oming off the success of his grunge-horror-screaming-in-space movie Alien, Scott was given $30 million to put the dystopic future on film. The result was a commercial flop, and one of the most influential, densely designed visions ever made. Based on Philip K. Dick's s-f novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, Blade Runner is set in the year 2019, in a big city that suggests a Tokyo gone daft. Androids (like the ones played by Rutger Hauer, Sean Young and Darryl Hannah) are so evolved they think they're human. They need a 1940s-style cop (Harrison Ford) to put a bullet through their delusion. Narrative drive and graphic ingenuity combine to create a compelling fantasy world, a disturbing future as near to us as our nightmares. —R.C.