Rediscover an ultra-cool modern French thriller

How well we remember the spring of 1982, when three of the ultra-coolest (and most stylistically influential) films ever made

How well we remember the spring of 1982, when three of the ultra-coolest (and most stylistically influential) films ever made were hitting U.S. screens — Blade Runner, The Road Warrior, and Diva — with their posters mandated to hang on dorm-room walls from USC to NYU. Diva (the newly remastered version is available on DVD 6/3) may not have wowed jaded critics in France when it was released there the previous year, but it arrived in the States to the open arms and breathless Bravas of toughies like Pauline Kael.

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The far-out plot (involving one bootleg opera recording, two Taiwanese thugs, some very bad cops, and a sex-slave ring) takes a backseat to the sights and sounds,as first-time director Jean-Jacques Beineix channels Alfred Hitchcock set loose in Paris with a Steadicam. One brilliant scene has stayed with us though the years (long after the poster vanished) — and that’s the moped in the subway. Just click here and cut to the chase.

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Rediscover an ultra-cool modern French thriller