After being discredited as a coward, a 19th century seaman lives for only one purpose: to redeem himself.

A fisherman and a rising lawyer who grew up together as brothers fall in love with the same woman.

Members of the American Federation of Labor, the Atlantic & Gulf Coast District of the Seafarers International Union commissioned budding filmmaker and magazine photographer Stanley Kubrick to direct this half-hour documentary. The director's first film in color, it is more of an industrial film than a documentary, it served as a promotional tool to recruit sailors to the union.

Terje Vigen, a sailor, suffers the loss of his family through the inflexibility of another man. Years later, when his enemy's family finds itself dependent on his benevolence, Terje must decide whether to avenge himself.

A fishing-boat captain's bride eyes his first mate at sea.

Prequel to the 2003 film "Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World" that adapts the first book in the Aubrey–Maturin series by Patrick O'Brian released in 1969 and titled "Master and Commander": Jack Aubrey is elated to be given his first appointment as commander: the fourteen-gun ship HMS Sophie. Aubrey and a brilliant but down-on-his-luck physician, Stephen Maturin, strike up an unlikely rapport. He invites Maturin to join his crew as the Sophie’s surgeon.