Fiennes holds steady; his moody, lonely performance, especially in the beguiling first half hour, lends the story an air of calm despair.

| Mar 10, 2023

What this movie is ultimately saying is, don't think at all.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Jun 7, 2022

Strange Days is not a simple film, but a profound sensory experience, where the filmmaker is the prophet of a reality just around the corner.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Aug 18, 2021

Strange Days does something most dystopian films don't: it presents a future where we aren't all unhappily oppressed in a similar fashion.

| Dec 29, 2020

Director Kathryn Bigelow comes closer than any other filmmaker to turning movies into a virtual reality trip.

| Jan 18, 2013

| Original Score: B- | Sep 7, 2011

Once the premise has lost its promise, and Fiennes's brave attempts at characterization are sacrificed to pseudo-dazzle, everything appears awfully humdrum and, yes, distinctly dated.

| Apr 12, 2002

Ralph Fiennes is the perfect sleazebag, while Angela Bassett and Juliette Lewis provide good support.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 16, 2001

Undeniably thrilling and troubling.

Full Review | May 12, 2001

Though the creators of Strange Days may well be interested in its dramatic and thematic elements, they do not have the same touch for these moments as they do for camera pyrotechnics.

| Feb 13, 2001

It's fascinating the way Bigelow is able to suggest so much of VR's impact (and dangers) within a movie - a form of VR that's a century old.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Jan 1, 2000

| Original Score: 3/5 | Jan 1, 2000

Bigelow is so enamored of high-tech thrills, and so mesmerized by the violence she seeks to condemn, that her efforts at 11th-hour moralizing seem limp and halfhearted.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Jan 1, 2000

| Original Score: B- | Oct 13, 1995