Ford, with his Star Wars cachet, was Blade Runner's top-line draw, but it's Hauer's movie all the way, his shimmering "replicant" providing the tonal touchstone for Ridley Scott's severally reworked masterpiece.

This remains an astonishing achievement: a Dystopian sci-fi epic that is also one of the best film noirs of recent times.

"Blade Runner is a film set 40 years hence, made in the style of 40 years ago," Ridley Scott said of his celebrated science-fiction noir. Perhaps that other-worldly "retrofitted" look is why it seems ageless, despite being set in 2019.

Rarely in the annals of film history has a movie received a complete critical and popular reevaluation in as short a period of time as Blade Runner (and those of us who championed it since Day One plugged it at every opportunity).