Germany today. During project week, high school teacher Rainer Wenger (Jürgen Vogel) comes up with an experiment in order to explain to his students how totalitarian governments work. A role-playing game with tragic results begins. Within a few days, what began with harmless notions like discipline and community builds into a real movement: THE WAVE. By the third day, the students start ostracizing and threatening others.
When the conflict finally erupts into violence at an intramural water polo game, the teacher decides to break off the experiment. But it's too late. THE WAVE is out of control...

I have always been very interested in this subject: The question of whether fascism could happen again, how the fascist system works, how people can be led astray.
As a young man I often asked myself how I would have behaved in that situation. In THE WAVE, the question is "How could we be led astray today? How could fascism work? Would it be possible today? Could that kind of thing happen again, at a normal German school, here and now?"