Blanche DuBois, a fading Southern belle who has lost the family plantation, Belle Reve, comes to stay with her sister Stella in a cramped two-room flat in New Orleans's French Quarter. Her airs and evasions grate on Stella's husband, Stanley Kowalski, a blunt, physical working man who sets out to dig up her past, while Blanche pins her hopes on his gentler friend Mitch.