Cameron James is a new student at Padua High School, where he immediately falls in love with the beautiful Bianca Stratford. When he tells his new friend, Michael Eckman, about his crush, Michael informs Cameron that the Stratford sisters are notorious for not being allowed to date. Bianca's older sister, Katarina (Kat) Stratford, is a rebellious and argumentative feminist whom most people at the school describe as a "heinous bitch."
Cameron poses as a French tutor to get closer to Bianca, who tells Cameron that she is only allowed to date once Kat starts dating. Cameron and Michael hatch a plan to pay somebody to take out Kat so that Cameron can take out Bianca. They decide on Patrick Verona, an older, intimidating, and mysterious senior who was rumored to have served time in prison. In order to get the money to pay Patrick, Cameron and Michael convince the affluent and self-absorbed school pretty boy, Joey Donner, that he can take out Bianca if he gives them the money for their plan.
With the plan in motion, Patrick attempts to flirt with Kat but is repeatedly rejected. At a raucous party that everyone attends, Bianca spends the entire night with Joey, disappointing Cameron. Meanwhile, Kat gets drunk and Patrick drives her home. In the car, Kat tries to kiss Patrick but he does not allow it, and she storms off. Meanwhile, Bianca gets a ride home from Cameron after realizing how self-involved Joey is, and the two kiss in the car when he drops her off.
After realizing that he embarrassed Kat by not kissing her, Patrick puts on an equally embarrassing performance on the soccer field that lands him in detention. Kat sneaks him out of detention by flashing the teacher, and the two spend the afternoon together. Patrick pressures Kat to go to the prom with him, but she becomes suspicious of his persistence and refuses.
Bianca, frustrated that Cameron has not asked her to prom, agrees to go with Joey instead. But her father will not allow her to go to prom unless Kat does. The sisters argue, and Kat reveals to Bianca that as a freshman, she succumbed to pressure from Joey and had sex with him. After Joey dumped her, Kat vowed never to give into peer pressure again. She agrees to go to the prom with Patrick so that Bianca can go to the prom with Cameron.
At prom, Joey is frustrated that Bianca chose Cameron over him, and he confronts Patrick about their arrangement. Kat overhears, and realizing that Patrick was bribed to date her, leaves heartbroken. Joey then punches Cameron, but is in turn beaten up by Bianca.
Kat and Bianca make up, and Bianca and Cameron begin dating. Their father tells Kat that he will allow her to attend her dream school, Sarah Lawrence College, which is all the way across the country. In school, for an English assignment in which students had to write their own Shakespearean sonnet, Kat reads aloud a poem entitled "10 Things I Hate About You." The poem reveals that she still loves Patrick. After school, Kat finds a brand new guitar in the front seat of her car, which Patrick purchased with the money Joey gave him to date her. She and Patrick make up with a kiss.
