The Warriors (1979) w/ Authors Michael Gingold and Chris Poggiali

“It’s like visual rock, and it’s bursting with energy. The action runs from night until dawn, and most of it is in crisp, bright Day-Glo colors against the terrifying New York blackness; the figures stand out like a jukebox in a dark bar. There’s a night-blooming, psychedelic shine to the whole baroque movie.” — Pauline Kael, The New Yorker

SYNOPSIS

Walter Hill turns a simple journey across New York City into a nocturnal odyssey of near-mythic proportions in this electrifying cult classic of late-’70s American cinema. After a gathering of the city’s gangs ends in the assassination of a powerful leader, the Warriors are falsely blamed for his murder and must fight their way from the Bronx back to their home turf on Coney Island, pursued by police and a succession of increasingly colorful rival gangs. Rejecting social realism for something closer to urban mythology, Hill renders nighttime New York as a feverish alternate universe of subway tunnels, deserted streets, neon light, and flamboyant tribal iconography, propelling the action with the stripped-down momentum of a rock song. Tough, stylized, and bursting with psychedelic energy, The Warriors turns the city after dark into a sprawling playground of danger, movement, and myth.

BOOK SIGNING

Michael Gingold and Chris Poggiali will join us for this special 35mm presentation to introduce the film and sign copies of their new book, Armies of the Night: The Warriors and Its Legacy, following the screening. Gingold (Fangoria, Ad Nauseam) and Poggiali (These Fists Break Bricks, Temple of Schlock) draw on exclusive cast-and-crew interviews, archival reportage, and rare imagery to trace The Warriors from Sol Yurick’s original novel through its turbulent New York City production, controversial 1979 release, and remarkable evolution into an enduring cult phenomenon.