Teenagers living in small-town Oregon take a boat trip for a birthday celebration. When they get an idea to play a mean trick on the town bully, it suddenly goes too far. Soon they're forced to deal with the unexpected consequences of their actions.

The Herlihys are a working class family from Chicago whose three children take wildly divergent paths: Brian joins the Marines right out of High School and goes to Vietnam, Michael becomes involved in the civil rights movement and after campaigning for Bobby Kennedy and Eugene McCarthy becomes involved in radical politics, and Katie gets pregnant, moves to San Francisco and joins a hippie commune. Meanwhile, the Taylors are an African-American family living in the deep South. When Willie Taylor, a minister and civil rights organizer, is shot to death, his son Emmet moves to the city and eventually joins the Black Panthers, serving as a bodyguard for Fred Hampton.

Charley Thompson, a teenager living with his single father, gets a summer job working for horse trainer Del Montgomery. Bonding with an aging racehorse named Lean on Pete, Charley is horrified to learn he is bound for slaughter, and so he steals the horse, and the duo embark on an odyssey across the new American frontier.

A young man moves to a new town after experiencing a tragedy and becomes involved with a gang of Satan-worshipping teens who believe they have supernatural powers. But by the time he realises he’s in too deep, it may be too late to escape.

The frozen body of a prehistoric, but super-advanced, human leads scientists to start covert DNA experiments for the development of a new race of super beings.

Simon is an intelligent and privileged young man whose family expects him to become a Princeton graduate. Crying out for attention from his reserved and cool hearted family, Simon commits numerous petty crimes and is soon sent away to boarding school where he befriends a "Deadhead," adopts the "hippie" lifestyle and dabbles in many drugs in his search for acceptance.

A reporter sent to cover a murder trial discovers a web of deceit stemming from a torrid affair.

Teenage Zoe Tyler suffers from manic-depression. With a musician father who is never around life seems hard. Zoe eventually lands up in a psychiatric ward for treatment. There she meets Jake, an unstable teenager with an anger problem. They fall in love and are soon separated by their doctors, psychiatrists and parents. Fuming, Jake suddenly sees a chance for escape and takes Zoe with him, along with a few other patients. After a trip around the country, Jake and Zoe must face up to their illness and their crime.