It took a Dutch director to create one of the screen’s most nightmarish visions of American social decay. In a future Detroit, crime is running rampant and corporations are slowly taking over public services. When the OCP corporation takes charge of the police, they introduce their latest innovation: a cyborg cop made using the body of a murdered officer (Peter Weller). What the suits don’t reckon with is the officer’s gradual recovery of his earlier memories and his response when he uncovers corruption within the company itself. Working from a script by Edward Neumeier and Michael Miner, Paul Verhoeven created a thrilling, often disturbing action film that also satirized the corporatist ideology of the Reagan era. Some audiences missed the joke, hailing RoboCop as the kind of hero America needed.

DCP courtesy Amazon Studios and Park Circus.