10 Best Whodunit Films From Unusual Genres

8. Strange Days (Cyberpunk)

Some 13 years before she won the Oscar for Best Director for The Hurt Locker, director Kathryn Bigelow made this box office flop that nearly ended her career. Strange Days is set in a dystopian Los Angeles in the days leading up to the turn of the 21st century. Ralph Fiennes stars as a sketchy black market dealer of a device known as SQUID, which is a virtual reality-type device that allows people to see and feel the same sensations of someone else. Fiennes’ ex-girlfriend was wearing a SQUID device and recorded the murder of a rapper and social activist. When the woman then also winds up dead, it is up to Fiennes and his best friend, a limousine driver played by Angela Bassett, to follow the trail to who is behind all the murders.

Strange Days came from an idea originally thought up by writer-director James Cameron, who was Bigelow’s husband at the time. The two worked on the story together for years and then were able to secure financing as a two-part deal with Cameron’s action film, True Lies. The film portrays turn-of-the-century LA like a war zone, giving an obvious commentary on the race riots over police brutality that scourged the city in 1993.

With strong performances by the likes of Fiennes, Bassett, Juliette Lewis, and Tom Sizemore, Strange Days has a developed a cult following since its underperforming release. Some critics today rank it as one of the best cyberpunk thrillers alongside Blade Runner.