Dead Poets Society

Tea and empathy. Tinkering with his screen persona, comedian-actor Robin Williams plays it relatively straight as a dedicated teacher at an elite Vermont prep school. The year is 1959, a time of strict adherence to educational goals and teaching methods at Welton, under the no-nonsense stewardship of headmaster Nolan (Norman Lloyd). The academic apple cart teeters, however, when John Keating (Williams) is engaged to teach a class of bright and impressionable young men (the film's attention-getting title refers to a secret club to which Keating belonged as a student). An inspirational, brilliant mentor, Keating ignores conventional teaching procedures and offers his s...