The Emperor's Club

William Hundert (Kevin Kline) is a passionate and principled Classics professor who is enthusiastic about the start of the school year. His class turns out to be a strict yet inspiring lesson for the new students arriving at St. Benedict's Academy. It is here we are introduced to the party-minded Louis Masoudi (Jesse Eisenberg), the introverted Martin Blythe (Paul Dano), and the studious Deepak Mehta (Rishi Mehta), all of whom are incredibly intelligent. He inspires all of them to study hard in order to become one of the three contestants for The Emperor's Club and be crowned "Mr. Julius Caesar", a competition which pits the top three students of his class in a contest where they will be asked questions regarding the Classics. Blythe also mentions proudly that his father was once a "Mr. Julius Caesar", as it is a prestigious title.

Hundert quickly gains the respect of his class and the school year starts very orderly. However Hundert finds his tightly-controlled world shaken and inexorably altered when a new student, Sedgewick Bell (Emile Hirsch), walks into his classroom. Sedgewick Bell is the cocky son of a senior senator who possesses none of Hundert's principles. Initially, a fierce battle of wills takes place between Hundert and Bell. Bell's rebellious nature quickly makes him the interest of the class, as he not only is willing to talk back against Hundert, he also freely shares pornographic material and is willing to play hooky and travel to a nearby prep school for girls. Despite Blythe's constant pleas to not break rules, Masoudi and even studious Mehta find themselves enjoying their rebellious tendencies with Bell. Despite this, Hundert is able to humiliate Bell when he asks the class to list, in chronological order, all the Roman emperors. All the other students comply in perfect unison, effectively embarrassing Bell who has not studied the course material. Hundert also makes a trip to Washington, D.C. to meet with Bell's father, the senior Senator from West Virginia. Bell's father is clearly uninterested in his son's character development while at St. Benedict's, giving Hundert some insight into the younger Bell's prior upbringing. Hundert returns to St. Benedict's and finds that Sedgewick Bell has received a phone call from his father, the Senator, who reprimanded him for wasting his time (but not for performing poorly in class). Hundert and Sedgewick begin to develop a close student-teacher relationship as Hundert tries to become a mentor-figure to Bell in order to help change him into a better man. Bell proves to be a bright student and eventually his grades improve enormously. Bell eventually finishes in the top three in Hundert's competition that precedes the Emperor's Club contest, along with fellow classmates Masoudi and Mehta. Bell had actually earned his position at fourth place, until Hundert privately decided to raise his grade on the final essay after reviewing it again, thus moving him above Blythe. Hundert is caught between celebrating Bell's newfound success and feeling guilty when he sees a dejected Blythe sitting all by himself under a tree. This is especially important as it is a break from Hundert's stance on integrity.

The entire school watches the competition, as the three contestants are quizzed by Hundert. After many questions, the confident Masoudi is the first to make a mistake and he sits down. As the competition narrows down to Mehta and Bell, Hundert becomes increasingly suspicious of Bell raising his toga to his head to think. He then asks Bell a question not in the books: "Who was Hamilcar Barca?", knowing full well that the answer would not be on any materials used to cheat (It was not even in the curriculum) but knowing that Mehta would be able to answer it due to his extracurricular studies. Bell is stumped and Mehta is crowned Julius Caesar of The Emperor's Club. Afterwards, Bell openly admits to Hundert what Hundert had suspected earlier: that Bell cheated by placing notecards on the inside of his toga sleeve. It is revealed in the end, Bell couldn't take the pressure of losing, and like his father, tried everything he could to win it easily. Although Hundert does not reveal this information to anyone else, the trust he once had with Bell is broken. The next couple of scenes show the students graduating to higher grades before finally leaving St. Benedict's Academy. During this time, Hundert regrets not being able to influence Bell more.

Twenty-five years later, Hundert is denied in his bid to become headmaster of the school by the board who feel he doesn't have the ability to drum up financial donations for the school and promptly retires. Later he receives an invitation for a class reunion and a chance to meet up with his students at an event staged by, surprisingly, Bell, who is now quite successful. Once reunited with his students, he is impressed that every one of his students from that fateful class had done well since their days at St. Bendict's and all had successful careers. It is also revealed that Hundert eventually would become headmaster of the school thanks to Bell who has donated money to the school under the circumstances that Hundert would host a contest once more in a rematch against fellow alumni Masoudi and Mehta for the title of "Julius Caesar." Before the match Bell talks to Hundert about how his influence had really changed his life and