The Returned opens in a small mountain community which is rocked to its core when several local people who are presumed dead suddenly re-appear at their homes. Despite having passed away some years earlier, these ghostly characters appear in human form, they have not aged, and they are completely unaware of their own fatality. Determined to reclaim their lives and start over, they slowly come to realize that they are not the only ones to have been brought back from the dead. Their return augers torment for their community when a series of gruesome murders bear a chilling resemblance to the work of a serial killer from the past. This is a homecoming like no other.

En Annecy, un idílico pueblo de los Alpes, empiezan a aparecer de un día para otro personas que fallecieron años atrás, gente de diferentes edades y clases sociales, todos ellos desorientados, que intentan entrar en sus antiguas casas. Estos retornados no son conscientes de su muerte y por eso no entienden el terror, el rechazo o la alegría que provocan en unos familiares que ya habían asumido su pérdida. Al mismo tiempo, en la enorme presa que rodea al pueblo, empiezan a sucederse una serie de fenómenos extraños.