A bucolic country town gets turned upside down when Jeffrey Beaumont (Kyle MacLachlan) returns home to visit his ailing father. In a field near his home, he finds a detached human ear and begins to raise questions around the town. He commissions the town's police detective (George Dickerson) for help, but soon decides he must do some investigating himself. With the detective's daughter, Sandy (Laura Dern), Jeffrey dives head-first into the mystery of the found ear and the secrets of his hometown. The two begin to suspect a local woman, Dorothy Vallens (Isabella Rossellini), who has a mysterious relationship with Frank Booth (Dennis Hopper). Neither Frank nor Dorothy can be trusted and become deeply entangled in Jeffrey's plight to uncover the truth.