Free spirited ex-G.I. and unemployed construction worker Homer Smith stops at a remote farm in the Arizona desert to get water when his car overheats. The farm is being worked by a group of German refugee Catholic nuns, headed by the strict Mother Maria, who believes that Homer has been sent by God to build a much-needed church in the desert.

Karen Silkwood becomes contaminated with plutonium at her job, voices her protest at the indifference and denial of her company, and becomes a threat to the entire nuclear industry and the government agencies that monitor it. Based on a true story.