英国贵族小姐萨拉·阿什莉（妮可·基德曼 Nicole Kidman 饰）孤身飞跃重洋打算说服丈夫卖掉牧澳洲场重返英伦。在澳大利亚北部港口城市达尔文，萨拉相遇牧牛者卓（休·杰克曼 Hugh Jackman 饰）。卓开车带萨拉长途跋涉前往牧场，没曾想只见到萨拉新亡丈夫的尸体。悲痛的萨拉本欲迅速卖掉牧场，可又为了保护初谋面的土著小孩诺拉（布兰登·沃特斯 Brandon Walters 饰）与地头蛇的农场经理尼尔·弗莱彻（大卫·温汉姆 David Wenham 饰）闹翻。一千五百头公牛要赶去达尔文港装船，萨拉只好求卓帮忙。牧牛之旅让萨拉与卓情定澳大利亚。婚后二人耳鬓厮磨不久，卓的流浪个性使其离开萨拉继续牧牛；而本该进行澳洲土著成人出走礼的诺拉则与其他混血儿童一起被抓入教士岛，祖父“乔治王”（大卫·盖尔菲利 David Gulpilil 饰）也入狱。与此同时二战爆发，日军轰炸达尔文港，河山破碎，萨拉的家庭危机还能否解决？In northern Australia at the beginning of World War II, an English aristocrat inherits a cattle station the size of Maryland. When English cattle barons plot to take her land, she reluctantly joins forces with a rough-hewn stock-man to drive 2,000 head of cattle across hundreds of miles of the country's most unforgiving land, only to still face the bombing of Darwin, Australia, by the Japanese forces that had attacked Pearl Harbor only months earlier.