Nick Dunne (Ben Affleck), a small town guy who made good in the big city as a magazine writer blames the recession and the loss of his job for the decline of his marriage to his intellectually superior wife Amy (Rosamund Pike) with a substantial trust fund. Questions of his motives and character begin to arise after his wife's disappearance on the morning of their fifth anniversary. As the search for his missing wife plays out over the ensuing days, guilty suspicions are fueled into a national frenzy by the media circus camped outside his house. Is this idyllic, everyman truly capable of murdering his wife?