25 Cult Movies You Must See Before You Die

Thanks to Zero Dark Thirty and The Hurt Locker, Kathryn Bigelow is now a proper, Oscar-winning director. Before that, she was the one behind the camera of eighties cult hits like vampire flick Near Dark and Nick Frost's favourite, Point Break. In between those two distinct eras Bigelow made her best film, the dystopian sci-fi Strange Days.

Starring Ralph Fiennes as a “dealer” whose contraband takes the form of experiences, recorded on a disc and able to be experienced by anybody with the right money to buy illicit recordings like bank robberies, sex and drug highs, Strange Days sees Fiennes given a video that shows corrupt cops murdering a young black revolutionary.

Riffing on the then-contemporary Rodney King case and LA riots, it's one of those classic sci-fi stories exploring modern concerns, with Fiennes in a different role than usual, Juliette Lewis as his ex and Angela Bassett as the badass helping him. Bigelow crafts a dark, but recognisable, future, and the plot gets tied up nicely at the end. Brilliant, little-seen.