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Philomena

London-based journalist Martin Sixsmith has lost his job as a government adviser. He is approached at a party by the daughter of Philomena Lee. She suggests that he write a story about her mother, who was forced to give up her toddler son Anthony nearly fifty years ago. Though Sixsmith is initially reluctant to write a human interest story, he meets Philomena and decides to investigate her case.

In 1951, Philomena became pregnant after having sex with a man she did not know at a county fair, so was sent by her father to Sean Ross Abbey in Roscrea in Ireland. After giving birth, she was forced to work in the convent laundry for four years, with little contact with her son. The nuns gave her son up for adoption without giving Philomena a chance to say goodbye. She kept her lost son a secret from her family for nearly fifty years.

Martin and Philomena begin their search at the convent. The nuns claim that the adoption records were destroyed in a fire years earlier; they did not, however, lose the contract she was forced to sign decades ago forbidding her from contacting her son, which Martin considers suspicious. At a pub, the locals tell Martin that the convent burnt the records deliberately, and that most of the children were sold for £1,000 each to wealthy Americans.

Martin's investigation reaches a dead end in Ireland, but he receives a promising lead from the United States so invites Philomena to accompany him there. His contacts help him discover that Anthony was renamed Michael A. Hess, who became a lawyer and senior official in the Reagan and George H. W. Bush administrations. When Philomena notices Martin in the background of a photo of Michael, he remembers that he met him years earlier while working in the US. They also learn that he has been dead for eight years.

Philomena decides she wants to meet people who knew Michael to learn more about him from them. Visiting a former colleague of Michael's they discover that Michael was gay and died of AIDS. They also visit his 'sister' Mary, who was adopted at the same time from the convent, and learn that they were both emotionally and physically abused by their adoptive parents, and hear about Michael’s partner, Pete Olsson.

After avoiding Martin's attempts to contact him, Pete agrees to talk to Philomena. He shows her some videos of his life with Michael. To Martin and Philomena's surprise, they see footage of Michael, dated shortly before he died, at the Abbey where he was adopted, and Pete explains that, although he never told his family, Michael had privately wondered about his birth mother all his life, so had returned to Ireland in his final months to try to find her. Pete informs them that the nuns had told Michael that his mother had abandoned him and they had lost contact with her. He also reveals that, against his parents' wishes, he had Michael buried in the convent's cemetery.

Philomena and Martin return to the convent to ask where Michael's grave is. Despite Philomena's pleas, Martin angrily forces his way into the private quarters and argues with an elderly nun, Sister Hildegarde McNulty, who worked at the convent when Anthony was forcibly adopted. He accuses her of lying to Anthony and denying him the chance to finally reunite with Philomena, purely out of self-righteousness. Hildegarde is unrepentant, saying that losing her son was Philomena's penance for having sex out of wedlock.

Martin demands an apology, telling her that what she did was un-Christian, but is speechless when Philomena instead chooses to forgive her of her own volition. She then asks to see her son's grave, where Martin tells her he has chosen not to publish the story. Philomena tells him to publish it anyway.