Jim Stark (James Dean) is a confused and troubled teenager who have just moved into town. He does not have any friends. His parents always move when he gets into troubles, but Jim does want to settle down. He also wants to seek love and friendship in this new place when his middle-class family could provide neither. At home, Jim is being treated like a mama's boy. His mother is a dominant woman and his father is a "coward" who would never go against his wife's will.  Jim does not wants to be a "coward" or "chicken" like his father does. He wants to grow up and "belong to somewhere". At school, Jim tries to befriend a girl named Judy (Natalie Wood) and a gang she often hangs out with. The gang rejects him and calls him "chicken". Jim is furious. Of all the things he hates, he hates being called a "chicken" the most. He accepts gang leader Buzz's (Corey Allen) knife fight and his "chickie-run" challenge. He wants to prove himself a capable man who can fit in the gang. During the "chickie-run", the boys are required to drive toward a cliff. Whoever jumps out of the car first, that person is a "chicken". Jim jumps out from the car successfully before hitting the edge but Buzz does not. He is unable to free himself at the last moment and is killed in the accident. Angered by his parents' irresponsible suggestions after the tragedy, Jim seeks peace in his new friend Plato's (Sal Mineo) vacant mansion with an astonished Judy, another confused teenager whom Jim has fallen in love with. There, the three of them form an utopian "family" and find love, happiness, and support from each other. But their new-found peace doesn't last long. Three of Buzz's gang members find them and a frightened Plato, who is already armed when he leaves home, pulls out his gun and shoots down one of the guys. Jim and Judy follow him to the planetarium, where they found themselves surrounded by cops and their own parents. Jim shrewdly talks Plato into handing him his gun and secretly takes the bullets away before handing it back to his suspicious friend. Plato eventually agrees to get out with his two friends but is scared of the lights outside. A fatal mistake is made when the cops turn the lights back on. Feeling betrayed, Plato gives out an anguish cry and rushes out from the gate where he is shot dead. And it is the tragedy which forces Jim stepping out of his complex adolescence into the next step--the maturity of adulthood.

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