Escape from New York

Escape from New York (1981) is John Carpenter's cult sci-fi action film, and you can watch it online on iFILM. In the near future, the whole island of Manhattan has been sealed behind a wall and turned into a maximum-security prison with no guards inside.

When Air Force One goes down over the city, the president ends up alive but in the hands of the inmates. The one man sent to drag him out is Snake Plissken, a convicted war hero with an eye patch and zero loyalty to the government. Kurt Russell plays him. Tiny charges are wired into Snake's neck, set to kill him in twenty-four hours unless he makes it back. The clock starts ticking. Waiting inside are the self-styled Duke (Isaac Hayes), a chatterbox cabbie (Ernest Borgnine) and an old contact called Brain (Harry Dean Stanton).

Carpenter built this dystopia on a tight budget, dressing up a decaying nighttime cityscape as the future and composing the synth score himself with Alan Howarth. Snake Plissken became the template for a whole line of loner antiheroes. Stream Escape from New York (1981) online on iFILM.