Dolores Claiborne (Kathy Bates) was accused of killing her abusive husband twenty years ago, but the court's findings were inconclusive and she was allowed to walk free. Now she has been accused of killing her employer, Vera Donovan (Judy Parfitt), and this time there is a witness who can place her at the scene of the crime. Things look bad for Dolores, the memory of the first murder seemingly confirming her guilt in the second. But when her daughter Selena (Jennifer Jason Leigh), a successful Manhattan magazine writer, returns to cover the story, the truth about the family's past gradually comes to light. Based on Stephen King's bestseller.