Escape From New York is a 1981 American science fiction action film co-written, co-scored and directed by John Carpenter. The film stars Kurt Russell, Lee Van Cleef, Ernest Borgnine, Donald Pleasence, Isaac Hayes, Season Hubley, and Harry Dean Stanton. In the movie, It's 1997 and Manhattan has been turned into a maximum-security prison. When the United States president crash lands into the city after fleeing a hijacked plane, a ruthless prison warden bribes ex-soldier and criminal Snake Plissken to rescue the president, who is being held, hostage.