As the era of American farming comes to an end, it proves more difficult than expected for one young man to convince an old woman that she should leave the land for more fruitful prospects.

When a young man leaves his home in Kansas City to find a career, he struggles to settle down in one spot. He wanders, impoverished, across the western United States and finds a transcendent understanding of the human condition.

On the Great Plains, an aging farmer and his wife struggle to sell their produce amid an increase in frozen food manufacturing. The farmer must figure out how to avoid the fate of his neighbors, who were pushed out of business and into welfare dependence.

Amidst the Wyoming dust bowl and Great Depression, the son of an overprotective mother leaves to explore the world. However, when he returns injured and scarred, rumors spread that end in tragedy for the boy.

A poor white sharecropper and his Cherokee wife must decide if they will allow their youngest son to leave their home with a wealthy lawyer and become a player for the town's football team.

After a death in the family, a son travels with his father to his rural Mexican hometown to settle the estate. The town is littered with all the abandoned houses, roads, and people left behind that didn't migrate to big cities; a fate which his father fears will be his if he does not immigrate to California like his brother.

A man leaves his family in NYC to look for a job out West. During the trip, he helps an injured young boy, sleeps with a waitress, and considers leaving his family for good.

When a mother upends her life and moves to a newly formed settlement with her family in Montana, she is forced to rethink her values and comfort zone.

Willie Proudfit sits on his front porch one night and reminisces on his time living a wild and rowdy life out West on the plains, side by side with Native people. After a near-death experience, he comes to recognize the importance of settling down in a place you can call home, with the people you love.

In a town so small it can hardly be called a town, a black woman serves a rich white family until a series of horrific events causes the single joy in her life to vanish.