Stanley Yelnats (SHIA LaBEOUF) is a normal teenager living in an abnormal household. Not only does his grandfather (NATE DAVIS) believe that generations of males in their family have been living under the curse of a long-dead fortune teller, Madame Zeroni (EARTHA KITT), but his inventor father (HENRY WINKLER) is also obsessed with finding a cure for sneaker odor, much to the chagrin of Stanley's mother (SIOBHAN FALLON HOGAN).
One day, Stanley is wrongly accused of stealing a pair of tennis shoes that baseball star Clyde "Sweet Feet" Livingston (RICK FOX) donated to charity. Rather than sentencing him to jail, a judge orders him to spend 18 months at Camp Greenlake, somewhere in a remote area of Texas.
Rather than there being a lake, however, Stanley finds a barren labor camp, surrounded by hundreds if not thousands of five-by-five, hand-dug holes. Run by the rarely seen Warden (SIGOURNEY WEAVER) and her two minions, Mr. Sir (JON VOIGHT) and Pedanski (TIM BLAKE NELSON), the camp's "inmates" must dig one such hole each and every day.
Among them are Armpit (BRYON COTTON) and X-Ray (BRENDEN JEFFERSON), the unofficial leaders of the boys, as well as Zig Zag (MAX KASCH), Squid (JAKE M. SMITH) and Zero (KHLEO THOMAS). Everyone, and especially Pedanski, think that something is wrong with the diminutive Zero since he never talks despite being the best hole digger among the bunch.
Stanley tries to fit in with the others, eventually befriends Zero, and contemplates whether the male Yelnats are indeed cursed. As he does so, we see flashbacks of his various ancestors as they came into contact with the likes of Madame Zeroni, "Kissing" Kate Barlow (PATRICIA ARQUETTE) and
Sam (DULÉ HILL).
With Stanley trying to deal with his adult captors and figure out what they're digging for, everything slowly starts to fit together and make sense regarding that as well as everyone's motives.