In an attempt to demonstrate what life is like under a dictatorship a high school teacher comes up with an experiment to explain to his students how totalitarian governments work. Within a few days, what began with harmless notions like discipline and community, builds into a real movement: ‘The Wave'. As the students' boundaries are pushed things begin to spiral out of control and this newly found cult starts to take on a life of its own, with disturbing and tragic results. Based on a real-life experiment that took place in a Californian high school, 'The Wave' is an immensely powerful yet understated observation of the terrifyingly thin veneer that is contemporary social morality.