19岁少年安德鲁（迈尔斯·特勒 Miles Teller 饰）成长在单亲家庭，一心想成为顶级爵士乐鼓手。某晚他在学校练习时被魔鬼导师弗莱彻（J·K·西蒙斯 J.K. Simmons 饰）相中，进入正规乐队，同时也开始为追求完美付出代价。安德鲁越是刻苦练习，与外部世界越是隔膜。唯一理解他的是弗莱彻，但后者的暴躁与喜怒无常扭曲了这段师生关系，更让安德鲁耳濡目染，连带自身的性格亦发生变化。最后当安德鲁终于登上纽约音乐厅的舞台，他才惊恐的发现原来弗莱彻一直等着将他打入尘埃......
《爆裂鼓手》讲述一名少年在严师督教下，以非常规手段挑战自己的极限、追逐爵士乐鼓手梦的热血故事。主人公热爱打鼓，但过度的投入让他失去对音乐的初衷，进而演变为生命的负荷以及师徒间近乎疯魔的对决。电影不只有音乐人的苦痛，更让人看到传统励志背后的残酷真相。 《爆裂鼓手》获得第30届圣丹斯电影节最高荣誉评审团奖。

一部神秘機器出現，聲稱可道出每位居民的真正潛能，從此改寫小鎮的命運。居民很快就開始轉工、反思關係、質疑長期以來的理念，這一切都是為了追求更美好的將來。

Act I: 1959

Grieving parents Bev and Russ are planning to sell their home in the white middle-class Chicago neighborhood of Clybourne Park. They receive a visit from their local clergyman, as well as a neighbor and his deaf, pregnant wife; the neighbor informs them that the family buying the house is black, and pleads with the couple to back out of the deal, for fear that area property values will fall if black residents move in. It becomes apparent that the black family moving in are the Youngers, the protagonists of A Raisin in the Sun , and the neighbor, Karl, is Karl Lindner, the minor character from that play who attempts to bribe the Youngers into abandoning their plans to move into the neighborhood. As arguments ensue about the potential problems of integrating the neighborhood, both couples awkwardly call on Russ and Bev's black housekeeper and her husband to express their opposing views. Russ finally snaps and throws everyone out of the house, saying he no longer cares about his neighbors after their callousness and cruelty to his son Kenneth when he returned home from the Korean War . Kenneth later committed suicide on the upper floor of their home.
Act II: 2009

Set in the same home as Act I, the same actors reappear playing different characters. In the intervening fifty years, Clybourne Park has become an all-black neighborhood, which is now gentrifying . A white couple seeking to buy and replace the house are being forced to negotiate with local housing regulations with a black couple representing a neighborhood organization. The white couple's lawyer, the daughter of the neighbor and his deaf wife, mentions that her family moved out of the neighborhood around the time of her birth; the black wife is a relative of the family who bought the home from Bev and Russ. The discussion of housing codes soon degenerates into one of racial issues, revealing resentments from both parties. While this is happening, a workman finds an old trunk that Russ has buried in the back yard, with some of the things of their son, including his final letter.

In a short coda, we see Bev back in 1959, catching her son awake late at night (and probably writing his suicide note), she says, naively, "I really believe things are about to change for the better."