A young boy named Cal Starr spends his days in a small South Dakota town watching black-and-white Westerns on television until he becomes convinced that he is the reincarnation of Lakota leader Sitting Bull. He adopts the trappings of that conviction, buys a bow and a quiver of arrows, and prowls the neighborhood convinced he belongs to a people he only knows from films. One afternoon Cal returns from his purchase to find his older sister Mandy in the middle of a violent scene: Mandy has just assaulted her boyfriend, Dillon MacIntosh, who has a history of abusing her, and she intends to leave town in Dillon's car. With her, she plans to take a Lakota ghost shirt that Dillon has stolen -- a valuable stolen artifact worth far more than Dillon realized. Mandy tries to take Cal with her, but he refuses, saying he must reunite with "his people." As Mandy drives off, Dillon recovers and stumbles from the house toward his car. Cal draws his bow and, from a distance, shoots Dillon through the chest with an arrow, killing him.

Days earlier, a down-on-his-luck veteran named Lefty Ledbetter begins a tentative friendship with Penny Jo Poplin, a waitress at the local diner who stutters and dreams of a country music career in Nashville. During a shift, Penny Jo finds a scrap of paper tucked in with the napkins: it bears a time and place for a meeting about a large sum of money. Hoping to find funds to send Penny Jo to Nashville, Lefty listens in when the meeting happens at the diner. He hears Roy Lee Dean, a Western antiques dealer who traffics in stolen Native American items, negotiate with Dillon and Dillon's associate Fun Dave about stealing a Lakota ghost shirt from a wealthy man named Pendleton Duvall.

Dillon and Fun Dave carry out the job at Duvall's house. They break in, overpower Duvall and some of his house guests, and murder them before stealing the ghost shirt and fleeing. During that robbery Fun Dave begins to panic and expresses remorse for killing Duvall and the others; Dillon reacts with cold brutality. In the house's den, Dillon grabs a screwdriver and stabs Fun Dave repeatedly, killing him. With the shirt now in his possession, Dillon drives off from Duvall's property, unaware that Lefty and Penny Jo have followed his car.

Dillon brings the ghost shirt home and tells Mandy that they can sell it and start a new life together. Instead of agreeing, Mandy picks up a hammer and strikes Dillon hard enough to knock him down. She leaves his body, and that sequence leads directly into Cal's return and the arrow that kills Dillon. After the killing, Lefty and Penny Jo, who have been tracking the thieves, follow Mandy out of town. Their pursuit takes them into Wyoming, to the wooded compound of Mandy and Cal's father, Hiram Starr.

Hiram runs a patriarchal, well-armed homestead in the Wyoming woods and treats his family as subordinate. He allows Mandy to come back only under strict house rules that reduce his wife and daughters to near-servants. Mandy returns to Hiram's property with nowhere else to go and reluctantly accepts his constraints. While this is happening, Cal wanders into contact with an armed group of militant Native Americans led by a man known as Ghost Eye, a Marxist radical whose followers want to reclaim stolen Indigenous artifacts. Cal, in full belief that he is Sitting Bull reborn, tries to join them and tells them where the stolen ghost shirt is hidden. Convinced that the shirt must be recovered and returned to Native hands, Ghost Eye and his followers set out for the Starr compound in Wyoming with Cal guiding them.

Lefty and Penny Jo continue to trail Mandy and arrive at the Starr property the same day. One member of Ghost Eye's group confronts Penny Jo during the approach and strikes her; the militants then take Penny Jo hostage as leverage to force the family to hand over the shirt. Lefty attempts to spy on events at the compound, slipping through the trees to observe Hiram's household, but Hiram catches him and shoots him, leaving Lefty mortally wounded on the ground.

Ghost Eye's group reaches the compound minutes after Lefty is shot. The militants shoot a volley of arrows into the Starr house; arrows puncture timbers and burst through glass as they rain down into the main living area. Hiram Starr is struck and killed by one of those arrows; several of Hiram's armed men also fall under the archers' shafts. Inside the house Mandy responds to the attack by rallying her mother and sisters. She persuades the women to seize arms and fight back. The Starr women take up weapons, go outside, and engage the attackers and the remaining men of the compound in close combat. In the ensuing firefight and hand-to-hand encounters, the women kill the rest of the male occupants of the compound; those men fall by gunshot and in physical struggles during the melee.

After the initial bloodshed a tense truce follows. Mandy tells Ghost Eye that she has arranged for Roy Lee Dean to come to the compound to pick up the ghost shirt, claiming Roy will come to collect the object and pay cash. Mandy and Ghost Eye strike a deal: they plan to ambush Roy, kill him, and split his money -- Mandy to secure funds for her family and Ghost Eye to reclaim the ghost shirt for the tribe.

That night Roy Lee drives to the Starr compound in the dark, expecting a simple transaction. He arrives to find the property guarded, but he does not yet understand the full situation. As Roy steps into view, he notices Lefty still alive and lying wounded outside. Roy moves to shoot Lefty; seeing the gun aimed at the man who befriended her, Penny Jo fires her own weapon to draw Roy's fire away and save Lefty. Her single shot distracts Roy but also reveals the presence of Mandy's group and Ghost Eye's followers; a standoff forms in the blackness between Roy, the militants, and the Starr women.

Tension gives way to violence when someone fires a second shot, and a chaotic shootout erupts under the stars. Gunfire cracks and arrows fly in the confusion as men and women exchange bullets at short range. During the exchange Mandy is struck and wounded by gunfire; she falls back, bleeding. The militants who accompanied Ghost Eye take heavy casualties from the combined defensive fire of the Starr women and Roy Lee's pistol shots. One by one the archer-radicals and their allies are killed by gunshots in the night; only Ghost Eye survives the initial fusillade. As the firefight continues and Roy Lee attempts to assert control and take the ghost shirt for himself, Ghost Eye moves through the melee, gains the upper hand, and confronts Roy. In the clearing's aftermath Ghost Eye shoots Roy Lee dead, killing the antiques dealer outright.

Amid the chaos Penny Jo moves quickly to Roy's car and body. She rifles through pockets and opens Roy's satchel, taking the cash Roy has brought to buy the ghost shirt. She takes a portion of the money and, with paramilitary speed born of necessity, gives the rest to Mandy's mother and sisters to cover medical needs and displacement. With the money divided, Penny Jo helps Lefty and the gravely injured Cal get away; Cal -- who has the ghost shirt in his possession after the night's fighting -- flees with Penny Jo and the dying Lefty. Mandy's mother and sisters load Mandy into a vehicle and rush her to the hospital, where she receives treatment for her gunshot wound.

Cal accompanies Penny Jo and Lefty to the militant group's headquarters after the compound assault. There, at Ghost Eye's base, Cal solemnly presents the ghost shirt to Ghost Eye, offering the stolen garment as restitution from one he believes to be the reincarnation of a Lakota leader. Ghost Eye accepts the shirt, taking it into his care, but he keeps Cal at arm's length. He thanks Cal for returning the artifact but explicitly refuses to welcome the boy as one of his people; Ghost Eye makes clear that lineage and experience, not a child's belief, determine belonging.

Lefty, who has been progressively weakening from the gunshot wound Hiram inflicted when he tried to spy on the compound, succumbs to his injuries shortly after the exchange. Before he dies, Lefty gathers Penny Jo close and, with what breath he has left, proposes marriage to her. Penny Jo accepts or does not respond fully; Lefty dies in her arms, the life he tried to rebuild ending on the roadside at Ghost Eye's headquarters. Penny Jo is left devastated by his death; she weeps while cradling Lefty's body, processing both grief and the sudden availability of the money she hopes will buy her a passage to Nashville.

Meanwhile Mandy recovers in hospital care. After treatment and under the cover of night, she slips quietly out of the medical facility without notifying staff. She returns to the South Dakota town and finds Cal waiting for her. The siblings reunite on the town's outskirts: Mandy, bandaged and bruised but alive, hugs her little brother and smiles despite the losses that have befallen their household.

At Ghost Eye's compound Cal watches as the militants keep the ghost shirt in protective custody. Ghost Eye thanks Cal one last time for his role in reacquiring the artifact but reiterates that Cal is not of their nation. Cal accepts the rebuff and leaves the compound; he carries with him the simple certainty that he has done what he believed necessary.

Penny Jo, her stutter now gone in the wake of trauma and resolve, loads her few belongings into a car, tucks the money into her bag, and begins the long drive toward Nashville. As she heads down the highway, she sings a Dolly Parton song without a trace of her previous speech impediment, her voice steady and unbroken as she drives toward the career she has dreamed of.

The film closes with a series of quiet scenes: Mandy and Cal walking through their small town together, Lefty buried and remembered, Penny Jo driving south singing to herself, and Ghost Eye keeping the ghost shirt under watch. Each character moves forward in the aftermath of the violence: Mandy and Cal together in town, Penny Jo heading for Nashville, Ghost Eye in possession of the recovered artifact, and the memory of Lefty lingering in Penny Jo's grief. The last image follows Penny Jo as she drives beneath an open sky, singing, the road carrying her toward the uncertain promise of a new life.

Mandy is motivated primarily by her desire to escape an abusive relationship and secure a better future for herself and her son Cal. She steals the valuable Lakota ghost shirt, which was originally stolen by her abusive partner Dillon, as a means to obtain money to flee. Mandy's troubled past, including her involvement in a cult and experiences of sexual abuse, deeply influence her decisions and emotional state throughout the story.

Cal Starr's obsession with Native American culture and his belief that he is the reincarnation of Sitting Bull drive many of his actions. He refuses to flee with his sister Mandy, wanting instead to be reunited with 'his people.' Cal also actively participates in the conflict over the ghost shirt, including killing Dillon with a bow and arrow, which marks a significant turning point in the plot and highlights his deep connection to his cultural identity and the resistance movement.

The Lakota ghost shirt is a highly valuable and culturally significant artifact that several characters seek for different reasons. It is worth between $500,000 and $1 million and symbolizes Native American heritage. Characters like Penny Jo and Lefty want to sell it to fund their dreams, Mandy wants it to escape her life, Roy Lee Dean wants it for his museum, and the Red Thunder Society, led by Ghost Eye, wants to reclaim it as rightfully theirs. The shirt is the central object around which the film's conflicts and violent confrontations revolve.

Penny Jo's stutter is a defining trait that affects her confidence and interactions with others. Despite this, she is determined to pursue her dream of becoming a country music star. Her stutter adds depth to her character, showing vulnerability and resilience. It also influences her relationship with Lefty, who supports her ambitions and helps her in the plan to steal the ghost shirt to fund her move to Nashville.

The competing desires for the ghost shirt by multiple parties--Penny Jo and Lefty wanting to sell it, Mandy wanting to escape, Roy Lee Dean seeking it for his museum, and the Red Thunder Society aiming to reclaim it--create escalating tension and violence. These conflicting interests result in car chases, shootouts, and a final bloodbath where many characters face deadly consequences. The convergence of these storylines around the ghost shirt drives the narrative to its intense and violent climax.

The 2025 movie Americana is not family friendly and is rated R due to frequent violent scenes, strong profanity, and some sexual references. It contains graphic violence including shootings with guns and bows, stabbing, and bloody shootouts. There are also heavy themes such as sexual assault and sex trafficking references, which are sensitive and potentially upsetting for children or sensitive viewers. The film includes constant profanity (over 70 uses of extreme language), drinking, smoking, and brief nudity (a character seen briefly in underwear). The tone is intense and gritty, with a neo-Western crime thriller style that is not suitable for younger audiences or those sensitive to violence and mature themes.

Potentially objectionable or upsetting aspects include: - Frequent and graphic violence (shootings, stabbing, blood) - Strong and frequent profanity throughout - References to sexual assault and sex trafficking - Brief nudity and sexual content - Alcohol and tobacco use - Intense and frightening scenes with death and injury

Overall, Americana is intended for mature audiences and is not appropriate for children or family viewing.