The Running Man is a 1987 American science fiction action film directed by Paul Michael Glaser from a screenplay by Steven E. de Souza. It is loosely based on the 1982 novel The Running Man by Stephen King (under his pseudonym Richard Bachman). Starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, María Conchita Alonso, Richard Dawson, Yaphet Kotto, and Jesse Ventura, the film is set in a dystopic and totalitarian future United States, where a state-controlled broadcaster airs a deadly game show in which convicted cr