The Killing Fields is based on a true story involving New York Times reporter Sydney Schanberg and his Cambodian assistant Dith Pran. The movie begins with a voice-over radio broadcast on August 7, 1973, announcing that President Richard Nixon is dealing with the Watergate scandal and that U.S. Supreme Court Justice William Douglas has rejected White House efforts to continue bombings in Cambodia, despite a congressional law banning such actions.

The first scene in Cambodia reinforces the context of presidential secrecy and illegal activities. Reporter Schanberg (played by Sam Waterston) and his Cambodian assistant/interpreter Dith Pran (played by Dr. Haing S. Ngor, a real life survivor of the Cambodia holocaust) cover the bombing of a Cambodian town by U.S. aircraft.

Other news correspondents are present, among them U.S. cameraman Al Rockoff (John Malkovich) and English reporter Jon Swain (Julian Sands). But only Schanberg challenges the U.S. military's attempt to conceal the illegal operation, which claims hundreds of civilian casualties. Unlike other reporters screened away from the story, Schanberg and Pran witness the execution of prisoners by Cambodian soldiers.

The movie then jumps ahead to the spring of 1975 in Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia. Communist soldiers, known as Khmer Rouge (literally Red Cambodians), are surrounding Phnom Penh and cutting the road to the airport. As pro-government troops prepare for an attack, civilians flee from the city.

Surrounded by violence and frightened residents, Schanberg covers the news. U.S. embassy officials shred documents and prepare to leave, and the consul (played by Spaulding Gray) quips ironically, "We're either staying or we're living."

Schanberg arranges for the evacuation of Pran and his family, but as a dedicated reporter intends to stay to cover the arrival of the Khmer Rouge into Phnom Penh. Sharing this professional commitment, Pran decides to stay, too. Together they watch government soldiers arrive in town, while civilians cheer, "No more war."

The mood changes abruptly with the arrival of Khmer Rouge forces on armored vehicles. These soldiers are boys, armed with automatic weapons. They arrest the American journalists and Pran, taking their watches and cameras. They also shoot selected prisoners. Meanwhile, long columns of civilians are evacuating the city.

The journalists take refuge in the French embassy. Khmer Rouge soldiers come and demand the removal of Cambodian refugees. Pran wants to remain with Schanberg. The photojournalists conspire to alter his passport, but the Khmer Rouge arrest Pran in April 1975.

The movie cuts ahead to New York City, where Pran's family mourns his disappearance. Schanberg watches a TV rerun of Nixon's 1970 speech ordering a military "incursion" into Cambodia and scenes of B-52 aircraft raining bombs on the country. Set in the period after Nixon's 1974 resignation, the brief scene suggests the both the illegality and futility of the ex-president's policies.

The film cuts back to Cambodia to an agricultural hillside dominated by a big red flag. Long lines of workers, dressed in identical black clothing, dig intensively into the wet soil with small hand tools, while armed Khmer Rouge boys and girls oversee the work. Pran is among them. At mealtime he receives a tiny portion of rice that, along with the other workers, he eats outside in a torrential rain.

Loudspeakers broadcast political propaganda, revealing the ideas of the Khmer Rouge: For instance, they report the "existence of a new sickness--'memory sickness'--thinking too much about life in pre-Revolutionary Cambodia." Proclaiming a "Year Zero," in which everything starts anew, they demand confessions of past sins. Those who volunteer are led away, not to be seen again.

Pran maintains his silence, but he defies the rules in order to obtain nourishment. At last, Pran escapes and embarks on a solitary trek through the countryside. Along the way, he discovers a field of human skeletons, but keeps moving until he collapses from exhaustion.

The movie cuts back to New York for the 1976 international press awards. Schanberg has won a prize for his writing about Cambodia and credits the missing Pran for his achievement. His acceptance speech repeats the idea that the problems of Cambodia resulted from bad White House policy that neglected the Cambodian people.

When one of Schanberg's colleagues observes that Pran would have been evacuated safely were it not for the journalist's professional ambitions, Schanberg admits he underestimated the brutality of the Khmer Rouge.

Pran's escape, meanwhile, leads him to become a servant of a Khmer Rouge official. Overhearing conversations, he learns that Cambodia is now at war with Vietnam. When the official realizes that Pran is educated, he entrusts him with the care of his child and provides Pran with a map and money to rescue the boy from an expected betrayal by Khmer Rouge leaders.

Leaving with the child, Pran heads on a perilous route toward the Thailand border. He escapes Khmer Rouge patrols, but when a landmine explodes the child is killed. Pran goes on alone.

The film cuts back to New York, where Schranberg learns that Pran is in a refugee camp. As the sound track plays John Lennon's "Imagine"--"there's no countryÉnothing to kill or die for"--the two journalists meet in the camp in October 1979. "Forgive me?" Schanberg asks his Cambodian friend. "Nothing's forgiven," he replies. "Nothing."

The tagline adds that Schanberg accompanied Dith Pran to the United States where he was reunited with his family. "Cambodia's torment is not yet over," the film declares. "The refugee camps on the Thai border are still crowded with the children of the killing fields."

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