At a boarding school in 1900s Austria, cruel bullies Beineberg and Reiting go to great lengths to embarrass, abuse and dehumanize their pathetic classmate, Basini. The lowly Basini shows no opposition to his position as the object of constant brutality, and neither does Töerless, a perceptive yet detached friend of the bullies. But as Töerless watches idly, the tormentors begin to turn the whole school violently against Basini.

In the presence of director Volker Schlöndorff