A story of love amid depression and the ruins of the US Civil War, Cold Mountain is the account of a wounded confederate soldier's journey home.

Inman walks away from the front to be reunited with his sweetheart, Ada. His return through the devastated landscape of the Old South is woven into Ada's struggle to revive her father's farm with the help of a young drifter named Ruby. As their long-separated lives begin to converge at the close of the war, Inman and Ada confront a vastly transformed world.