Plot Summary (The Warriors) The Warriors (1979)
A Coney Island gang travels north to a citywide meeting
The Warriors — a Coney Island street gang led by Cleon (Dorsey Wright) and his war chief Swan (Michael Beck) — gather on the Stillwell Avenue subway platform in colors. They are bound for Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx, where Cyrus (Roger Hill), leader of the largest gang in New York, the Gramercy Riffs, has called a citywide truce-meeting. Every gang in the five boroughs is sending nine unarmed delegates. The Warriors have been chosen as Coney Island's representatives.
Cyrus is shot mid-speech and the Warriors are framed
In the park, before hundreds of gang members in colors, Cyrus addresses the crowd. The gangs outnumber the cops five to one, he argues — if they stop fighting each other and unify, the city is theirs. "Can you dig it?" The crowd surges. From the back, Luther (David Patrick Kelly), leader of a small-time gang called the Rogues, raises a snub-nose pistol and shoots Cyrus dead. Police sirens cut through the park; the gangs scatter. Cleon, closer to the platform, sees Luther do it. Luther sees Cleon seeing him and points: "It was them — the Warriors!" The Riffs swarm Cleon under.
Swan takes command and sets the route home
The seven surviving Warriors regroup at a chain-link fence: Swan, Ajax (James Remar), Cochise (Cleon's lieutenant), Snow, Vermin, Cowboy, Rembrandt, and Fox. With Cleon gone, Swan takes the war-chief role over Ajax's challenge. The plan is straightforward and impossible: get back to Coney Island. No flares, no fights they can avoid, the train south. Meanwhile, at the Riffs' temple-clubhouse in the Bronx, the new leader Masai (Brian Tyler) puts the word out through every gang in the city — find the Warriors, alive if possible, otherwise wasted. A pirate-radio DJ (Lynne Thigpen), seen only as a pair of painted lips at the microphone, broadcasts the bulletin to every gang with a radio.
The long night through enemy turf
The Warriors duck the Turnbull AC's war-bus rolling through Bronx avenues, descend to the subway tracks when no train comes, and walk south through the tunnels. In an alley they are blocked by the Orphans, a gang too small to have been invited to the meeting and humiliated by the exclusion. Mercy (Deborah Van Valkenburgh) — bored with the Orphans, looking for something else — attaches herself to the Warriors and helps Swan negotiate. The talk breaks down; Ajax throws a Molotov through a parked car's window; the Orphans scatter; the Warriors run for the train, Mercy following.
On a station platform Fox is shoved off by a Transit cop and disappears under an arriving train. The remaining six and Mercy cross into Riverside Park, where the Baseball Furies — eight or nine men in Yankees pinstripes, war paint, and bats — chase them through the grounds. The Warriors turn, fight, take the Furies' bats, and beat them into the grass. Ajax, mistaking an undercover policewoman on a park bench for an easy mark, is cuffed and arrested. Cochise, Vermin, and Rembrandt are split off in the train shuffle and wind up at the Lizzies' clubhouse — a women's gang offering drinks and music, then producing a pistol from the couch. The Warriors fight free.
The Punks and the train south
At Union Square the Punks — overalls, knives, one of them on roller skates — chase Swan, Cochise, and Cowboy into a tile men's room. The brawl is the night's hardest physical test. Cochise takes a knife wound but the Warriors come out alive. On the train south afterward, Swan and Mercy sit close. Three drunk teenagers in formal wear board the car at a stop — prom night. Mercy reaches up to fix her hair as if to match them; Swan takes her hand down. The shot holds.
The beach at dawn
The Warriors arrive at Coney Island as the sky goes pink. Swan looks around at the empty boardwalk: "This is what we fought all night to get back to?" On the sand, Luther appears with the Rogues, blocking the way. He clinks three glass bottles between his fingers and sing-songs the call: "Warriors, come out to play-i-ay." Swan walks out alone and asks why. Luther answers: "No reason. I just like doing things like that." Luther draws his pistol; in the same motion Swan throws his knife and pins Luther's wrist. The pistol drops.
The Riffs appear at the top of the dune — Masai at the front in martial-arts robes. They have heard from the DJ: Luther was the killer. They take Luther; Masai pauses by Swan. "You Warriors are good. Real good. The best."
The DJ signs off
The DJ comes back on the air. "Good news, boppers. The big alert has been called off." She apologizes to "that group out there that had such a hard time getting home" and plays them a song. Joe Walsh's "In the City" comes up. The Warriors — Swan and Mercy in the lead — walk together along the wet sand at the waterline as the credits roll.