| Director | Ted Kotcheff |
|---|---|
| Budget | $15 million |
| Box office | $125.2 million |
In December 1981, United States Army Vietnam War veteran John Rambo visits the home of his army buddy Delmar Barry and learns that he has died from the effects of Agent Orange exposure. Wandering aimlessly on foot, he arrives at the town of Hope, Washington. Sheriff Will Teasle spots him and drives him to the other side of town, telling him that he is not welcome.
Feeling slighted, Rambo begins to return to town, where Teasle quickly arrests him and leaves him to be processed under the supervision of cruel chief deputy Art Galt, who leads other deputies in harshly abusing Rambo. The abuse triggers flashbacks to torture that Rambo endured in Vietnam. Overpowering the deputies and taking back his field knife, he steals a civilian's motorcycle, and the police chase him into the surrounding mountains; he evades capture.
Teasle organizes a search party with his fellow deputies, air support and dogs. Galt ignores Teasle's orders and attempts to shoot Rambo from a low-flying helicopter, but falls to his death when Rambo throws a rock that causes the pilot to lose control. Teasle soon learns that Rambo is a former Special Forces soldier and recipient of the Medal of Honor, but refuses to cancel the search.
Not wanting to cause more trouble, Rambo attempts to surrender, but is fired upon by the deputies and flees into the tree line. Rambo uses bushcraft to create traps to subdue the pursuing officers, threatening Teasle at knifepoint to abandon his pursuit before fleeing further into the woods. Washington State Patrol officers and Washington National Guard forces are dispatched to assist with the search, along with Rambo's mentor and former commanding officer Colonel Samuel Trautman. Trautman expresses surprise that Rambo did not kill Teasle and all of his men, and advises him to relent, but Teasle once again refuses. Over radio, Rambo refuses Trautman's pleas to surrender, condemning Teasle and his men and insisting that "they drew first blood."
Rambo falls back to an abandoned mine, where National Guard units fire an M72 LAW to collapse the mine after suppressive fire fails to force Rambo to surrender. Teasle and the others initially presume Rambo to be dead, but Rambo escapes the mine through a ventilation shaft. He hijacks a military transport truck and drives back to town, intent on confronting Teasle. Trautman again fails to convince Teasle to cancel the pursuit. Rambo destroys his stolen truck in a gas-station explosion, then shoots power lines to most of the town and detonates explosives in a gun store.
After shooting indiscriminately in the sheriff's office, Rambo shoots Teasle in the leg, grievously injuring him with an M60 machine gun that Rambo had taken from the military truck. Before Rambo can kill Teasle, Trautman arrives and demands that Rambo stand down. Rambo decries the emptiness of civilian life and the hostility of the anti-war movement, before breaking down as he recounts the horror of seeing his friend blown up. Trautman comforts Rambo before escorting him into federal custody. Teasle is taken to an ambulance for treatment of his injuries.