Giuseppe Tornatore traces three generations of a Sicilian family in in the Sicilian town of Bagheria (known as Baarìa in the local Sicilian dialect), from the 1930s to the 1980s, to tell the story of the loves, dreams and delusions of an unusual community.
During a sunny Sicilian summer Tanino has a sweet and tender story with Sally, a young American tourist. But when summer is over, Sally flies back to the States forgetting Tanino and her camera. He instead cannot forget the girl and he decides to go to the States with the excuse of bringing back...
6th January 1975, in an infant nursery in Palermo (Italy), for a mysterious reason, a male nurse exchanges the labels of baby number 7 and 8. Thirty-one years later Tommaso (7) and Daniele (8) meet each other by accident.
Three houses, three boys, the same goal: to win the competition for a position as an employee in the legal office of the city. Federico, a law graduate, but only to please his father counsellor, hopes for his recommendation; Fabrizio, lawyer on paper but not practicing in life, tries to overcome...
As a British ornithologist arrives in Sicily to research the climate change effects on migration, he witnesses a series of dramatic events. Relinquishing his role of a detached observer will be more challenging than it seems.