冷酷、孤僻的城市警察吉姆·威尔逊粗暴对待了太多的嫌疑人，并被派往州北部帮助调查冬季乡村一名年轻女孩的谋杀案。在那里，他遇到了玛丽·马尔登，他觉得她很有吸引力，也很独立。然而，玛丽的哥哥是这起谋杀案的主要嫌疑人。玛丽自己也是盲人。

故事述说在美国南方，庄稼汉特克·萨姆认为庄稼汉理所当然的在种地，在自己的地里生活，更自由，更像男子汉。所以他租了块闲置三年的农地，不料一场暴雨袭击了他的农地，全部收获毁于一旦。但萨姆还是投入新的劳动，他是永远不会离开土地的。在导演处理上，他用秋、冬、春、夏、秋五个段落来叙述故事，既简明又富于表现力。这部影片的电影配乐也是非常出色的，取得很好的剧情效果，整个影片音乐用得不多，却恰到好处。

Rural Mississippi in the 1940s: Lucas Beauchamp, a local black man with a reputation of not kowtowing to whites, is found standing over the body of a dead white man, holding a pistol that has recently been fired. Quickly arrested for murder and jailed, Beauchamp insists he's innocent and asks the town's most prominent lawyer, Gavin Stevens, to defend him, but Stevens refuses. When a local boy whom Beauchamp has helped in the past and who believes him to be innocent hears talk of a mob taking Beauchamp out of jail and lynching him, he pleads with Stevens to defend Beauchamp at trial and prove his innocence.