In 1985 Dallas, Texas, Ron Woodroof, a rodeo cowboy and electrician, lives a hard-partying lifestyle that includes heavy drinking, drug use, and casual sex. When he is injured on the job, a routine hospital check-up reveals that he is HIV-positive and has 30 days to live. Ron refuses to accept his death sentence, but his freewheeling life comes to a halt as he is shunned by family and friends, losing his job, and finding himself ostracized by his old acquaintances due to the widespread stigma associated with AIDS. In denial and seeking treatment, he discovers that the FDA-approved drug AZT is the only available medication in the US, but it is only accessible through a clinical trial that he is not eligible to join.

Desperate for alternatives, Ron crosses the border into Mexico where he meets an American expatriate doctor who prescribes him with drugs and supplements unapproved in the US, but with potential to improve his condition. Taking matters into his own hands, Ron begins smuggling these alternative treatments into the country, and partnering with a fellow AIDS patient and transgender woman named Rayon, he establishes a "buyers club," a subscription-based system to distribute the non-FDA-approved medication to AIDS patients who are similarly desperate for options that are not yet available in the US. This enterprise challenges the legality and ethics of the American healthcare and pharmaceutical framework, positioning Ron as an unlikely advocate and champion for AIDS patients' rights and bringing hope to those cast aside by the system.