Fanny (Bette Davis) is a beautiful but selfish young woman who marries an older banker, Job Skeffington (Claude Raines), to save her brother from embezzling charges. After her brother is killed in World War I, Fanny seeks release from the demands of her loveless marriage and baby daughter in the arms of many lovers. The Skeffingtons divorce and Fanny sends her daughter to Europe to live. Fanny keeps her beauty and money through the years until she catches diphtheria, a disease that robs her of her looks. On the eve of World War II, Fanny is betrayed by her daughter and her former lovers, but a chance meeting with her ex-husband, now poor and blinded, teaches her the true meanings of beauty and love.