In Burgess's infamous nightmare vision of youth culture in revolt, 15-year-old Alex, a charismatic, psychopathic delinquent whose pleasures are classical music (especially Beethoven), rape, and so-called 'ultra-violence', leads a small gang of thugs (Pete, Georgie, and Dim), whom he calls his droogs (from the Russian друг, "friend", "buddy") on a diabolical orgy of robbery, rape, torture and murder.

The book tells the horrific crime spree of his gang, Alex's jailing for his teenage delinquency, and attempted rehabilitation via a controversial psychological conditioning technique.

Alex narrates most of the film in Nadsat, a fractured, contemporary adolescent slang comprising Slavic (especially Russian), English, and Cockney rhyming slang.