Movies Like Escape from New York
If you loved Escape from New York's Science Fiction and Action storytelling, these films deliver a similar experience — carefully selected for tone, themes, and emotional depth. Each pick includes where to watch it right now.
★ Top Picks
Escape from L.A.
Into the 9.6-quaked Los Angeles of 2013 comes Snake Plissken. His job: wade through L.A.'s ruined landmarks to retrieve a doomsday device.
Terminator 2: Judgment Day
Ten years after the events of the original, a reprogrammed T-800 is sent back in time to protect young John Connor from the shape-shifting T-1000. Together with his mother Sarah, he fights to stop Skynet from triggering a nuclear apocalypse.
No Escape
In the year 2022, a ruthless prison warden has created the ultimate solution for his most troublesome and violent inmates: Absolom, a secret jungle island where prisoners are abandoned and left to die. But Marine Captain John Robbins, convicted of murdering a commanding officer, is determined to escape the island in order to reveal the truth behind his murderous actions and clear his name.
The Incredible Hulk
Scientist Bruce Banner scours the planet for an antidote to the unbridled force of rage within him: the Hulk. But when the military masterminds who dream of exploiting his powers force him back to civilization, he finds himself coming face to face with a new, deadly foe.
The Terminator
In the post-apocalyptic future, reigning tyrannical supercomputers teleport a cyborg assassin known as the "Terminator" back to 1984 to kill Sarah Connor, whose unborn son is destined to lead insurgents against 21st century mechanical hegemony. Meanwhile, the human-resistance movement dispatches a lone warrior to safeguard Sarah. Can he stop the virtually indestructible killing machine?
The Matrix Revolutions
The human city of Zion defends itself against the massive invasion of the machines as Neo fights to end the war at another front while also opposing the rogue Agent Smith.
Daylight
A group of armed robbers fleeing the police head for the New Jersey Tunnel and run right into trucks transporting toxic waste. The spectacular explosion that follows results in both ends of the tunnel collapsing and the handful of people who survived the explosion are now in peril. Kit Latura is the only man with the skill and knowledge to lead the band of survivors out of the tunnel before the structure collapses.
Demolition Man
In 1996, brash L.A. detective John Spartan and maniac killer Simon Phoenix are both sentenced to decades in a cryogenic prison as punishment for a rescue mission gone wrong. When Phoenix escapes 36 years later to wreak havoc on the future, Spartan is awakened to capture his nemesis the old-fashioned way.
More Movies Like Escape from New York
10 Cloverfield Lane
After a catastrophic car crash, a young woman wakes up in a survivalist's underground bunker, where he claims to have saved her from an apocalyptic attack that has left the outside world uninhabitable.
Valiant One
With tensions between North and South Korea, a US helicopter crashes on the North side. The survivors must work together to protect a civilian tech specialist and find their way out without the help of US military support.
Samaritan
Thirteen year old Sam Cleary suspects that his mysteriously reclusive neighbor Mr. Smith is actually the legendary vigilante Samaritan, who was reported dead 25 years ago. With crime on the rise and the city on the brink of chaos, Sam makes it his mission to coax his neighbor out of hiding to save the city from ruin.
John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum
Super-assassin John Wick returns with a $14 million price tag on his head and an army of bounty-hunting killers on his trail. After killing a member of the shadowy international assassin’s guild, the High Table, John Wick is excommunicado, but the world’s most ruthless hit men and women await his every turn.
Extraction 2
Back from the brink of death, highly skilled commando Tyler Rake takes on another dangerous mission: saving the imprisoned family of a ruthless gangster.
Walking Tall
A former U.S. soldier returns to his hometown to find it overrun by crime and corruption, which prompts him to clean house.
The Island
In 2019, Lincoln Six-Echo is a resident of a seemingly "Utopian" but contained facility. Like all of the inhabitants of this carefully-controlled environment, Lincoln hopes to be chosen to go to The Island — reportedly the last uncontaminated location on the planet. But Lincoln soon discovers that everything about his existence is a lie.
Missing in Action
American servicemen are still being held captive in Vietnam and it's up to one man to bring them home in this blistering, fast-paced action/adventure starring martial arts superstar Chuck Norris. Following a daring escape from a Vietnamese POW camp, Special Forces Colonel James Braddock (Norris) is on a mission to locate and save remaining MIAs.
The Matrix Reloaded
The Resistance builds in numbers as humans are freed from the Matrix and brought to the city of Zion. Neo discovers his superpowers, including the ability to see the code inside the Matrix. With machine sentinels digging to Zion in 72 hours, Neo, Morpheus and Trinity must find the Keymaker to ultimately reach the Source.
The Expendables
Barney Ross leads a band of highly skilled mercenaries including knife enthusiast Lee Christmas, a martial arts expert Yin Yang, heavy weapons specialist Hale Caesar, demolitionist Toll Road, and a loose-cannon sniper Gunner Jensen. When the group is commissioned by the mysterious Mr. Church to assassinate the dictator of a small South American island, Barney and Lee visit the remote locale to scout out their opposition and discover the true nature of the conflict engulfing the city.
Code of Silence
A Chicago cop is caught in the middle of a gang war while his own comrades shun him because he wants to take an irresponsible cop down.
Code 8
In Lincoln City, some inhabitants have extraordinary abilities. Most live below the poverty line, under the close surveillance of a heavily militarized police force. Connor, a construction worker with powers, involves with a criminal gang to help his ailing mother. (Based on the short film “Code 8,” 2016.)
Why These Movies Are Similar
These recommendations share core qualities with Escape from New York (1981): Science Fiction and Action themes, similar narrative structure, and comparable emotional depth. NoBadPicks uses a combination of TMDB collaborative filtering, genre matching, and AI analysis to surface films most likely to resonate with fans of Escape from New York.
See full details for Escape from New York (1981)