The document tells the story of gang violence in the City of God slum in Rio de Janeiro from the 1960s to the 1970s. It follows several characters including Li'l Zé, a rising cocaine dealer who gains power through fear, Knockout Ned who joins a gang, and Rocket who works as a photographer documenting the escalating gang warfare between factions. The violence culminates in Li'l Zé being murdered by rival gang members after being humiliated.

1. The Chicken
The Sixties
The Tender Trio
Motel
Goose leaves slum
Shorty buries his wife
The Seventies
The Story of the Apartment
Li'l Dice grows up
Becomes "Li'lZé" the coke dealer
Benny as Ze’s opposite
The Runts

2. Li'lZé earning respect through fear
Rocket broke and working in supermarket
Benny and Angelina
Flirting with Crime
Benny’s party/death
Rape of Knockout Ned’s girlfriend
Shootout at Ned’s house
The Story of Knockout Ned
Joins Carrot’s gang
Bank robberies
Gang warfare in the favelas

3. Rocket hangs out at the paper
Young children join the gangs
“No one could remember how it began”
Media take an interest in the war
Rocket photographs Ze’s gang
Rocket is given a job
Ned escapes from hospital
Ze invests in munitions
“Get that chicken”
Shootout/chaos/Rocket photographs it all
Otto avenges his father’s death

4. Zé is shaken down for money, humiliated, and finally
released
Runts surround Zé and murder him
Rocket takes pictures of Zé's dead body and goes to the
newspaper
Decides whether or not to put the pictures of the cops in
paper
Runts walk through City of God, making a hit list of the
dealers