Man of La Mancha follows the saga of Miguel de Cervantes, playwright, poet and tax collector, who finds himself imprisoned and awaiting trial by the Inquisition. When his fellow prisoners try to confiscate his few possessions, including the uncompleted manuscript of his most famous work, the novel Don Quixote, Cervantes defends his masterpiece by presenting it as a play. Transforming himself into the title character, and recruiting his fiercely loyal manservant along with other inmates to take on various roles, he plays out his sweeping story of a deluded would-be-knight who becomes obsessed by his idealistic belief that the wrongs of the world can be corrected.