The director of The Godfather and Apocalypse Now awakes from a long slumber to create the greatest film of his career using snatches of autobiography, dreams, travels, anecdotes and lies to fashion the operatic story of a family with a secret. When Bennie turns eighteen, he races to Argentina to seek out the older brother who disappeared from his life so long ago. But Tetro, a happy failed writer, does not want to look back. A simple embrace reopens old wounds. Bennie thinks he can solve the mystery of his family by finishing a script that Tetro abandoned—but sometimes the truth can destroy what little we have left. And sometimes it can restore us.