Blade Runner, The Director's Cut (1992)

Set in Los Angeles in November 2019, Harrison Ford stars as the "blade runner" Rick Deckard, a special police officer who must track down and "retire" four "replicants" who have returned to earth from "off-world" colonies. Their crime is that they want to be fully human; as it is, they are genetically manipulated humanoids, virtually indistinguishable from normal humans except that they are superior in strength and intellect, lack full emotions, and have a life span of four years. Deckard falls in love with Rachel, a fifth, experimental replicant who thinks she is truly human, and there are ambiguities that Deckard himself might be a replicant ("Did you ever take the test yourself?") and in the way the film ends. Blade Runner fared poorly when it was released in 1982, the same weekend as ET, but since then it has become a cult classic that regularly appears on lists of the best films ever. Much more than a sci-fi thriller, which it is, the film explores nothing less than what it means to be human in a very dark world. The year 2007 marks its twenty-fifth anniversary, and since its original release there have been seven versions of the film, including The Final Cut (2007)—notable because it's the only version over which the director Ridley Scott had total control. For a good artcile on Blade Runner see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blade_Runner.