Written by Norman Mailer from his own novel, with which he won the Pulitzer Prize in 1980, it tells the true story of Gary Gilmore (Tommy Lee Jones) who won an Emmy for his performance. Gary was an American prisoner convicted of armed robbery who requested that he be sentenced to death and who made no effort to revoke the sentence. The film spans the last nine months of his life, after his release in 1976. Gary meets a young divorcee, Nicole Baker (Rosanna Arquette), with whom he begins a romantic relationship and strives to lead an honest life. However, he ends up involved in a robbery in which two people are killed.