The story of American photographer Lee Miller, a fashion model who became an acclaimed war correspondent for Vogue magazine during World War II.
Lee Miller tells an interviewer about her experience in 1977 through a series of flashbacks.
Lee, a former fashion model and budding photographer from New York City, meets and falls in love with Roland Penrose in 1937 while leading a free-spirited life in Europe. Later, she and Roland relocate to London, where she works for Vogue magazine during World War II, taking pictures of Britons during the Blitz. However, because the UK forbids women from serving close to battle, she is limited in her capacity to further chronicle the conflict. However, Lee and photojournalist David Scherman are deployed as war correspondents following the United States' entry into the conflict in late 1941.
Lee unintentionally records the first use of napalm as he takes battle photos during the Battle of Saint-Malo in June 1944, following the Normandy landings. She captures people from the French Resistance public humiliating French women who worked with the Germans during the Liberation of Paris. Lee discovers her upset friend Solange d'Ayen, whose husband is still missing and who just got out of jail. Lee also gets back in touch with her friends Paul and Nusch Éluard, who tell her of the thousands of individuals who disappeared during the German occupation.
Entering Nazi Germany, Lee and Scherman drive a Jeep around the front lines while documenting their experiences with photographs. They provide evidence of the crimes carried out at Dachau and Buchenwald. Scherman takes pictures of Lee in the bathtub in Adolf Hitler's Munich flat in April 1945; shortly after, Germany surrenders.
After returning to Britain, where Roland has also returned from the war, Lee is incensed to learn that her wartime photos have not been released. According to editor Audrey Withers, the British censor stopped it because they were concerned that the images would disturb a populace that was already traumatized. Antony, Lee and Roland's son, is born shortly after their 1947 marriage.
It turns out that Antony, who just lately found out about his mother's wartime ordeal, is the interviewer. Lee and Antony talk about his difficult childhood, including how Lee's drinking and PTSD affected his teens. Soon after his mother passed away, hundreds of photos and papers were found in Lee's attic. Antony and his wife Suzanna then built the Lee Miller Archives from these materials.
