Three Kurt Russell and John Carpenter Movies to Start With

Start with Escape from New York if you want a rescue mission into a future Manhattan used as a prison. Start with The Thing for a horror story about a small group at an Antarctic outpost. Big Trouble in Little China is my choice for a lighter night: Russell plays a truck driver in a supernatural adventure. Each John Carpenter film sets Russell a different problem. Pick the kind of story you want first. If you watch a second, see how differently the same actor fits into it.

The three films cover five years. The AFI catalog dates Escape from New York to 1981. Carpenter’s official page dates The Thing to 1982. Big Trouble in Little China is a 1986 release. In each, Russell plays a different kind of person in a different kind of closed-off world: Snake Plissken on a rescue mission into a future Manhattan used as a prison, R.J. MacReady at an Antarctic research outpost, and truck driver Jack Burton in an imaginary world beneath Chinatown. Those differences in setting and job are a useful way into the differences between the performances.

Snake Plissken: A rescue mission in Escape from New York

AFI’s catalog entry credits Carpenter as director and Russell as Snake Plissken, and describes the story as a rescue mission into a future Manhattan used as a prison. A premise like that gives the lead a task before it gives him a personality. The mission is the plot, so whatever makes Snake memorable has to come from how Russell carries himself while the plot moves around him.

Try watching for how long Snake waits before answering. A rescue story gives him a job he can get on with without telling the audience much about himself. Ask whether you are more interested in what he says to the people giving him the mission or in what he leaves out. If you like trying to read a person who is there to get a job done, that is a good place to start.

That makes Escape from New York a useful first stop. You can decide quickly whether the rescue premise makes you want to stay with Snake. The Manhattan prison gives you a question about where he has to go. Once you get to MacReady, the more useful question is who is there with him and what the group can do together.

R.J. MacReady: An Antarctic outpost in The Thing

Carpenter’s official page dates The Thing to 1982, names Russell as its star and sets the story at an Antarctic research outpost. AFI names his character as R.J. MacReady. Set that beside the first film. Snake is sent into a city that has been turned into a prison. A research outpost implies the opposite: a small group of people sharing a small space, with nowhere else to go.

Pay attention to who MacReady addresses and who answers him. An Antarctic research team makes a useful setting for that exercise. What happens to your idea of the group when one person takes the lead? In the studio’s clip below, the other men question him while he tries to act. Use that exchange to see whether the group’s distrust is the kind of tension you want tonight.

If you want a story that asks you to follow a small group, the Antarctic outpost makes The Thing the natural pick. Try following who shares a space with MacReady and see how much you learn about the group from watching the people he addresses. I would choose something else if you dislike a confined setting or do not want horror tonight. Those are both part of what you are signing up for here.

Jack Burton: A truck driver in Big Trouble in Little China

20th Century Studios identifies Russell as truck driver Jack Burton and describes the 1986 film as a mystical action adventure set in an imaginary world beneath Chinatown. His ordinary job gives you a way into a premise where the rules are unfamiliar. I would start by watching Burton’s reaction when the story takes a turn he could not have seen coming.

A truck driver meeting the supernatural gives Russell room to play this more than one way. See whether Burton sounds like somebody who expects the room to listen or somebody hoping it will tell him what to do next. Then compare that with the way you read Snake. It is a more useful comparison than keeping a tally of who seems to be the tougher character.

For me, the bigger difference is mood. The rescue mission in Escape from New York and the isolated group in The Thing are premises I would pick for suspense. I would pick Big Trouble in Little China for its supernatural adventure and for the contrast between the driver’s ordinary job and the world he enters. If you only have one evening, let that difference guide you.

Pick a starting point or a pair

Match the film to the evening. Choose Escape from New York if the idea of a rescue mission in a prison city gets you interested. Choose The Thing if a small group in an isolated outpost is the premise you want to follow. Choose Big Trouble in Little China for a driver and a supernatural adventure. The order is up to you.

If you watch two in the same week, try Snake and Burton. One character enters a prison city on a mission. The other encounters a world he does not know under Chinatown. Ask which one you find easier to read, and what Russell does that gives you that impression. Keep the Antarctic outpost for a night when you want to follow the rest of the group as closely as the lead.

For a separate example of Russell working in another genre, read our look at his work on Tombstone. It covers what collaborators said about his part in getting that film made. In these three Carpenter films, you have a narrower question to follow: how does the actor handle a rescue, a remote outpost and a supernatural adventure?

Leave a day between the two films if you are comparing them. Think of one moment you remember from the first and carry that memory into the second. You may come away thinking about how Russell listens, or about which character you could read most easily. That gives you a better way to talk about his work than asking which of the three roles is the most famous.