Sally (Sandra Bullock) and Gillian (Nicole Kidman) Owens have always known they were different. Raised by their aunts after their parents’ death, the sisters grew up in a household that was anything but typical-rules were for other people. Attempting to pass on the unique and powerful psychic heritage of the Owens women, Aunt Jet (Dianne Wiest) and Aunt Frances (Stockard Channing) hope to give their nieces the strength that comes from the use of practical magic. But the invocation of the Owens’ sorcery also carries a price-some call it a curse: the men they fall in love with are doomed to an untimely death.

Watching her aunts weave spells for the lonely and the lovelorn, the quieter Sally begins to realize what she has always felt to be true-that she will never find her soul mate. Trying to distance herself from her foremothers, she denies her powers and strives to build herself a ‘normal,’ magic-free life. The more fiery Gillian, reckless and restless and thrilled by her pull over men, embraces her powers and sets out on a tumbleweed existence that leaves a trail of broken hearts in her wake. When Gillian meets Jimmy (Goran Visnjic), a malevolent drifter, she unwittingly sets off a chain of explosive events that brings police officer Gary Hallet (Aidan Quinn) onto the family porch and into Sally’s heart, while releasing a swarm of supernatural forces that threatens the lives of all the Owens women.