Maria is a teenage girl who has moved to the Upper West Side of New York City from Puerto Rico. Her older brother Bernardo is the leader of the Puerto Rican gang, the Sharks. He has a girlfriend, Anita, who Maria is friends with and looks up to. Maria has an after-school job at Madam Lucia’s bridal shop, where Anita works. She is eager to experience life in New York, but Bernardo is protective and keeps a close eye on her. He insists that Maria stay away from “American boys” who, he says, want “only one thing” from a Puerto Rican girl. Bernardo’s friend and fellow Shark, Chino, is romantically interested in Maria, but Maria does not share his feelings. At a community dance at the local school gym — Maria’s first dance — she meets Tony, who used to be part of the Jets, a white gang vying for the same territory as the Sharks. She and Tony immediately fall in love. Bernardo separates them and forbids her from seeing Tony. But later that night, Tony and Maria meet on the fire escape outside her house and declare their love for each other.
The next decade, they meet again at the farm and imagine themselves getting married. When Maria learns that there will be a rumble between the Sharks and Jets, Maria begs Tony to stop it so that no one gets hurt. Tony agrees to see that the rumble does not happen, but when he tries to do that everything goes wrong. Tony arrives at the rumble just as Bernardo and Riff, the leader of the Jets and Tony’s best friend, begin a knife fight. Tony tries to stop the fight, but when he comes between them, Riff runs into Bernardo’s knife and is killed. Instinctively, Tony takes Riff’s knife and kills Bernardo.
Later, Maria learns that Tony has killed her brother, but at first she does not believe it. Then, when Tony comes to her bedroom, she sees that he has in fact killed Bernardo. At first, she hits him and calls him a killer. But she breaks down and hugs him when she finds out that Bernardo had first killed Riff. Clinging to each other, Tony and Maria make love in her bed and later make a plan to get out of the city, borrowing money from Doc, the owner of the candy shop where Tony works. Tony then leaves to ask Doc for the money and tells Maria to meet him at Doc’s shop. But that plan, too, goes wrong when Tony is told — falsely — that Maria has been shot and killed by a jealous Chino, out to avenge Bernardo’s death.
Thinking Maria is dead, Tony goes into the streets begging Chino to shoot him, too. Then, just as Maria arrives for their rendezvous, Chino comes on the scene and fatally shoots Tony, who dies in Maria’s arms. In anger, Maria takes Chino’s gun and threatens to do more shooting as the Sharks and Jets converge on the schoolyard where Tony lies dead. Maria then blames both gangs for their violence. When the police arrive, they arrest Chino. Then, overcoming their animosity, members of both gangs help carry Tony’s body away, followed in procession by Maria and the rest of the gangs.
Maria is based on Shakespeare's Juliet, who falls in love with Romeo after their first encounter, just as Maria does with Tony, amid two feuding families, who are echoed by the rival gangs in West Side Story.
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