[3] The film depicts the lives of greaser Danny Zuko (John Travolta) and Australian transfer student Sandy Olsson (Olivia Newton-John), who develop an attraction for each other during a summer romance.

The film also received five nominations at the 36th Golden Globe Awards, including for Best Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy and two for Best Original Song, for "Grease" and "You're the One that I Want".

In 2020, Grease was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

At the start of the seniors' term at Rydell High School, Danny resumes his role as leader of the T-Birds greaser gang consisting of Doody, Sonny, Putzie, and his best friend Kenickie.

The next day, Danny apologizes to Sandy for having brushed her off the previous night and, with Coach Calhoun's help, becomes a runner and successfully wins her back from Tom.

During the school dance, broadcast live on National Bandstand and hosted by DJ Vince Fontaine, Rizzo and Kenickie spite each other by bringing Leo and Cha-Cha as their dates.

Sandy, watching from afar and rejoicing for Danny's victory, concludes she still loves him and enlists Frenchy's help in changing her attitude and looks to impress him.

Director Randal Kleiser took numerous liberties with the original source material, most notably moving the setting from an urban Chicago setting (based on William Howard Taft High School[10]), as the original musical had been, to a more suburban locale, reflecting his own teenage years at Radnor High School in the suburbs of Philadelphia.

[14] Before Newton-John was hired, Allan Carr was considering numerous names such as Carrie Fisher,[16][17] Ann-Margret, Deborah Raffin,[18] Susan Dey and Marie Osmond for the lead role.

[20] Newton-John agreed to a reduced asking price in exchange for star billing and the ability to rewrite the script, which included changing her character's origin to an Australian immigrant (to avoid having to emulate an American accent) and making her less passive.

[20] In a case of life imitating art, Newton-John's own musical career would undergo a transformation similar to that of the Sandy Olsson character; her next album after Grease, the provocatively titled Totally Hot, featured a much more sexual and pop-oriented approach, with Newton-John appearing on the album cover in similar all-leather attire and teased hair.

[21] Lucie Arnaz auditioned for the part of Rizzo, but a talent client of Carr, Stockard Channing, was cast, several years after her last major film role and debut in The Fortune.

[23] The role would revive Avalon's career on the nostalgia circuit,[24] with Valli noting that both Frankies both benefited from their appearances despite "Beauty School Dropout" not being released as a single.

[22] Jeff Conaway, like Travolta, had previously appeared in the stage version of Grease; he had played Danny Zuko during the show's run on Broadway.

Lorenzo Lamas was a last-minute replacement for Steven Ford, who developed stage fright shortly before filming and backed out, and Mark Fidrych, who ran into conflicts with his full-time career as a baseball player.

The exterior Rydell scenes, including the front parking lot scenes, the auto shop, the “Summer Nights” bleachers number, Rizzo's “There Are Worse Things I Can Do” number, the basketball, baseball, and track segments, and the interior of the gymnastics gym, were shot at Venice High School in Venice, California, during the summer of 1977.

The Paramount Pictures studio lot was the location of the scenes that involve Frosty Palace and the musical numbers "Greased Lightning" and "Beauty School Dropout".

The 'blurring' covered up trademarked menu signage and a large wall poster, but a red cooler with the logo could not be sufficiently altered so was left unchanged.

"[32][33] Due to an editing error, a closing scene in which Danny and Sandy kiss was removed from the finished print and lost before its theatrical release.

[48] Similarly, in the UK, selected Merlin Cinemas venues also reissued the film during August, but partnered with Macmillan Cancer Support, with a contribution of £1 per ticket sold.

The website's critical consensus reads, "Word is, Grease stars an electrifying John Travolta while serving up some '50s kitsch in a frenetic adaptation that isn't always the one that we want.

[54] The New York Times' Vincent Canby called the film "terrific fun", describing it as a "contemporary fantasy about a 1950s teen-age musical—a larger, funnier, wittier and more imaginative-than-Hollywood movie with a life that is all its own".

Canby compared Grease to Don't Knock the Rock (1956) and Beach Party (1963), calling it a "multimillion-dollar evocation" of these "B-picture quickies".

[55] Gene Siskel gave the film three stars out of four, calling it "exciting only when John Travolta is on the screen" but still recommending it to viewers, adding, "Four of its musical numbers are genuine showstoppers that should bring applause.

"[57] Charles Champlin of the Los Angeles Times was negative, writing, "I didn't see Grease onstage, but on the testimony of this strident, cluttered, uninvolving and unattractive movie, it is the '50s—maybe the last innocent decade allowed to us—played back through a grotesquely distorting '70s consciousness.

"[59] David Ansen of Newsweek wrote, "Too often, Grease is simply mediocre, full of broad high-school humor, flat dramatic scenes and lethargic pacing.

"[60] In a 1998 retrospective review, Roger Ebert gave the film 3 out of 4 stars, calling it "an average musical, pleasant and upbeat and plastic."

[66] Bryn Gelbart from Business Insider wrote that the film had not aged well, describing it as preaching an "unfortunate message" with aspects that could be "considered regressive by today's standards".

While several of the Rydell High staff characters reprise their roles, the sequel focused on the latest class of graduating seniors, hence most of the principals from Grease did not appear.

On July 8, 2010, a sing-along version of Grease was released to selected theaters around the U.S.[78] A trailer was released in May 2010, with cigarettes digitally removed from certain scenes, implying heavy editing; however, Paramount confirmed these changes were done only for the film's advertising,[79] and the rating for the film itself changed from its original PG to that of PG-13 (as that rating had not been introduced until 1984) for "sexual content including references, teen smoking and drinking, and language.