This is one of those movies that has entered the realm of enigma. Its original cinema release met with a variety of views from the critics and performed poorly at the box office, since then it has steadily continued to grow! There was much talk of Ridley Scott’s original ending being changed by the studio among a variety of other edits. With talk of a sequel on the way, the director has taken it upon himself to release a definitive version!

It will get a full release next April, but before that there’s a one off screening taking place this Sunday. Full details are below. You can buy tickets here.

The definitive version of Blade Runner back at the IFI on Sunday 14th December

Unavailable for theatrical exhibition for a number of years due to protracted legal issues, Ridley Scott’s legendary Blade Runner, based on a novel by sci-fi author Philip K. Dick, returns to the IFI’s big screen on 14th December at 18.30 for this one-off preview in advance of a full scale re-release in April 2015. This is Ridley Scott’s final and definitive edit of the film, the only version over which he had complete artistic control.

Harrison Ford is Rick Deckard, hired to locate and destroy ‘replicants’, bioengineered humans who have come to Earth illegally. Superficially indistinguishable from humans, Deckard must be sure who is and who is not a replicant before they are ‘retired’ while the replicants themselves are engaged on a mission to validate the authenticity of and extend their lives. A claustrophobic and dystopian vision of the near future, this visually stunning sci-fi noir asks big questions about death, corporate power and artificial life.

Regularly talked of as one of the great sci-fi’s and, indeed, great films of all time, Blade Runner’s questions and anxieties about the direction only seem to become more relevant the closer we get to 2019, the year in which the film is set.