Titanic Plot

In 1996, treasure hunter Brock Lovett and his team explore the wreck of RMS Titanic, searching for a diamond necklace called the Heart of the Ocean. They recover Caledon "Cal" Hockley's safe, believing the necklace to be inside, but instead find a sketch of a nude woman wearing it, dated April 14, 1912, the night the Titanic hit the iceberg. An elderly woman named Rose Dawson Calvert, hearing about the drawing, calls Lovett and claims that she is the woman depicted and she and her granddaughter, Lizzy Calvert, visit him and his team on his salvage ship. Asked if she knows the whereabouts of the necklace, Rose recalls her time aboard the Titanic, revealing that she is Rose DeWitt Bukater, a passenger believed to have died in the sinking.

In 1912, 17-year-old first class passenger Rose boards the ship in Southampton with her fiancé Cal, the son of a Pittsburgh steel tycoon, and her mother, Ruth DeWitt Bukater. Ruth stresses the importance of Rose's engagement, as the marriage will solve the DeWitt Bukaters' secret financial problems. Distraught by her engagement, Rose considers suicide by jumping off the ship's stern. A drifter and artist named Jack Dawson stops her. Discovered with Jack on the stern, Rose tells Cal that she was looking over the ship's edge in curiosity and that Jack saved her from falling. At Rose's insistence, Cal invites Jack to dinner the following night to show his appreciation. Jack and Rose develop a tentative friendship, though Cal and Ruth are wary of the young third-class man. Following the first-class dinner that night, Rose secretly joins Jack at a party in the ship's third-class quarter.

Forbidden to see Jack by Cal and Ruth, Rose attempts to rebuff Jack's continuing advances. She soon realizes, though, that she prefers him over Cal, and meets him at the bow of the ship during what turns out to be the Titanic's final moments of daylight. They go to Rose's stateroom and she asks Jack to sketch her nude wearing the Heart of the Ocean, Cal's engagement present. Afterward, the two evade Cal's bodyguard, and make love in the ship's cargo hold. Going afterwards to the ship's forward well deck, they witness the ship's collision with an iceberg and overhear the ship's officers and designer outline its seriousness. Rose tells Jack that they should warn her mother and Cal.

Cal discovers Jack's drawing and a mocking note from Rose in his safe along with the necklace. Furious, he has his bodyguard slip the necklace into Jack's coat pocket. Accused of stealing it, Jack is arrested, taken down to the Master-at-arms's office and handcuffed to a pipe. Cal puts the necklace in his coat. Rose runs away from Cal and her mother (who has boarded a lifeboat) and releases Jack. The ship then starts to launch fireworks in order to attract any nearby ships.

Once Jack and Rose reach the deck, Cal and Jack persuade