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Kathryn Bigelow’s Strange Days (1995) is the greatest cyberpunk movie ever made. That’s right—it’s better than Akira, both Blade Runners and, yes, even The Matrix. And after languishing on DVDs and foreign Blu-rays, it’s finally available for streaming.
Ralph Fiennes stars as Lenny Nero, a peddler of VR sex fantasies who is pursued through Los Angeles by a pair of murderous police officers. Luckily, Lenny has an ally: Mace (Angela Bassett), an ass-kicking limo driver with whom he has far more chemistry than Faith (Juliette Lewis), the magenta-haired pop star he obsesses over.
As brutal as it is sexy, Strange Days is one of the most ferocious action films of the ‘90s. In terms of pure adrenaline, it even tops Bigelow’s Point Break (1991), especially during a climax where New Year’s Eve revelers rise up against the film’s cop villains, filling the night air with confetti and blood (though there’s a heroic LAPD commissioner played by Josef Sommer).
By the time Strange Days was released, Bigelow was divorced from James Cameron, who co-wrote the film. But the story marries their respective sensibilities, fusing her keen insight into masculinity and violence (shades of The Hurt Locker) with his mastery of uncynical melodrama (Fiennes and Bassett’s soulful sparring plays like a prelude to Kate and Leo in Titanic).
Bigelow has confirmed that the politics came from her and the romance came from Cameron. Still, Strange Days is a Bigelow movie through and through—and it’s a testament to her gift for grabbing the audience by the guts and heart, as she does each time Fiennes and Bassett share the screen.
Movies are filled with couples who want to be together. Strange Days is about a couple who needs to be together, whether they know it or not. “You see, I care about you, Lenny—a lot more than you know,” Mace thunders. Therein lies the gift of Bigelow’s film: It does the greatest thing a work of art can do. It makes us care. HBO Max.