Escape from New York, 1981

Yet another Carpenter classic, Escape From New York is set in the near-future of 1997 where New York City has become one large maximum security prison—AKA a manifestation (and skewering) of the worst fears of ‘80s broken windows policing. Kurt Russell stars as the amazingly named Snake Plissken (the inspiration behind Metal Gear’s Solid Snake), who is about to be sentenced to prison on Manhattan Island for robbing the Federal Reserve, until the president is kidnapped by terrorists. Plissken is then injected with micro-explosives and dropped onto the island to search for and rescue the president, giving us an hour-and-a-half of gruff, no-nonsense Russell and one of the more grimy takes on Manhattan to come out of the ‘80s (and that’s saying something).

Escape From New York has the mark of Carpenter all over it—the B-movie energy, the tongue-in-cheek observations on modern society, the wild action and weirdness. It’s an instant classic (and a great Halloween costume, I might add). — Alyssa Mercante