When Dark City came out Roger Ebert named his best film of the year, above Saving Private Ryan. He gave less credit to The Matrix series because he believed the original was fundamentally inferior to Dark City. (An argument which is accurate a quarter of a century later.) When he made his third book of The Great Movies, Dark City was in it even though it was less than years old. He compares its favorably with the Fritz Lang move Metropolis.

He thought Strange Days would be a sensation at the time and that people would be talking about for years to come. It wasn't, but it was still a masterpiece.

And he thought Gattaca was a gem.

These films all presented frightening visions of the future. But part of the reason they are also masterpieces is because all utilize a great genre of the past at their core. Ebert was as big a fan of noir in the past and future in any era; the same book in which he listed Dark City as a great movie included L.A. Confidential, Out of the Past, and After Dark, My Sweet, all great noir films and like thse movies works of art.