In the 1960s, African-American Elwood Curtis is sent to the Nickel Academy after he is falsely accused of a crime. While there, he meets a boy named Turner, and the two form a close friendship as they try to survive the horrors of the school and its corrupt administrators. Decades later, an investigation takes place after the academy's walls are found to have hidden a history of atrocities, including events that led to bodies being buried on the premises.