Escape from New York, Kurt Russell sci-fi action film.

Escape from New York is a 1981 American sci-fi action film directed by John Carpenter, starring Kurt Russell, Lee Van Cleef, Adrienne Barbeau, Donald Pleasence, Harry Dean Stanton and Ernest Borgnine. In 1997, with a war between the United States and the Soviet Union concluding, the island of Manhattan has been converted into a giant maximum security prison. When Air Force One is hijacked and crashes there, the president is taken hostage by inmates. Snake Plissken, a former Special Forces soldier turned criminal, is recruited to retrieve the president in exchange for his own freedom.