Ex-cop Lenny Nero (Ralph Fiennes) has moved into a more lucrative trade: the illegal sale of virtual reality-like recordings that allow users to experience the emotions and sensations of others. While the bootlegs typically contain tawdry incidents, Nero is shocked when he receives one depicting an actual murder. He enlists friend and bodyguard Mace (Angela Bassett) and former partner Max Peltier (Tom Sizemore), to help find the killer — and they soon stumble upon a vast conspiracy involving the police force Nero once worked for, his past lover and rockstar Faith Justin (Juliette Lewis) and his nemesis, media mogul Philo Grant (Michael Wincott).

Kathryn Bigelow’s cautionary cyberpunk noir set at the turn of the millennium — a visceral and unsettling tale about the democratization of technology and its ability to document both the personal and the political in service of good and bad actors alike — is ripe for reappraisal.

Photo credit: 20th Century Fox