In the 1996 movie "The Rock," the action takes place on Alcatraz Island, the former prison island in San Francisco Bay. The film uses the island’s abandoned penitentiary as the setting for its central hostage crisis.
Rogue U.S. Marine General Francis Hummel and his Force Recon Marines seize Alcatraz, take tourists and guards hostage, and threaten to launch rockets filled with VX nerve gas at the San Francisco Bay Area. Their demand is $100 million, intended largely as compensation for families of servicemen killed in covert operations.
The FBI assembles a team that includes chemical-weapons specialist Stanley Goodspeed, played by Nicolas Cage, and John Mason, a former British agent played by Sean Connery. Mason is recruited because he is supposedly the only prisoner to have escaped from Alcatraz.
Alcatraz is a real island and former federal penitentiary, but the film takes substantial dramatic liberties. The prison closed in 1963, and many scenes were filmed inside the actual former prison. The movie’s title refers both to the location and to the island’s nickname, "The Rock."