At the outbreak of World War II an English aristocrat (Nicole Kidman) inherits a Northern Territory station in Australia’s outback. When cattle barons plot to take her land, she reluctantly joins forces with a rough-hewn cattle driver (Hugh Jackman) to drive two thousand head of cattle across the country's most unforgiving landscape, only to face the bombing of Darwin by Japanese forces.
A young poet in 1899 defies his father by joining in the bohemian lifestyle and moving to Montmartre, where he falls in love with the most famous courtesan in Paris. Their love affair is doomed.