From the sight of a police officer this movie depicts the life in New York's infamous South Bronx. In the center is "Fort Apache", as the officers call their police station, which really seems like an outpost in enemy's country. The story follows officer Murphy, who seems to be a tuff cynic, but in truth he's a moralist with a sense for justice.

A cyclical film, without sound, that goes from day to night and back again. First, from the porch glider, daytime movement is seen--children running and bicycles and cars going by. The nighttime scene is a long poetic and dream-like look at adolescent lovemaking.

The theme of the film is political assassination and it is presented with lightening-fast collage. The figures of Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, John and Robert Kennedy, and Lee Harvey Oswald flash by at great speed with animated images overlaid on these flashing figures. The sound track is a hodgepodge of speech excerpts, news broadcasts, and jarringly discordant music. Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2013.

This episode of the BBC television documentary series Man Alive documents the daily activities of Engine Co. 82 / Ladder 31 ("the busiest firehouse in the world") in the South Bronx in New York City in the 1972.