10 Classic Movies The Directors Won't Stop Changing

The film that popularised the concept of the director's cut is also the one that seems to have more of them than any other, so much so that a five disc box set exists of just different cuts of the movie.

In 1982, after an exceedingly troubled shoot, director Ridley Scott edited his dystopian noir into a thoughtful and stylish piece of art to be shown to test audiences that spring. The 113 minute workprint that these audiences saw tested extremely poorly, however, and the studio ordered it to be recut for that summer's theatrical release.

The theatrical cut, around five minutes longer, dispenses with subtlety thanks to an overexplanatory voiceover from a disinterested Harrison Ford and adds a jarring happy ending made up of B-roll footage from The Shining. It got thoroughly mixed reviews. A slightly different "International Cut" was also released outside the US with more violent action scenes, but this made little difference to its reception.

In 1990, a limited release of the original workprint in certain theatres got a much more positive response and prompted Warner Bros. to consider giving Scott's original vision a wider release.

The 1992 "Director's Cut", approved but not actually cut together by Scott, was a cleaned up version of the workprint with some key additions, notably the scene in which Ford's Deckard dreams of a unicorn (the strongest implication that he too may be a replicant), which had not featured in either earlier version.

Scott had more direct involvement in the (accurately titled thus far) "Final Cut", released in 2007. It involved Scott going back and reshooting material like the death of the replicant Zhora and cleaning up some of the effects shots, as well as a longer version of the unicorn dream. It's probably the version to watch today, but is not significantly different from the Director's Cut.