Adapted from Dickens's classic novel, the orphan Oliver Twist is befriended by the pickpocketing Artful Dodger after escaping a brutal orphanage and a cruel "foster parent". He is recruited into a gang of boy thieves led by Fagin. The villainous Bill Sikes casts his long shadow over Oliver and his friends, but the young orphan is still able to find loving care in the most desperate of circumstances.