"Carpe diem! Seize the day, boys! Make your lives extraordinary!"
It is 1959 and the prestigious Welton Academy has just hired John Keating (Robin Williams) as the new English teacher for the upcoming school year. A Blithe Spirit, he 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 Todd Anderson, Neil Perry, Charlie Dalton, Knox Overstreet, Richard Cameron, Steven Meeks and Gerard Pitts, form the 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 the effects on the students, Headmaster Nolan, the Dean Bitterman of Welton, tries to put a stop to this.Dead Poets Society is a 1989 drama film directed Peter Weir and starring Robin Williams in one of his earlier "serious" roles. The movie was nominated for four Academy Awards: Robin Williams for Best Actor in a Leading Role, Best Director, Best Picture and winning for Best Original Screenplay.
This film provides examples of:
All Girls Want Bad Boys: According to Pitts: "All the good ones go for jerks, you know that."
Bad Liar: For a skilled actor, Neil certainly isn't all that convincing when he tries to tell a lie. It doesn't even look like Keating believed him when Neil claimed that his father was letting him stay in the play.
Calling the Old Man Out: Neil's father is extremely controlling and dominating, and at one point he starts to call him on never listening to his own son or showing any interest in what he wants to do with his life, but he can't follow through and he gives up halfway.
The Captain: Mr Keating is not actually one, but his students call him "O Captain My Captain" at his suggestion.
Fantasy-Forbidding Father: Neil's father doesn't want Neil to have anything to do with poetry or theatre, and upon discovering that Neil is playing Puck in A Midsummer Night's Dream, he goes utterly ballistic. He sends Neil to a military academy where he is ultimately Driven to Suicide.
Foreshadowing: If you look at it a certain way, the ghost story Neil tells earlier in the film is a metaphor for his own suicide. More directly, at the beginning of the first meeting when Neil reads the passage from Thoreau: ...and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.
Four Temperament Ensemble: The four main Poets could be considered this: Todd is melancholic, Neil is sanguine, Charlie is choleric and Knox is phlegmatic.
The Friend Nobody Likes: Cameron basically only gets included in the Society because he's part of the other boys' study group and is Charlie's roommate.
Neil: Hey, he's your roommate.
Charlie: That's not my fault.
Justified, as it's obvious they wouldn't have included him if they had any hope to hide him the Society, calling him a creep. And he betrays them in the end.
Ivy League: The aspiration of most of the Welton students — the school takes quite particular pride in stating that many of its graduates went on to study at schools that belonged to the very prestigious Ivy League.
Jerk Jock: Chet. Which of course leads to problems when Knox falls head-over-heels for the former's girlfriend.
Large Ham: Charlie has his moments, and is clearly enjoying himself at the line "To indeed be a god!"
Love at First Sight: Knox, Knox, Knox. One-sided as the object of his affections is "practically engaged" to someone else.
Meaningful Name: It couldn't have been coincidence that John Keating is a lover of poetry. As well as being close to John Keats, the -ing suffix usually implies a verb or an action. thus, he's a more active John Keats by teaching poetry
Military School: Neil is threatened with this by his controlling and dominating father.
Nerds Are Virgins: Meeks claims he'd try anything once. Charlie's reply is "Except sex!"
Never My Fault: Neil's father blames Keating for his son's suicide even though it was largely his fault.
Performance Anxiety: Todd has a rather severe case of this, leading to initial reluctance to join the Dead Poets Society, since he thinks it will mean having to read aloud in front of other people. Fortunately Neil insists that he doesn't have to read, and lets him take meeting minutes instead.
Keating knows all too well that Todd has this, and still gets him to come up with a poem impromptu, resulting in a Crowning Momentof Awesome for Todd.
Pretentious Latin Motto: The official motto. The unofficial one, student-written, is somewhat modified, shall we say.
Rebellious Spirit: Charlie's actions make for an interesting contrast with what Keating actually encourages. While the latter is trying to teach his students to think for themselves and be masters of their own lives, the former takes that to mean "rebel for its own sake, fight against authorities for fun." When Charlie nearly gets himself expelled for a joke, Keating calls him out on this misinterpretation.
Satellite Love Interest: Chris for Knox, to an extent. Through no fault of her own, though, she just doesn't get much character development onscreen and is only really loved by Knox for her appearance. She even points this out to him when she goes to confront him at Welton, replying to his repeated insistence that he loves her, "You don't even know me!"
Sexy Sax Man: Charlie pretty obviously tries to be this. Though he claims to like the saxophone because it is more 'sonorous' than the clarinet, which his parents forced him to take.
Shrinking Violet: Oh, Todd. At the beginning, at least, he seems to just be trying to blend in with the wallpaper half the time. Fortunately his friendship with the other Poets (Neil in particular) goes a long way toward making him a more confident person.
Snow Means Death: Symbolised by Neil's friends walking through snow after Neil kills himself.
Stalker with a Crush: Knox, in regards to Chris. Well-intentioned, but watching her from afar wearing dark glasses can come off as slightly creepy.
Thousand Yard Stare: Neil after the play and his father crushing his dream, just before he kills himself.
Tragic Bromance: Neil and Todd could count although they're both main characters. They are particularly close and share an intense friendship, and Neil's death clearly has a deep impact on his roommate.
Tragic Dream: Neil and acting, thanks to his father.
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