Joe Buck (Jon Voight), an aspiring male prostitute from Texas, heads to Manhattan where he hopes to find plenty of wealthy women willing to pay for the services of a handsome man. When he arrives, the naive country boy befriends Ratso Rizzo (Dustin Hoffman), a tubercular homeless con artist who dreams of moving to Florida. As they go about trying to get the money Ratso needs, the two men confront the seediness, corruption, and cruelty that flourish in the big city.

Based on the novel by James Leo Herlihy, this Oscar-winning film (Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay) features brilliant performances by Voight and Hoffman, and brings to the screen an unusually gritty realism in its portrayal of the streets of New York City.