The film stars Patrick Swayze, Charlie Sheen, C. Thomas Howell, Lea Thompson and Jennifer Grey, with supporting roles played by Ben Johnson, Darren Dalton, Harry Dean Stanton, Ron O'Neal, William Smith and Powers Boothe.

In the 1980s, the United States becomes increasingly isolated after a green political party gains power in West Germany and successfully persuades Western Europe to remove its nuclear weapons.

Meanwhile, the Soviet Union is devastated by a failed wheat harvest and invades Poland to suppress food and labor riots.

After several weeks hiding in the forests, the group learns that Mr. Eckert is held at a re-education camp at Calumet's drive-in.

The group begins launching guerilla attacks on the occupational forces, calling themselves the "Wolverines" after their high school mascot.

They meet crashed USAF pilot Andrew Tanner, who informs them of the current state of the war: several American cities, including Washington D.C., were destroyed by nuclear strikes, Strategic Air Command was crippled by Cuban saboteurs, and paratroopers were dropped from commercial airliners to seize key positions in preparation for the main assaults via Mexico and Alaska.

Most of the southwestern United States and Northwestern Canada were occupied by the Soviets, but American counterattacks halted their advances between the Rocky Mountains and the Mississippi River.

Visiting the front lines of the war, Tanner and Arturo are killed in the crossfire of a tank battle between Soviet and U.S. forces.

Soviet troops track the group to the forests using radio triangulation equipment but are ambushed by the Wolverines, who trace the source of the signal to Daryl; confessing the truth, he pleads for mercy but is shot dead by Robert.

They are discovered by Cuban Colonel Ernesto Bella, who, completely disillusioned with both the war and Soviet ideology (seeing it as a lost cause), lets them go; the brothers sit on a park bench together, where they presumably bleed to death.

The plaque states that: In the early days of World War III, guerrillas, mostly children, placed the names of their lost upon this rock.

[4] Producer Barry Beckerman read it, and, in the words of Peter Bart, "thought it had the potential to become a tough, taut, 'art' picture made on a modest budget that could possibly break out to find a wider audience.

Senior vice-president for production Peter Bart, who remembers it as a "sharply written anti-war movie ... a sort of Lord of the Flies",[6] took the project to Yablans.

The idea was especially popular with a member of the MGM board of directors, General Alexander Haig, the former Nixon chief of staff, who yearned to supervise the film personally and develop a movie career.

He and Haig devised a backstory in which the circumstances of the invasion would occur; this was reportedly based on Hitler's proposed plans to invade the U.S. during World War II.

[10] Haig took Milius under his wing, bringing him to the Hudson Institute, the conservative think tank founded by Herman Kahn, to develop a plausible scenario.

Milius saw the story as a Third World liberation struggle in reverse; Haig introduced Nicaragua and suggested that, with the collapse of NATO, a left-wing Mexican government would participate in the Soviet invasion, effectively splitting the U.S. in half.

Soldier of Fortune reported that the movie's T-72 tank was such a precise replica that "while it was being carted around Los Angeles, two CIA intelligence officers followed it to the studio and wanted to know where it had come from".

"[18] Similarly, a sex scene that took place in a sleeping bed was scripted between the characters Jed and Toni, but was abandoned after a failed take.

[22] The film's score was composed and conducted by Basil Poledouris; it was the first soundtrack album to be released (on LP and compact disc) by Intrada Records.

The website's consensus reads, "An appealing ensemble of young stars will have some audiences rooting for the Wolverines, but Red Dawn's self-seriousness can never conceal the silliness of its alarmist concept.

[29] John Milius said: What these people really don't like is that the movie shows violence being perpetrated against Russian and Cuban invaders, which is what the demonstration was all about.

"[31] Adam Arseneau at the website DVD Verdict opined that the film "often feels like a Republican wet dream manifested into a surrealistic Orwellian nightmare".

In a witty and perceptive piece for The Nation, Andrew Kopkind called it "the most convincing story about popular resistance to imperial oppression since the inimitable Battle of Algiers", adding that he'd "take the Wolverines from Colorado over a small circle of friends from Harvard Square in any revolutionary situation I can imagine.

Not simply in terms of its action set pieces but in its portrait of America as a place where the frontier mentality lives on just beneath the surface.

in reference to the American invasions of other nations, and stated the Wolverines "stand in for any teenagers from any land who have taken up arms against a foreign invader, from the Ukrainian partisans of World War II to the Palestinian kids throwing rocks at Israeli tanks.

[46] During one scene, the young freedom fighters sit and listen to a radio playing messages meant for guerrillas behind the lines.

"[48] Red Dawn has been reference for and influence on a number of other media, including music, books, film, and video games.

[49] Phineas and Ferb into the 2nd Dimension references Red Dawn when Irving stands above destroyed robots, holds a staff up, and yells, "Wolverines!"

There's only one example in 4,000 years of Chinese territorial adventurism, and that was in 1979, when they invaded Vietnam, and to put it mildly they got their [butts] handed to them ... Why would China want us?