Original poster artwork · Great Cinema Master ListBAFTA · 3
Spoiler-free premise
A weary investigator in a futuristic Los Angeles is ordered to track down four artificial humans who have returned to Earth.
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Los Angeles blade runner Rick Deckard is ordered to retire four replicants who have escaped an off-world colony and returned to Earth. His investigation leads through the Tyrell Corporation and to Rachael, an advanced replicant who believes her implanted memories are human.
Why it belongs
Through rain, smoke, neon, layered architecture, Vangelis, and uncertainty about memory and personhood, Blade Runner makes futuristic noir physical.
Read expanded why it belongsThe fuller editorial case+
Rutger Hauer's Roy and Sean Young's Rachael complicate the dehumanizing certainty of Deckard's job. Miniatures, crowded streets, multilingual signage, shafts of light, reflective interiors, and Vangelis's electronic score give the city sedimented history.
