[1] In the fall of 1954, the Kurtzmans, a Jewish family, live in Forest Park, a suburban neighborhood in northwest Baltimore.

Van, the older son, attends the University of Baltimore, and Ben is in his senior year in high school.

On Halloween, Ben dresses up as Adolf Hitler, which shocks his parents greatly, and he is forbidden to go in public wearing the costume.

A fight between one of Van's friends and a local erupts over his bigoted comments and Trey, one of the partygoers, drunkenly crashes his car into the house.

They begin to be intimate, but the drunk Dubbie acts erratic, bursts into tears, and vomits in the toilet, and Van realizes she is emotionally disturbed and doesn't return his feelings.

After a popular new burlesque performer takes her act too far, Nate and his associates from the nightclub are charged and booked with prostitution and racketeering.

Ben and his two friends tear down the segregation notice from the pool entrance and enter, remove their shirts to show all the patrons the letters "J-E-W" written on their chests, and defiantly sit enjoying their last summer before college.

The website's critical consensus reads, "A moving film with moments of humor, Liberty Heights succeeds in capturing the feel of the 1950s with great performances and sensitive direction.

"[2] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 75 out of 100, based on 31 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

[3] Two Liberty Heights soundtracks were released on January 4, 2000: one of the score by Andrea Morricone and one of the music appearing in the film.