Barton Fink (John Turturro) is a troubled New York playwright obsessed with bringing his new idea of "Theatre of the Common Man" to the producers he loves to hate. after his first budding success his agent convinces him to travel to Los Angeles to write for Capital Pictures. When he arrives he checks into the dark Hotel Earle and learns of the movie he's writing: a B-Movie wrestling picture for Wallace Beery. Fink travels back to his hotel room to begin, but when he arrives he types one sentence and then falls into the horror of writer's block. He tries getting help from his friends, neighbour and colleagues but he continues to struggle as a bizarre sequence of events distracts him even further from his task.