In 1920s Berlin, suicidal asylum patient Anna Anderson claims to be Anastasia Romanov, the supposedly dead daughter of the last tsar of Russia, Nicholas II, who was dethroned and murdered by the communists along with his entire immediate family during the Russian Revolution. She is so convincing in her descriptions of her life on the court and how she escaped the communist purge that, after leaving the asylum, she slowly gains followers willing to believe her story. However, the surviving members of the Romanov family who now live in exile are not among them. This skepticism soon turns into mutual animosity.