Bizkaia, 1935. A violent storm runs an English coal ship aground. Overnight, the people of Algorta crowd the shore to claim the black gold. Sabas Jauregui sees it as a stroke of luck; his wife, Josefa, as a bad omen. Disregarding her pleas, Sabas drags their children into the heart of the storm. The family will do the unthinkable to protect the coal that might save them from winter—or doom them forever.

Toni, once a famous singer, now has gambling debts and struggles to make ends meet. His luck changes when Malena, a former lover, introduces him to Junior, a wealthy young man, ready to hire him to steal a priceless painting from his own mother. To carry out this supposedly easy heist, Toni recruits a clumsy crew, forming a team in which each one pursues their own interests.

In 1960, Manuela —"the Korean"— arrives from the coast of Andalusia to a small mining village in the Basque Country to reunite with her husband, Tasio, who works in the local mines. In a harsh and strange environment, shrouded in fog and marked by the continuous explosions from the mine, Manuela tries to adapt to a life that feels foreign to her. When she falls ill with tuberculosis, she is moved to a nearby sanatorium where, alongside other women, she discovers an unexpected space of intimacy and solidarity. Just as the miners excavate the mountain in search of iron, the disease also undermines Manuela's lungs. Meanwhile, the village begins to disappear under the expansion of the mining operation. As the village begins to disappear under the expansion of the mining operation, Tasio and the rest of the miners, trapped in a cycle that seems to have no end, are swallowed by a massive crack in the Mountain that plunges them into 1890. There, these same faces embody different characters who, nevertheless, face the same struggles. The mountain, despite being emptied, remains, keeping within it a deep and immutable time.