The Outsiders (Francis Ford Coppola, 1983)

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The Outsiders is a 1983 American drama film directed by Francis Ford Coppola, an adaptation of the 1967 novel of the same name by S. E. Hinton. The film was released in March 1983. Jo Ellen Misakian, a librarian at Lone Star Elementary School in Fresno, California, and her students were responsible for inspiring Coppola to make the film.

The Outsiders is noted for its cast of up-and-coming stars, including C. Thomas Howell, who garnered a Young Artist Award, Rob Lowe, Emilio Estevez, Matt Dillon, Tom Cruise, Patrick Swayze, Ralph Macchio, and Diane Lane. The film helped spark the Brat Pack genre of the 1980s. Both Lane and Dillon went on to appear in Coppola's related film Rumble Fish.

Set during the 1960s, the story concerns the Greasers, a teenage street gang in Tulsa, Oklahoma, whose members include Darrell (Swayze) and his two younger brothers, Sodapop (Lowe) and Ponyboy (Howell), as well as Johnny (Macchio), Dallas (Dillon), Two-Bit (Estevez) and Steve (Cruise), and their fateful rivalry with the Socials, or Socs, a gang of preppier, wealthier kids. The plot develops through a series of confrontations. Five Socs jump Ponyboy and cut his neck with a switchblade; Johnny had been...

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