Good-natured teen surfer Mitchell Goosen finds himself staying with his aunt and uncle in Cincinnati, Ohio when his parents head to Australia for work. There he meets his cousin, Wiley, and together they try to navigate the perils of high school—avoid the bullies, get the girl, and win a little respect.

An act of civil disobedience turns into a standoff with police when homeless people in Cincinnati take over the public library to seek shelter from the bitter cold.

Ernest, a lovable loser who works as a summer camp handyman and dreams of becoming a guidance counselor, must find a way to inspire a group of juvenile delinquents while stopping a shady strip mining company from closing the camp as well.

A streetwise man flees South Central Los Angeles heading to the suburbs and his lottery-winner uncle and cousin to avoid a neighborhood thug with a grudge who has just escaped from prison. But trouble soon follows and the suburbs will never be the same.

Burglary. Drugs. Assault. Rape. The students at Brandel High are more than new Principal Rick Latimer bargained for. Gangs fight to control the school using knives - even guns - when they have to. When Latimer and the head of security try to clean up the school and stop the narcotics trade, they run up against a teenage mafia. A violent confrontation on the campus leads to a deadly showdown with the drug dealer's gang, and one last chance for Latimer to save his career... and his life.

Mousie and Sad Girl are childhood best friends in a contemporary Los Angeles poor Hispanic neighborhood. But when Sad Girl becomes pregnant by Mousie's boyfriend, a drug dealer named Ernesto, the two become bitter enemies. While their dispute escalates towards violence, the violence of the world around them soon also impacts their lives.