Dolores Claiborne (Kathy Bates) has been the caregiver and housekeeper for an old woman in a small town. Because the woman had no heirs, she named Dolores as beneficiary. But when she dies of trauma to the head, Dolores is under suspicion and about to be booked for murder. Dolores' estranged daughter Selena (Jennifer Jason Leigh) comes back home to help her mother. As she tries to restore a relationship with her mother and understand the details of how the woman died, there are painful parallels to Selena's own childhood and the death of her father. Selena uses her skills as a magazine reporter to uncover clues about both deaths and begins to wonder if her mother is a murderer who has struck again.