Plot

Director Ridley Scott's hauntingly prescient vision of the not-too-distant future stars Harrison Ford as Rick Deckard, a retired police assassin, or "blade runner." The Los Angeles of 2019 is a dark, polluted, overcrowded dystopia dominated by cloud-piercing buildings and looming neon billboards, the air dense with acid rain and flying traffic. World-weary Deckard has been called out of retirement to liquidate four escaped "replicants"--genetically derived androids of great strength, intelligence, and nearly-human emotion who serve as slaves and prostitutes in the off-planet colonies. Led by Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer), they've come to Los Angeles to confront their designer, Eldon Tyrell (Joe Turkel), with their unhappiness about the brevity of their four-year life span. In the course of his search, Deckard becomes romantically entwined with Tyrell's lovely assistant, Rachael (Sean Young), and must eventually confront Batty in an unforgettable rain-soaked sequence.

A highly influential fusion of the science fiction and noir genres based on the novel DO ANDROIDS DREAM OF ELECTRIC SHEEP? by Philip K. Dick, this postmodern film boasts astonishingly rich art direction, juxtaposing ingenious technological gadgetry with yellowing photographs and fetishistic objets d'art as it touches on questions of time, memory, identity, and mortality. Different from Scott's 1992 director's cut, this widely released edition of the film, which features Ford's narration and an ending culled from footage of Stanley Kubrick's THE SHINING, remains the most well known version of this stunning cinematic landmark.