Over his 40-year career, director Richard Fleischer has demonstrated perhaps the broadest range of acting of any Hollywood director. He rose to fame with dark film noirs like Armored Car Heist and The Narrow Margin before moving on to family-friendly fare like 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea;
«Doctor Dolittle, classic adventure films (Fantastic Voyage, Vikings), unusual interpretations of true stories (Che! and Compulsion) and chilling horror films (10 Place Rillington, See No Evil) before ending his career with a series of eccentric sequels (Amityville 3D, Conan the Destroyer, Red Sonja).
One of Fleischer's best and certainly most famous films, Soylent Green is a genre-bending adventure that blends two of the director's most comfortable genres: science fiction and detective fiction. Released in 1973, it was the third film in an unofficial trilogy of dystopian thrillers starring Charlton Heston (following Planet of the Apes and Omega Man) and one of the darkest Hollywood films of an era when bleakness abounded.
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Heston is at his most cynical yet joyful as Robert Thorn, a police detective living and working in a New York City ravaged by environmental degradation and resource depletion. (The film is set in 2022, making it feel oddly comforting now in a way it didn't when it was released—as bad as things are, at least we're better off than Fleischer and screenwriter Stanley R. Greenberg predicted!) When he begins investigating the murder of a corporate executive, Thorn finds himself in danger after learning too much about where the food we all eat really comes from.
«Soylent Green was one of several sci-fi films of its era that tapped into audiences' shared cultural anxieties—others include Logan's Run, Westworld, and Silent Running—but it has endured slightly better than the others thanks to Fleischer's vivid and harrowing vision of social collapse, skillfully balancing it with Heston's wry dark humor and the occasional heroic action sequence. The film's influence can be felt in dozens of films and television shows that have come since, from Mad Max and The Hunger Games to The Matrix and the Apple TV series Power, and while our 2026 may not be as bleak as Fleischer's 2022, the film's depiction of extreme class injustice and the struggle for resources feels more than prescient.
Soylent Green is released in 4K UHD for the first time from Arrow Video on July 28th, featuring a wealth of bonus features. The special edition, which will also be available on Blu-ray, includes a brand-new restoration from the original 35mm negative, audio commentary (both archival (with Fleischer and star Leigh Taylor-Young) and new (with film scholars Michael Brook and Jonny Maines), and extended BFI interviews with Fleischer and Heston. Also included are old documentaries about the making of the film and his co-star Edward G. Robinson, promotional materials, and a booklet with new essays by Frank Collins and Alexandra Heller-Nicholas.
Below, watch the new trailer for the Arrow film, exclusively published by IndieWire. Arrow Video will release Soylent Green in 4K UHD and on Blu-ray on July 28.