The film stars James Dean, Natalie Wood, Sal Mineo, Jim Backus, Ann Doran, Corey Allen and William Hopper.

Seemingly unimpressed by Jim, she declines and is instead picked up by her "friends", a gang of delinquents led by Buzz Gunderson who Judy is also dating.

[12] At home, Jim ambiguously asks his father about defending one's honor in a dangerous situation, but Frank advises him against confrontation of any kind.

That night, during the chickie run, Buzz plunges to his death when the strap on his jacket sleeve becomes entangled with his door-latch lever, preventing him from exiting the car.

[15] Irving Shulman, who adapted Nicholas Ray's initial film story into the screenplay, had considered changing the name of James Dean's character to Herman Deville, according to Jurgen Muller's Movies of the '50s.

According to an AFI interview with Stewart Stern, with whom Shulman worked on the screenplay, one of the scenes was thought to be too emotionally provocative to be included in the final print of the film.

With its densely expressive images, the film has been called a "landmark ... a quantum leap forward in the artistic and technical evolution of a format.

"[17] The 1949 Mercury two-door sedan James Dean drove in the movie is part of the permanent collection at the National Automobile Museum in Reno, Nevada.

The critical consensus reads, "Rebel Without a Cause is a searing melodrama featuring keen insight into '50s juvenile attitude and James Dean's cool, iconic performance.

[19] Natalie Wood, Sal Mineo, and Nicholas Ray were nominated for Academy Awards for their roles in Rebel Without a Cause, which grossed $7,197,000 (equivalent to $81.9 million in 2023) in domestic and overseas screenings, making it Warner Bros.' second-biggest box-office draw that year.

[20] The movie opened to mixed reviews when it was released on October 27, 1955, less than a month after James Dean, whose performance was praised all around by film critics, died on September 30.

William Zinsser wrote a scathing review of Rebel in his New York Herald Tribune column, concluding his summary of the film's plot with the words, "All this takes two hours, but it seems more like two days.

"[20] Bosley Crowther, writing in The New York Times, described Rebel Without a Cause as "violent, brutal and disturbing", and as an excessively graphic depiction of teenagers and their "weird ways".

He found the acting of James Dean, Natalie Wood, and Sal Mineo to be "extraordinarily good", and the direction by Nicholas Ray to be "outstanding".

Moffitt took issue with the underlying ideology of the film, especially its implication, as he saw it, that professional bureaucrats could better guide youth than the American family unit itself.

He described Rebel as a "fairly exciting, suspenseful and provocative, if also occasionally far-fetched, melodrama of unhappy youth on another delinquency kick."

[23] Wanda Hale of the New York Daily News found fault with Rebel's depiction, in her view, of its adults as cardboard figures and of its middle-class teenagers as hoodlums, arguing that it lacked credibility and that "[a]s an honest purposeful drama of juvenile hardness and violence the film just doesn't measure up."

On the other hand, she praised James Dean's acting, writing, "[w]ith complete control of the character, he gives a fine, sensitive performance of an unhappy, lonely teenager, tormented by the knowledge of his emotional instability.

[27] The film was banned in New Zealand in 1955 by Chief Censor Gordon Mirams, out of fears that it would incite "teenage delinquency", only to be released on appeal the following year with scenes cut and an R16 rating.

[40] Big Girls Don't Cry (The Sopranos) features Christopher Moltisanti performing the scene where Plato is killed during his "Acting for Writers" class.

According to executive producer, Stephanie Savage, of the televison show The O.C., the film was a "big reference" for the second episode of the series (The Model Home), in which Seth and Marissa hide Ryan in a vacant mcmansion.

Savage also noted that the dynamic of the three characters (Ryan, Marissa, and Seth) reminded her of the film's three leads (Jim, Judy, and Plato).