In a dark futuristic world, literature, reading, and independent thought have been outlawed. The government has gone so far as to employ a special league of firemen to burn all books on sight. But when one otherwise obedient fireman (Oskar Werner) meets an intriguing revolutionary (Julie Christie), she provokes him to question the legitimacy of his actions. Tensions mount when he blatantly transgresses the very laws he's employed to enforce, and his terrified wife becomes an informant. Because the subject of censorship seems to be perpetually contemporary, one can argue that the significant social impact of FAHRENHEIT 451 will forever be current. François Truffaut's film is based on the best-selling novel by Ray Bradbury.