Plot

The story of the 1912 sinking of the largest luxury liner ever built, the tragedy that befell over two thousand of the rich and famous as well as of the poor and unknown passengers aboard the doomed ship.

The story of R.M.S. Titanic, the famous luxury liner that claimed to be unsinkable. The plot focuses on the romances of two couples upon the doomed ship's maiden voyage. Isabella Paradine (Catherine Zeta-Jones) is a wealthy woman mourning the loss of her aunt, who reignites a romance with former flame Wynn Park (Peter Gallagher). Meanwhile, a charming ne'er-do-well named Jamie Perse (Mike Doyle) steals a ticket for the ship, and falls for a sweet innocent Irish girl on board. But their romance is threatened by the nefarious Simon Doonan (Tim Curry), who has discovered about the ticket and makes Jamie his unwilling accomplice, as well as having sinister plans for the girl. The passengers and crew race against time to escape the Titanic and decide who will go into the lifeboats that can only hold more than half of the ship's people before they face almost certain death.—Anonymous

Everyone thought R.M.S. Titanic was the safest ship in the world - a leading shipbuilding journal proclaimed her "unsinkable" because of its watertight compartment design. On her maiden voyage from England to New York City, she collided with an iceberg in the middle of the North Atlantic. The much-publicized "unsinkable" watertight compartment design was never designed to cope with such extensive damage, and the "unsinkable" ship begins to go down. Even worse, more than half of the two thousand two hundred plus passengers and crew on-board are already doomed, as the Titanic is only carrying lifeboats for about one thousand two hundred. This is the frightening story of the passengers and crew's struggles to stay alive. Who will escape the Titanic before it goes nearly two miles to the ocean bottom, and survive the panic, as well as the twenty-eight-degree water?—Derek O'Cain

Isabella Paradine is traveling on the Titanic to join her husband after attending her aunt's funeral in the United Kingdom. On the ship's maiden voyage, she meets Wynn Park, a self-made man and her former lover. She falls in love with him again, and after a brief affair, she sends her husband a wireless saying they cannot be together anymore (despite their daughter). When the Titanic begins sinking, Isabella reluctantly leaves Wynn when he forces her to board a lifeboat. As the lifeboat is lowered, Isabella confesses a long kept secret that her daughter Claire is actually Wynn's. Aboard the RMS Carpathia, she is grief-stricken when she finds Wynn's lifeless body on deck, having died of hypothermia, but luckily, when the Carpathia reaches New York City, she is reunited with her family who are blissfully unaware of Isabella's tryst because the telegram was never sent out on account of the sinking.

Also in first class is the Allison family, a family traveling on the Titanic, returning home to Montreal with their two small children and new nurse, Alice Cleaver. They gradually become wary and suspicious of her hysterical and neurotic behavior. Later on, a fellow maid asks her is she had seen her in Cairo the previous month, but soon realizes that she remembers her from the highly publicized trial where Alice was accused of throwing her baby off a train. Shortly after, the Titanic collides with an iceberg, and Captain Edward Smith orders an emergency evacuation. When the ship begins sinking, Alice panics and quickly boards a lifeboat with Trevor, the Allisons' infant son. The parents with their small daughter are unaware that the baby is safe and refuse to leave the ship without him, which cost them their lives.

In third class, a young vagrant named Jamie Perse steals a ticket to get on board. He manages to become friends with one of the crewmen, Simon Doonan, who is also a robber, but later is revealed to be a much more violent and callous criminal than Jamie. The young man falls in love with Aase Ludvigsen, a recent Christian convert and missionary. On the night of the sinking, Aase is brutally raped and beaten by Doonan, causing her to lose her faith and will to live, but Jamie manages to get her into Isabella's lifeboat. Without their knowledge, Doonan also sneaks aboard the same boat, disguised as an elderly woman. After the ship sinks, Aase is removed from the lifeboat after she recognizes him, and he attempts to hold the passengers in the boat hostage at gunpoint, but Officer Harold Lowe, who is in charge of the boat, bashes Doonan in the head with an oar, snapping his neck and killing him. Jamie himself manages to survive when he falls into one of the last boats by chance before the Titanic sinks. Afterwards, he atones for his past life after he finds Aase in the makeshift hospital aboard the Carpathia. Upon arriving in New York City, the two young lovers plan a begin a new life together.