It really is hard to decide,but I would go with the film.I know it is more romantic vision of the gang life then the book,but that's the way I like it.

I think i would have to say the film as it was what introduced me to the Warriors, though I really do like the story in the book and have often wondered what the film would have been like if they had stuck closer to the original storyline.

  Well Uncle Swan, you've just written what I wanted to... I 1000% agree!
More similar movie to the book would have been great! Althouth as all of us know, we'd have seen another movie... but even if, I repeat, knowing the book we could imagine how it'd be cool a more similar movie to Sol Yurick story, I continue to prefer 1979 "The Warriors"!!!

They are really hard to compare, but i have always felt since reading the book that the movie could off better if it was just like the book, dont get me wrong i love the movie but i think the book would of made a great movie if done exact copy. The movie though as it is brilliant would of made a rubbish book. So to compare they are both the best.

I can't compare them really! I loved the both but in completely different ways.

But I'm still a film fan at heart 

Well its hard to decide, sine its usually the book the is the idea that is brought to life.  In most cases it is the boo that captures the true message, while the movie destroys it.  BUt such movies did do the book justice, such as Michael Crichtons Jurassic Park, or Planet of the Apes, even H.G. Wells the Time Machine.  But some movie makers ruin the image of the book, or change the character thinking that the audience will not like the.  For instance in the book Rambo, he is depicted more as a psycho, and the reader is not really sympathetic to m.  The cop is a Korean War veteran, while John Rambo is a Vietnam veteran.  He kills over 100 people, while in the first movie he kills one by self defence.  The cop hates him because Vietnam vets came from the hippy era, and he commits suicide at the end, to be put out of his misery.  Making the reader having the heroes feeling, thus making the movie makers thinking they no whats best for us.  Or having unecessary Jaws and Jurassic park sequals.
Heres the alternate suicide version from the book.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=ylTHa6ZJhoA

the book is great   but I would have to pick the movie, I guess its what I saw first,
maybe if i read the book first it might be a different pick

I prefer the film over the book. Both are awesome works. Personally, I think that myself having seen the movie first, has a lot to do with my choice. Don't get me wrong, the book was good. It was slow in the beginning and hard to follow due the difference in character names. However, it was full of action and suspense.  Each page got better and better as I continued to read. There is only one main difference between the book and the movie, the fact The Warriors were pinned for Cyrus' death. In the book, Ismael (Cyrus) was killed and no one was pinned for the murder. The Coney Island Dominators (Warriors) were just trying to make it home through enemy turf. I think Walter Hill's choice of using Cyrus' death as the focal point of the movie was genius. This is why I favor the film over the book.

The movie, by far, the book is really good, but I just like the movie a whole lot better, The Warriors are easier to like then the C.I Dominators, like, The Warriors have heart, the Dominators are just dirty sick brutal bastards, like when they take turns stabbing that gang member with a flip knife, and when Hector, Lunkface and Bimbo try to rape some alcoholic women in the park, just sick, oh and when they gang rape the girl after she follows them. Really good interesting book, but fucking brutal.