inspired by him, and that they won't forget him. [[note]] Cameron, who made a plea bargain with Dean Nolan to save his and the school's reputation, is the main exception. [[/note]] ]]