When she inherits a fortune, a young nun tries to help the poor.
Shortly before taking her final vows, Viridiana, a young novitiate, is sent unwillingly to visit her uncle, Don Jaime, whose wife died on their wedding night 30 years earlier. One evening, the old man, struck by Viridiana's resemblance to his dead bride, persuades her to don his wife's bridal gown. Helped by his devoted housekeeper, Ramona, who has lived alone with her little daughter and Jaime, he drugs Viridiana and carries her to her room. Although he does not go through with his planned seduction, he tells her that he has done so, hopeful that she will remain with him. Instead she flees from the house, and Don Jaime hangs himself in despair. Half of the estate falls to Viridiana, the other half to Jorge, Don Jaime's illegitimate son, who arrives with a mistress. Feeling that she is to blame for her uncle's death, Viridiana takes in the beggars of the village and offers them a haven. Jorge, on the other hand, has only contempt for her charity, and he devotes his time to modernizing the hacienda and restoring the farmlands. On a day when Viridiana and Jorge are in town, the beggars take over the house and organize a huge feast that becomes a wild and drunken orgy. By the time Viridiana and Jorge return, the beggars have ruined all the finery they have touched. Two of them seize Jorge, tie him up, and attempt to rape Viridiana, but Jorge saves her by paying one of the derelicts to kill the would-be rapist. Once the beggars have fled, the humiliated and disillusioned Viridiana abandons her life of sacrifice and prayer and goes to Jorge's room. Triumphant, he smiles and invites her to join him and Ramona, his new mistress, in a game of cards.
