A skilled young hockey prospect hoping to attract the attention of professional scouts is pressured to show that he can fight if challenged during his stay in a Canadian minor hockey town. His on-ice activities are complicated by his relationship with the coach's daughter.

Cassie, who seeks love and escape from her mundane ordinary life, meets a traveling Shakespeare troupe offering a community acting workshop.

Upon graduation from high school eight teens take a seaplane trip, intending to celebrate on Keith's parents' private island. Stormy weather causes the plane to crash and they end up on a deserted isle. They find evidence of other visitors, and soon must fend for their lives against drug smugglers.

The streets of the Bronx are owned by '60s youth gangs where the joy and pain of adolescence is lived. Philip Kaufman tells his take on the novel by Richard Price about the history of the Italian-American gang ‘The Wanderers.’