Sliver is a 1993 American erotic thriller film starring Sharon Stone, William Baldwin, and Tom Berenger.

[4] Because of a major battle with the MPAA (which originally gave the film an NC-17 rating), the filmmakers were forced to make extensive reshoots before release which necessitated changing the killer's identity.

Sliver, like many erotic thrillers of the time, found great success in the home video market,[5][6] and was the 8th most rented film in the United States for 1994.

[7] Carly Norris, a beautiful book editor and divorcee in her mid-30s, moves into the exclusive New York City sliver building "113".

She meets other tenants including Zeke, a video game designer; Jack, a novelist; Vida, a fashion model who moonlights as a call girl; and Gus, a professor of videography at New York University.

They tell Carly that she bears a striking resemblance to Naomi Singer, the previous tenant of her apartment who fell to her death from her balcony.

He also points out that Zeke's deceased mother, a soap opera actress named Thea Manning, bears a resemblance to Carly.

She tells him she still has the tape of him murdering Gus in the shower and that "it's safe", implying she is willing to cover up his crimes and that she has found the excitement missing from her previous marriage.

[3] Preview audiences disliked the idea of Carly turning immoral, so the ending was re-written and re-shot, to the one used in the final release.

The site's critics consensus reads "Sliver is an absurd erotic thriller with technobabble and posits prime Sharon Stone as a professional book nerd.

[17] The main criticisms were that the film provided little in the way of compelling thriller elements,[18] the script diluted the plot of the novel,[19] the characters were underdeveloped,[20] and the actors were not on form.

[21] Critics argued that compared to Sharon Stone's role as a femme fatale in Basic Instinct the year prior, her portrayal in Sliver as a passive character who has to be "lured into sexual intrigue" is unconvincing.

[21] Peter Rainer of the Los Angeles Times wrote, "There’s no emotional pull to the neo-Gothic world in 'Sliver,' where people connect up by video monitor and computer with occasional forays in the flesh.

[31] In 2024, Vinegar Syndrome, under license from Paramount, announced an Ultra HD Blu-ray release of the film as part of their annual Black Friday sales event, featuring a new director-supervised 4K restoration of the unrated version presented in its original 2.35 theatrical aspect ratio.