Ridley Scott's Blade Runner is now widely recognised as a masterwork of science fiction cinema, and one of the most influential of any films released in the last twenty-five years. In Studying Blade Runner , Sean Redmond uses the key concepts of Media and Film Studies& -Film Language, Representation, Institutions and Audiences& -to explore the many significances of the film: Its breakthrough use of special effects as a narrative tool; the film's revolutionary representation of the future city; its treatment of racial and sexual politics; iIts unique status as a text whose meaning was fundamentally altered in its re-released 'Director's Cut' form& -and what this means in an institutional context.