Despite a marvellous night-time opening sequence, this slice of escapism never really delivers on the ingenuity of its premise.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 13, 2024

Not my favorite classic Carpenter film, it still offers a scrappy look into the director’s political edge.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Aug 5, 2023

The filmmaker’s cynical sense of humor and anti-authoritarian stance are all over the movie without overwhelming the suspense/entertainment focus.

| Jul 8, 2023

From Kurt Russell immortalizing the lead character to the comic books, action figures, and board games that followed, “Escape from New York” still excites its fans and has earned its status as a time-tested cult classic.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Mar 1, 2023

Escape From New York is an iconic action thriller of the 80's that is arguably Carpenter's coolest film. Snake Plissken is a unique antihero played perfectly by Russell as he demolishes his Disney stigma. It's a good time that remains scarily relevant.

| Original Score: 4.25/5 | Oct 2, 2022

Sixty per cent a perfectly realized film.

| Jul 27, 2022

New York as surreal, existential hell was done much better by Walter Hill in The Warriors; Carpenter’s imagery fails to shock today’s jaded audiences.

| May 23, 2022

One of John Carpenter's most popular films remains this futuristic yarn featuring an irresistible hook and an iconic anti-hero.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Apr 10, 2022

Regardless of how much John Carpenter pays homage to Howard Hawks, or how much Kurt Russell's performance is rooted in Clint Eastwood's various onscreen characters, Escape from New York stands on its own merits and achieves something unique.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Feb 14, 2022

What works is the tone, the character, and the deeply cynical attitude towards authority of all stripes.

| Oct 24, 2021

[O]ne of the standouts of director/co-writer John Carpenter's damn-near-unmatched 1976-1988 run of stupendous filmmaking.

| Jul 11, 2021

A substandard-by-design, low-budget, accidental sci-fi epic that is too good to pass up.

| Original Score: 9/10 | Sep 6, 2020

If you don't like Escape From New York, then you and I will have some trouble seeing eye to eye-patch in our taste in movies.

| Apr 9, 2020

Everything is sluggishly directed by Carpenter, which is odd for a master of the horror genre.

| Oct 4, 2019

In a time when New York may well have been at its most dangerous, or at least most volatile, John Carpenter came through with a nihilist vision of the city.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Apr 28, 2019

Escape From New York fires on every cylinder. It has a killer concept, iconic characters, legendary art design and musical score...

| Mar 1, 2019

1997 is the year in which the film's events are set, but far from being a bright, progressive future, it is a hyperbolic deterioration of 1981's here and now

| Nov 19, 2018

When you look at how action cinema developed over the 1980s, it's now clear to see that Escape From New York is one of the films which established the template for the muscular action hero.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 4, 2018

The film plays its social satire broad but strings it along a rail of self-awareness.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Oct 25, 2018

It has got an intriguing premise, an effective cast, and it has been expertly mounted.

| Jul 10, 2017