A curious and adventurous young woman eager to explore the world outside of England, Gertrude Bell (Nicole Kidman) goes to the British embassy in Tehran where she quickly falls in love with a secretary of the embassy, Henry Cadogan (James Franco). This sparks the beginning of a life-long adventure among the beautiful but misunderstood peoples and cultures of the Middle East. Along the way, her path intersects with archaeologist T.E. Lawrence (Robert Pattinson) also known as Lawrence of Arabia, and Major Charles Doughty-Wylie (Damian Lewis), the British Consul General in the Ottoman Empire.
The story of Queen of the Desert is based on the true-life story of Gertrude Bell, who was a British political officer and archaeologist but ultimately a trailblazer on her terms. The story details the extraordinary adventures of Bell wrestling with the conflicts of love and tragedy, enemy and friend, and foreign and familiar as she sought to understand and unify people from different cultures.