Soylent Green

Soylent Green is a 1973 film starring the late Charlton Heston as an NYC detective in the year 2022. The film prefigures 1982's Blade Runner as a combination of science fiction and police procedural.

Before reading on, note that the Plot Summary, as well as the Fast Facts below, are potential film spoilers.

While investigating the murder of a director of the processed food manufacturer Soylent, Heston's character, detective Robert Thorn, uncovers a broader and more sinister crime. In a world without books, where people are confined to cities and where overpopulation has led to limited food supply and riots, a new food source has been manufactured, supposedly from a mixture of soy beans and lentils. However, during a murder investigation, Thorn discovers that the real ingredient behind the product is recycled protein from a very unusual source: deceased human beings.