Eighteen years ago, everyone in the remote Maine town of Little Tall Island accused Dolores Claiborne of murdering her abusive husband in cold blood. Now in 1995 her notoriously difficult employer lies dead and a witness finds Dolores standing over the body. The only one who can save Dolores from an over zealous detective, who failed to prove her guilt in the death of her husband, is her estranged daughter, Selena, a successful Manhattan magazine writer, who ran away ten years prior. And the only thing that stands between Dolores' guilt and innocence is the evil secret that made Selena run.