Blade Runner is a 1982 American neo-black science fiction film directed by Ridley Scott , written by Hampton Fancher and David Peoples , and starring Harrison Ford , Rutger Hauer, Sean Young , and Edward James Olmos . It is a loose adaptation of the 1968 novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick . Set in a dystopian Los Angeles in 2019, the film depicts a future in which synthetic humans are known as replicants are bioengineeredby the powerful Tyrell Corporation to work on off-world colonies . When a fugitive group of replicants led by Roy Batty (Hauer) escape back to Earth, burnt-out cop Rick Deckard (Ford) reluctantly agrees to hunt them down. During his investigations, Deckard meets Rachael (Young), an advanced replicant who causes him to question his work.