Nantucket. In 1850, this little island off the east coast of the United States is the capital of American whaling. Sailors, traders, harpooners – they all hope to make big money on land or sea – or at least to have big adventures. One of them is Ishmael (Charlie Cox), who wanders through the bustling harbour in search of a whaling boat to take him out to sea. Together with a runaway slave Pip (Daniel Gordon) and a fear-inspiring Polynesian harpooner Queequeg (Raoul Trujillo), he signs on as a crewmember of The Pequod.

The commander of The Pequod is the charismatic, some might say despotic, Captain Ahab (William Hurt). An experienced seaman and whale hunter, he lost his leg several years earlier in a struggle with the gigantic white sperm whale known as Moby Dick. Now he is obsessed with exacting revenge on the legendary creature. Neither his long-suffering wife (Gillian Anderson) nor his crew suspect the true extent of his obsessive thirst for vengeance. Only Starbuck (Ethan Hawke), the First Mate of The Pequod, a religious and level-headed man, fears that this journey will not be a regular whale-catching expedition ...

On deck, Ahab eventually tells his crew what the true goal of their voyage is: the death of Moby Dick. Ishmael, now friends with the harpooner Queequeg, is fascinated by his captain’s charisma, willpower and determination. He casts Queequeg’s dark premonitions to the winds. Starbuck, however, keeps reminding them of the blind vindictiveness of Ahab, whose madness and manipulative tactics could mean death for the seamen.

The long and arduous journey across the Atlantic takes The Pequod around the Cape of Good Hope and to the South China Sea. The crew members are subjected to hunger and thirst, to the terrifying stillness of the doldrums and to naked fear – yet Ahab unswervingly pursues his goal: the hunt for Moby Dick. When the harpooners of The Pequod kill one of the white whale’s companions, the seamen witness the anger and power of their adversary. But their first encounter with Moby Dick is only a foretaste of the apocalyptic struggle between man and beast that is about to take place on the high seas, in which not only Ahab and the whale will meet their fates...