The films follow the character Paul Kersey, portrayed by Charles Bronson in the original series, and Bruce Willis in the 2018 remake.
They beat up Paul's wife, Joanna and rape his married daughter, Carol Toby, spray-painting both of them and the wall of their apartment "just for fun."
There, Paul witnesses a mock gunfight at Old Tucson Studios, a reconstructed Western frontier town that is often used as a movie set.
When Paul returns to New York, he discovers that his client has put a .32 Colt Police Positive revolver into his baggage as a gift.
Kersey and his daughter Carol, who is still catatonic, now live in Los Angeles because Paul accepted a deal from the New York City Police Department to leave town so they would not tell anyone that he was the vigilante.
Paul Kersey is back in Los Angeles, and is dating reporter, Karen Sheldon, who has a teenage daughter named Erica.
While Erica is at an arcade with her boyfriend, Randy, she dies of a crack cocaine overdose, setting the scene for a departure from the series' focus on sexual assault by instead putting drug abuse as a center stage.
Kersey shows up and shoots Jo-Jo with a .380 Walther PPK pistol, and watches him land on the electrical roof of the bumper-car ride, where he is electrocuted.
Freddie dons women's clothing to follow Olivia into a ladies' room, where he smashes her face into a mirror, causing permanent disfigurement.
In the offices of District Attorney Brian Hoyle and his associate, Hector Vasquez, Paul and Olivia vow that Tommy should be prosecuted.
Paul Kersey (Bruce Willis), a Chicago-area Emergency Room surgeon, lives with his wife, Lucy (Elisabeth Shue), and daughter, Jordan (Camila Morrone).
Paul becomes frustrated with the lack of police progress on the case, led by Detectives Kevin Raines (Dean Norris) and Leonore Jackson (Kimberly Elise).
Continuing his efforts as a vigilante, Paul decides to kill a drug dealer, calling himself "the Ice Cream Man", after a young boy comes to the hospital with a gunshot wound in his leg.
News, TV, and radio reports consistently demonstrate mixed feelings of support and condemnation of Paul's developing war against violent criminals.
[17] The third film in the original series, was made into a video game of the same name by Gremlin Graphics for the ZX Spectrum,[18] Commodore 64, MSX and Amstrad CPC.
It was one of the goriest games of its time, featuring multiple weapons with detailed, different damage patterns and the possibility to kill civilians.
The film stars Kevin Bacon as Nick Hume, a man who takes the law into his own hands when his son is murdered by a gang as an initiation ritual.
In 2020, the pseudonymous author "Paul Kersey", who had published numerous anti-black articles on white nationalist blogs and websites, was identified as Michael J. Thompson, a longtime employee at several mainstream conservative organizations.