The Warriors

Dir. Walter Hill, 1979, 93 mins. DCP. With Michael Beck, James Remar, Deborah Van Valkenburgh, Marcelino Sánchez, David Harris. Walter Hill’s vividly violentand giddily sensationalist vision of ’70s New York stirred up controversy upon release and endures as a beloved cult classic. Framed for the murder of a rival gang leader, the scrappy, leather-vested Warriors take a nocturnal journey from the north Bronx to their home turf of Coney Island, Brooklyn, fighting off one gang challenge after another, from the bat-wielding Baseball Furies and the lethal, all-female Lizzies to the roller-skating Punks. Hill’s adaptation of Sol Yurick’s 1965 novel so exults in reactionary cliches about the urban jungle that it’s almost joyously lurid, a carnivalesque tour through a preposterously dystopian nightscape ruled by brutal youths. Interiors were shot at MoMI’sneighboring Astoria Studio on stages that had yet to be upgraded or restored to their current condition at Kaufman Astoria Studios, thus providing Hill and company suitably seedy corollaries to city exteriors.

Tickets: $15 / $11 senior and students / $9 youth (ages 3–17) / Free or discounted for MoMI members ($11). Order tickets. Please pick up tickets at the Museum’s admissions desk upon arrival. All seating is general admission. Review safety protocols before your visit.