Blade Runner 2049

Well worth the 35-year wait, director Denis Villeneuve's sequel to Ridley Scott's seminal sci-fi thriller is both a fan-pleaser and an artistic achievement in its own right. Ryan Gosling plays android LAPD detective Officer K, who is sent to investigate the existence of a replicant child. K discovers a link to Officer Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford), who disappeared three decades before, and soon finds that the case is of interest to powerful, dangerous people. Both the original Blade Runner and Villeneuve's earlier film Arrival ponder what it is that makes us human, and Villeneuve effectively continues the theme here. Gosling has a wonderful, quiet curiosity as K, and Ford makes a crowd-pleasing return to one of his best roles. Oscar-winning cinematographer Roger Deakins's bleak vistas deserve equal praise, his vision of a future ravaged Earth proving both majestic and terrifying. Villeneuve, meanwhile, has gone on to prove his mastery of the genre in his awesome take on another cult story, Frank Herbert's Dune.