Forget about the whitewashed, live-action remake of Ghost in the Shell starring Scarlett Johansson. I say this not because the 2017 version is bad (it is), but because it shouldn’t exist at all. Some things are better left alone, left as they were originally intended, left animated—and 1995’s now-classic anime sci-fi flick based on Masamune Shirow’s manga of the same name is one of those things. Everything about it is hypnotic and poetic, from the animations that transpose graceful, fluid character drawings against gritty, graphic cityscapes of a futuristic Hong Kong, to the exotic evocative soundtrack, to the story’s existential themes of consciousness and identity, to what reproduction means in a post-human body. All of this is encased within a story about a cyborg hunting a being known as “The Puppet Master,” who’s been hacking into and altering the computerized minds of cyborg-human hybrids. This version is in Japanese with English subtitles, which—if you are distracted by the inexpressive tonal quality of Mimi Woods in the dubbed version—is a very good thing. by Leilani Polk