As the 20th century drew to a close, the words “millennium bug”—a computer glitch that was supposed to drown the world in darkness—were on everyone’s lips, the air thick with the anticipation of apocalypse. Did that anxiety impress itself on some of the finest films being released at fin de siècle, by exemplary artists like David Cronenberg, Tsai Ming-liang, and Michaels Mann and Haneke? Maybe… but what’s certain is the moment brought a bumper crop of cinematic excellence to the screen, and after 25 years we’re bringing back some of our favorites, films whose end-of-days paranoia has no expiration date.

25Y2K opens at Metrograph Friday, December 1.