Paris, Texas (1984). When a dehydrated man collapses in an old gas station in the middle of a Texas desert, a doctor is called to help save him. The doctor recovers some of his personal records and contacts his brother to pick him up. The man had been missing for four years, and his brother and step-sister had been taking care of his kid while his wife abandoned the family after he went missing. The kid and his long-lost father set out on a journey to find the mother/wife after given clues to where she might be working. As the film unfolds, so does the full dramatic story of what exactly happened to him and his wife before the both of them broke family ties and went missing.