escape from new york opened in new york and los angeles july   the film grossed $ million in american theaters in summer  the film received generally positive reviews as of november   it had a rating of  percent on rotten tomatoes with the critical consensus "featuring an atmospherically grimy futuristic metropolis escape from new york is a strange entertaining jumble of thrilling action and oddball weirdness" newsweek magazine wrote "[he has a] deeply ingrained b-movie sensibility - which is both his strength and limitation he does clean work but settles for too little he uses russell well however" in time magazine richard corliss wrote "john carpenter is offering this summers moviegoers a rare opportunity to escape from the air-conditioned torpor of ordinary entertainment into the hothouse humidity of their own paranoia its a trip worth taking" vincent canby in his review for the new york times wrote "[the film] is not to be analyzed too solemnly though its a toughly told very tall tale one of the best escape and escapist movies of the season" in his review for the chicago reader dave kehr wrote "it fails to satisfy–it gives us too little of too much"