High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Escape from New York is a 1981 American science fiction action film directed and scored by John Carpenter. He co-wrote the screenplay with Nick Castle. The film is set in the near future in a crime-ridden United States that has converted Manhattan Island in New York City into a maximum security prison. Ex-soldier Snake Plissken (Kurt Russell) is given 24 hours to find the President of the United States, who has been captured after the crash of Air Force One.