In the San Fernando Valley in 1977, teenage busboy Eddie Adams (Mark Wahlberg) gets discovered by porn director Jack Horner (Burt Reynolds), who transforms him into adult-film sensation Dirk Diggler.
A transfer student attempts to take over the most violent high school in the country, whose students form factions and battle each other for power. Mentored by a yakuza, he strives for what has never been achieved: unification of the school.
A stranger befriends a disturbed family with many issues, the father is a perverted filmmaker, the son is being bullied, and the daughter is a prostitute. The outsider helps them to find redemption.
A banker convicted of uxoricide forms a friendship over a quarter century with a hardened convict, while maintaining his innocence and trying to remain hopeful through simple compassion.