The Outsiders is a 1983 American coming-of-age crime drama film directed by Francis Ford Coppola (billed as Francis Coppola), based on the 1967 novel by S. E. Hinton. 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 film is notable for its ensemble cast including C. Thomas Howell (who garnered a Young Artist Award), Matt Dillon, Ralph Macchio, Patrick Swayze, Rob Lowe (in his feature film debut), Diane Lane, Emilio Estevez, Tom Cruise, and Leif Garrett. In addition, Dillon starred in two more films based on Hinton novels: Tex (1982), with Estevez; and Coppola's Rumble Fish (1983), with Lane. Estevez also wrote and starred in the Hinton adaptation That Was Then... This Is Now (1985).
The Outsiders was released by Warner Bros. in the United States on March 25, 1983. The film received mostly positive reviews from critics, particularly for its performances, and grossed $25.8 million on a $10 million budget. Over the years, the film has earned a cult following and has spawned a 1990 sequel television series and a successful 2023 stage musical.
Plot In 1965 Tulsa, Oklahoma, Darry Curtis is left to raise his younger brothers, Sodapop and Ponyboy, after the deaths of their parents in a car crash eight months earlier. Youth subculture in the city is centered around two gangs — the affluent Socs and the poorer Greasers. One day, Ponyboy is jumped by the Socs after heading home from the movie theater, but is rescued by Darry and Sodapop, along with several of their friends. Darry chastises Ponyboy for walking home alone, and Sodapop later tells him that when Darry yells at him, that he means well, but Ponyboy dismisses this idea. The next day, Ponyboy and his friends Johnny Cade and Dallas Winston go to a movie at the local drive-in theater. There, Dallas unsuccessfully flirts with Soc Cherry Valance and leaves in a rage after she insults him by splashing him with Coca-Cola. Cherry invites Ponyboy and Johnny to sit with her and her friend Marcia, later joined by the gang's greaser friend Two-Bit Matthews. After the movie, the Socs' boyfriends, Bob Sheldon and Randy Anderson, take umbrage and confront them, prompting Two-Bit to pull his switchblade, so the girls leave with the Soc guys to avoid escalation.
Ponyboy and Johnny walk to an abandoned lot to help Johnny avoid his parents' bickering and domestic violence. He confesses the hopelessness of his life and considers suicide. Ponyboy falls asleep, and Johnny wakes him a few hours later. Ponyboy rushes home, where Darry confronts him and slaps him. Ponyboy runs off to a local park with Johnny, where Bob, Randy, and three other Socs attack them. Johnny is beaten, and when Ponyboy is almost drowned in the park's fountain, Johnny fatally stabs Bob in self-defense. Ponyboy and Johnny find Dallas, who gives them money for food and a loaded firearm. They flee to Windrixville after hopping on a train and hide in an abandoned church, where they read Gone with the Wind aloud to pass the time, and Ponyboy recites "Nothing Gold Can Stay" to Johnny. Dallas visits, taking them to get a meal at Dairy Queen, saying that the rivalry between the Greasers and Socs has escalated due to Bob’s murder. He brings a note from Sodapop that urges Ponyboy to come home, as Cherry is willing to testify on their behalf. Johnny favors turning themselves in, but Dallas disagrees.
Returning to the church, they discover that it is on fire with children trapped inside. Believing they may have caused the fire by being careless with their cigarettes, Ponyboy and Johnny rush inside to help. They rescue the children but suffer injuries. Johnny breaks his back when part of the structure collapses on him but he is rescued by Dallas. Ponyboy reunites with his brothers in the hospital and returns home. Their heroic deed makes the front page of the local paper. The next morning, Ponyboy falls ill and Two-Bit volunteers to care for him. Two-Bit and Ponyboy hitchhike towards the hospital, but duck into the Dairy Queen upon seeing Socs driving nearby. One of the Socs, Randy, peacefully talks to Ponyboy about an upcoming rumble to settle the Greaser–Soc rivalry. Ponyboy and Two-Bit visit Johnny and Dallas in the hospital. Ponyboy asks Two-Bit to buy another copy of Gone with the Wind at the hospital gift shop. Johnny's mother comes, but he refuses her visit. She takes out her ire on Ponyboy and Two-Bit, who decries her as a bad mother.
Dallas encourages them to win the rumble for Johnny, and they do. Dallas then drives an injured Ponyboy to the hospital to see Johnny. Dallas tells him about the Greasers' victory, but Johnny is dismissive and dies after telling Ponyboy to "stay gold". A distraught Dallas robs a store, is pursued by the police, and he commits suicide by cop. In court, the judge exonerates Ponyboy for Bob's death as self-defense and places him in Darry's custody. Cherry sees Ponyboy and gives him a look of encouragement, but walks away in order to maintain her reputation. Ponyboy's English teacher offers him a passing grade if he writes a quality essay, but Ponyboy is uninspired. Darry and Ponyboy get into a fight about the essay, causing Sodapop to run out of the house. The brothers later meet up in the park, with Sodapop pleading with them not to fight anymore, as they only have each other left, to which Darry and Ponyboy agree. Ponyboy finds a letter from Johnny explaining how saving the children was worth him sacrificing his own life and advising Ponyboy to "never change". Johnny's letter inspires Ponyboy's essay, which begins, "When I stepped out into the bright sunlight from the darkness of the movie house, I had only two things on my mind: Paul Newman and a ride home.", the book's opening line and the opening line of the movie’s narration.
Cast
Sofia Coppola (credited as Domino), daughter of the film's director, plays the child asking the greasers for 15 cents, and S. E. Hinton plays Dallas's nurse. Additionally, Michael Peter Balzary (bassist "Flea" from Red Hot Chili Peppers), and Cam Neely (future NHL player and member of the Hockey Hall of Fame) had uncredited appearances as rival gang members during the rumble scene.
Production Development Francis Ford Coppola had not intended to make a film about teen angst until Jo Ellen Misakian, a school librarian from Lone Star Elementary School in Fresno, California, wrote to Coppola on behalf of her seventh and eighth grade students about adapting The Outsiders.
"We are all so impressed with the book, The Outsiders by SE Hinton, that a petition has been circulated asking that it be made into a movie. We have chosen you to send it to."
Approximately 15 pages of children's signatures were attached to the letter written in different colors. Moved by the letter, Coppola read the book and was impressed by the relationships between the greaser kids. It brought back memories of when he had been a drama counselor working with children at a summer camp in his youth.
Casting The casting process led to debut and star-making performances of actors in the 1980s: Timothy Hutton, Sean Penn, Mickey Rourke, Robert Downey Jr., Anthony Michael Hall, Scott Baio, and Dennis Quaid also auditioned for roles but were not cast. Producer Fred Roos, a frequent collaborator with Coppola, was partially responsible for the film's casting. In particular, he scouted Patrick Swayze based on his performance in the roller skating movie Skatetown, U.S.A. (1979). Val Kilmer was approached for a role in the film, but he turned it down as he was prepping for a Broadway play (The Slab Boys).
Macchio stated that during auditions, Coppola "wanted everybody to read for a different role". He said that Coppola had all of the actors "in one room watching each other audition...It's brutal because you're becoming self-conscious of any choices because you're watching reactions based on other actors and watching the filmmakers and how they respond because you're all trying to get the job. For Francis, it was about mixing and matching the ensemble, saying 'Dennis Quaid, you read this, and Rob Lowe, you read that. As a New Yorker who didn't know any of the other actors auditioning, Macchio also stated that he felt like an outsider during the process. Lowe also said that Cruise went "ballistic" over sharing a room with him during the auditions. He accidentally struck him in the face during rehearsals.
Filming
The film was shot on location in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Filming took place from March 29 to May 15, 1982. A newspaper used to show a story about the three greasers saving the kids in The Outsiders includes a real story from 1982 regarding the death of a man hit by a train in Boston. Coppola's craving for realism almost led to disaster during the church-burning scene. He pressed for "more fire", and the small, controlled blaze accidentally triggered a much larger, uncontrolled fire, which a downpour doused.
The original length of the film was 133 minutes. Warner Bros. felt that the film was a mistake and was too long. As a result, Coppola cut it down to 91 minutes for the theatrical release.
The pranks that went on during the filming have become legendary, initiated mainly by Matt Dillon, Rob Lowe, Tom Cruise, and Patrick Swayze. The targets were often C. Thomas Howell and Diane Lane. Ralph Macchio was not involved because he was so focused on getting his role right. The author of the original novel, S. E. Hinton, was involved during the filming as she and Coppola wrote the screenplay together; she appears as a nurse during a hospital scene in the film. She also later stated that she served as an informal "den mother" to many of the actors, as she was "close to all of them".
The Outsiders (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
Reception Box office In the United States and Canada, the film grossed $5.1 million from 829 theaters on its opening weekend, ranking second behind Spring Break. The Outsiders grossed $25.8 million worldwide.
Critical response Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes has a rating of 71% based on 52 reviews, with an average score of 6.3/10. The site's consensus reads, "The cracks continue to show in Coppola's directorial style, but The Outsiders remains a blustery, weird, and fun adaptation of the classic novel." Roger Ebert rated the film two and a half out of four stars, citing problems with Coppola's vision, "the characters wind up like pictures, framed and hanging on the screen." Metacritic assigned the film a score of 45 out of 100, based on 18 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews"..
The film's casting directors, Janet Hirshenson and Jane Jenkins, wrote in a 2007 book that the film's realistic portrayal of poor teenagers "created a new kind of filmmaking, especially about teenagers — a more naturalistic look at how young people talk, act, and experience the world. This movie was one of the few Hollywood offerings to deal realistically with kids from the wrong side of the tracks, and to portray honestly children whose parents had abused, neglected, or otherwise failed them."
Stéphane Delorme, in his book on Coppola, wrote: "The Outsiders is a wonder. And wonder is also the subject of the film. 'Stay Gold', says the song over the title credits. [...] The artificiality of the rural setting, which is as fake as in The Night of the Hunter, places us in the distant, mythical past. It takes only dye to turn these blond heads into golden heads, and thus to go from nostalgia for one's youth in the 1960s to a general regret for a golden age."
Accolades