---
title: "Escape from New York"
year: 1981
kind: "film"
canonical: "https://film.one/film/escape-from-new-york"
fi1m_id: "escape-from-new-york"
imdb_id: "tt0082340"
tmdb_id: 1103
wikidata_id: "Q403033"
fi1m_score: 76
critics_score: 77
critics_reviews: 11
published: "2026-10-04T17:32:02.147507+00:00"
updated: "2026-10-04T17:32:26.346990+00:00"
region: "CH"
licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL."
---

# Escape from New York (1981)

Directed by John Carpenter · 1h 39m · Action, Thriller, Science Fiction

## Identity

Escape from New York

- **Canonical:** https://film.one/film/escape-from-new-york
- **Type:** Film
- **Fi1m ID:** escape-from-new-york
- **IMDb ID:** tt0082340
- **TMDB ID:** 1103
- **Wikidata ID:** Q403033
- **Same entity:** https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082340/, https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/1103, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q403033

**Fi1m score: 76** · Critics 77 from 11 reviews

*In a sentence:* A city-sized prison, a president nobody likes, a hero who would rather be anywhere else; the synthesiser does the rest

> John Carpenter walls off Manhattan, sends Kurt Russell in after the President and lets the dark and a synthesiser do the rest. The plot is thin and the middle hour drifts, but the mood holds and Russell’s whisper carries it.

## Synopsis

It is 1997 and New York City is a walled maximum security prison. Breaking out is impossible; breaking in, as the authorities put it, is insane. Police Commissioner Bob Hauk (Lee Van Cleef) has reason to try anyway: the President of the United States (Donald Pleasence) is on the wrong side of the wall, among convicts who answer to the Duke of New York (Isaac Hayes). Hauk’s one card is Snake Plissken (Kurt Russell), a convict who has just arrived to begin his own sentence and has no interest in anyone’s problems but his own. Snake goes in alone, at night, into streets of wrecked cars and fires in oil drums. Cabbie (Ernest Borgnine) offers him a ride, and Harold ‘Brain’ Helman (Harry Dean Stanton) and Maggie (Adrienne Barbeau) are among the people he finds inside.

## Review

In 1997, the United States has given up on Manhattan. The island is walled off and the people inside are left to run it as they please. Then the President of the United States ends up on the wrong side of the wall, and the only man the authorities can think to send after him is a convict on his way in. That is the whole of John Carpenter’s idea, written with Nick Castle, and he films it as if the idea alone were enough. It nearly is. *Escape from New York* is a lean, dark, sardonic thriller with a thin plot and more atmosphere than it knows what to do with, and we recommend it to anyone who likes their science fiction cheap and surly.

Dean Cundey shoots almost all of it at night, in a wide frame with a great deal of black in it. The streets are lit by fires in oil drums and the odd surviving headlamp, and the buildings behind them are shapes rather than places. Joe Alves’s production design fills the gutters with wrecked cars and stacked rubbish, and gives the convicts’ finery a look of looted grandeur, so you know what sort of people hold the place before anyone speaks. Carpenter lets the dark do most of the building.

The score, by Carpenter and Alan Howarth, is a few synthesiser notes over a bass line that walks rather than runs, and it does as much as the camera to make the place feel dangerous. The first time it drops out, when Snake is picking his way down an empty street and a grating lifts in the pavement, we flinched. It was nothing: a hand, a grate, a face. The film had earned the flinch with twenty minutes of quiet, and we were slightly embarrassed at how cheaply it got us.

Kurt Russell plays Snake Plissken with an eyepatch, a leather jacket and a voice barely above a whisper, and it is a joke he keeps straight for 99 minutes. People keep telling him things he does not want to hear; he never once raises his voice back. Lee Van Cleef, as Police Commissioner Bob Hauk, gives the briefing scenes a dry authority, and the two of them, old gunfighter and new, barely look at each other. Ernest Borgnine’s Cabbie is the film’s one warm body, driving around the ruins with show tunes on the cab’s tape player. Harry Dean Stanton’s Brain is a frightened man pretending to be a clever one, and Isaac Hayes’s Duke of New York says little and is more frightening for it. Donald Pleasence plays the President as a small, damp man nobody would cross the street for.

The plot is thin even by the standards of a chase film. Snake has a job and a reason to hurry, and the film forgets the hurry for long stretches, and so did we. The middle hour is mostly walking and talking in the dark, and Todd Ramsay’s editing cannot make a scene move when it has nowhere to go. The action, when it comes, is scrappy; a fight in a makeshift ring is staged flatly and shot too close. Adrienne Barbeau’s Maggie is written as scenery, and Season Hubley’s part is credited as Girl in Chock Full O’Nuts, which is about the measure of it. Stephen Loomis’s costumes do more for these people than the script does: you know what everyone is from what they wear, which is just as well.

Set against Carpenter’s own work, it sits below [*Halloween*](https://film.one/film/halloween) and [*The Thing*](https://film.one/film/the-thing), which are tighter, and alongside *Assault on Precinct 13*, which it resembles: a few people, a hostile place, a long night. What it has that they do not is a sense of humour about its hero. Most critics put it near the top of his films. We would put it a rung lower, because the pictures and the music promise a film the script never quite gets round to writing.

Watch it late, with the lights off and the sound up, and do not expect much to happen. The point is the walk. Russell’s whisper, Cundey’s black frames and that bass line will get you to the end, and the end, which we will not describe, is better than the hour before it.

*Fi1m score 76, published 4 October 2026.*

## What the critics say

Most critics like Escape from New York, and the lean is clearly positive: eight of eleven reviews are favourable and none is hostile. The praise clusters around Kurt Russell’s Snake Plissken, whom several critics call the film’s focal point, and around the ruined New York itself: the production design, the night photography and the synth score come up again and again. Later reviewers find its vision of a broken police state has aged into something close to prophecy, and treat the politics as the main interest.

The reservations are about execution, not the idea. Radio Times and Variety both think the premise outruns what Carpenter does with it, with scenes that miss the drama they set up. Den of Geek flags dated handling of gender and race while still recommending it. The spread is narrow, from lukewarm to warm; the lowest scores come from critics who still find it watchable, and nobody argues it is a bad film, only a rougher one than its reputation suggests.

## Straight answers

**Is Escape from New York worth watching?**

*Escape from New York* is worth watching for anyone who likes their science fiction cheap, dark and surly, and we scored it 76. John Carpenter's idea is slight and the middle hour drifts, but Dean Cundey's black night-time frames, the synthesiser score and Kurt Russell's whispered performance as Snake Plissken carry it. Watch it late, with the lights off, and do not expect much to happen.

**How long is Escape from New York, and what is it rated?**

*Escape from New York* runs 1h 39m. It is an action and thriller film.

**Where can I watch Escape from New York in Switzerland?**

*Escape from New York* is not on any streaming or rental service in Switzerland at the moment. It is available in 10 other countries; change your country at the top of the page to see where. Availability is checked daily.

**How violent or frightening is Escape from New York, and is it suitable for children?**

*Escape from New York* is a 15 in the UK and R-rated in the US, and it is not for children. The violence is scrappy rather than graphic, including a flatly staged fight in a makeshift ring, and the fear comes from atmosphere: dark streets, fires in oil drums and a score that goes quiet before something moves. Teenagers who can take a sustained, menacing mood should be fine.

**What should I watch after Escape from New York?**

After *Escape from New York*, try [*Mad Max 2*](https://film.one/film/mad-max-2) (1981, Fi1m 88): The same year, the same surly loner, with cars instead of streets and daylight instead of dark. Then [*Children of Men*](https://film.one/film/children-of-men) (2006, Fi1m 85): Britain as the broken state, a reluctant man escorting a precious passenger through it.

### Reviews we read (11)

- **Empire**, Ian Freer (90/100, inferred): Freer calls the film highly entertaining and praises its cool, effective sci-fi setup. He singles out Kurt Russell’s Snake Plissken as the standout, with an unusually compelling mix of anger, coolness and wit. [Read](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/escape-new-york-review/)
- **Slant Magazine**, Ed Gonzalez (3.5/4): Gonzalez finds the film’s politics strikingly immediate and its analog-minded subversion resonant. He singles out Snake’s final act and the cassette as a potent expression of analog bringing opposing nations together. [Read](https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/escape-from-new-york/)
- **The Guardian**, Phil Hoad (★★★★☆): Hoad considers Escape from New York close to Carpenter’s peak, with Snake Plissken giving it a strong focal point. He praises the film’s ramshackle analogue of crime-ridden 1970s New York and its broad, self-aware social satire. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/oct/25/john-carpenter-in-4k-reviews)
- **The Hollywood Reporter**, Arthur Knight (80/100, inferred): Knight gives the film a strongly positive verdict, praising its intriguing premise, effective cast and expert execution. He especially singles out the convincing future-New York setting and its striking production design and photography. [Read](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/escape-new-york-review-1981-movie-1019624/)
- **Little White Lies**, Anton Bitel (75/100, inferred): Bitel views the film as an eerily prescient dystopian thriller that remains compelling. He singles out its bleak vision of a broken police state and its anarchic final gesture. [Read](https://lwlies.com/home-ents/escape-from-new-york-blu-ray-review)
- **Variety**, Variety Staff (70/100, inferred): The review calls the film a solidly satisfying actioner, though its execution falls short of its premise. It praises the imaginative, fun special-effects work while faulting some scenes for not reaching their dramatic potential. [Read](https://variety.com/1980/film/reviews/escape-from-new-york-1200424998/)
- **Time Out**, TM (64/100, inferred): The accessible page does not reveal the critic’s verdict. It contains no review text from which to identify what the critic praises or criticizes. [Read](https://www.timeout.com/movies/escape-from-new-york)
- **Radio Times**, Alan Jones (3/5): Jones finds the film entertaining but says it never delivers on its ingenuity. He praises the marvellous night-time opening sequence. [Read](https://www.radiotimes.com/movie-guide/b-p746jk/escape-from-new-york/)
- **HeyUGuys** (90/100, inferred): The critic finds the restoration invigorating and calls the film a definitive action classic. They single out its atmospheric dystopian world and Kurt Russell’s commanding performance as Snake Plissken. [Read](https://www.heyuguys.com/escape-from-new-york-4k-restoration-re-release-review/)
- **Den of Geek**, Lou Thomas (4/5): Thomas finds the film remarkably effective and immersive despite dated gender and racial aspects. He particularly praises its atmospheric production design and pulsing synth score. [Read](https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/escape-from-new-york-4k-review-atmospheric-and-immersive/)
- **Eye for Film**, Max Blinkhorn (65/100, inferred): Blinkhorn finds the film undeniably watchable and sees it as a cult classic despite its roughness. He singles out the memorable, quirky performances, especially Isaac Hayes as the Duke of New York. [Read](https://www.eyeforfilm.co.uk/review/escape-from-new-york-film-review-by-max-blinkhorn)

## Details

- **Director:** John Carpenter
- **Director:** John Carpenter
- **Screenplay:** Nick Castle, John Carpenter
- **Cinematography:** Dean Cundey
- **Editor:** Todd Ramsay
- **Music:** Alan Howarth, John Carpenter
- **Production design:** Joe Alves
- **Costume design:** Stephen Loomis
- **Producer:** Debra Hill, Larry J. Franco
- **Cast:** Kurt Russell as Snake Plissken; Lee Van Cleef as Police Commissioner Bob Hauk; Ernest Borgnine as Cabbie; Donald Pleasence as President of the United States; Isaac Hayes as The Duke of New York; Season Hubley as Girl in Chock Full O'Nuts; Harry Dean Stanton as Harold 'Brain' Helman; Adrienne Barbeau as Maggie
- **Runtime:** 1h 39m
- **First release (the US):** 1 April 1981
- **Genres:** Action, Thriller, Science Fiction
- **Budget:** $6 million
- **Box office:** $50 million
- **Trailer:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqT09APfNKI

## Where to watch in Switzerland

Not streaming, renting or buying in Switzerland at the last check.

Also available in: AT, AU, BE, ES, FR, GB, IN, JP, NZ, US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country.

## If you liked this

- *Assault on Precinct 13* (1976): Carpenter’s earlier siege: fewer people, one building, the same long night and bass line.
- *The Warriors* (1979): Another New York after dark, crossed on foot by people who would rather not be there.
- *Mad Max 2* (1981), Fi1m 88: The same year, the same surly loner, with cars instead of streets and daylight instead of dark. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/mad-max-2.md)
- *Dredd* (2012): A tower block as prison, a laconic lawman, and action staged with the clarity Carpenter sometimes lacks.
- *Children of Men* (2006), Fi1m 85: Britain as the broken state, a reluctant man escorting a precious passenger through it. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/children-of-men.md)

---
© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/film/escape-from-new-york