It has low-lifes living in the future, but there really isn’t much high-tech and governments are still in control (not corporations). So do you consider Escape From New York to be cyberpunk?

Apparently the movie was an influence for William Gibson:

Escape from New York never made it big, but it’s been redone a billion times as a rock video. I saw that movie, by the way, when I was starting “Burning Chrome” and it had a real influence on Neuromancer.

But that doesn’t immediately make it cyberpunk. After all, Gibson was also influenced by hard-boiled detective novels and that doesn’t make those cyberpunk.

I could see the argument for this either way so I’m curious what your thoughts are.

It’s streaming on Roku Channel and Freevee (Amazon Prime) if you haven’t seen it before.