"Director: Barry Levinson"

• Rain Man | DVD | (01/02/2000) from £3.89   |  Saving you £12.10 (311.05%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Charlie Babbitt (Tom Cruise) expects a vast inheritance after his father dies. But the entire fortune is left to Raymond (Dustin Hoffman) his older brother, an 'autistic Savant' Charlie never even knew existed.

• Good Morning, Vietnam | DVD | (13/05/2002) from £5.99   |  Saving you £10.00 (166.94%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Good Morning Vietnam is a more than usually human take on America’s most controversial war, an often poignant and always entertaining fictionalisation of the Vietnam years of DJ Adrian Cronauer (Robin Williams). Cronauer is employed as the voice of the US Armed Forces radio in South East Asia, but it soon emerges that his idea of entertaining the troops and the Army’s are poles apart. This isn’t a biopic--director Barry Levinson doesn’t give any detail of Cronauer’s life before Vietnam--instead it’s about Cronauer discovering a better understanding of the war, the people and himself. Interspersed with the radio sequences is a gentle plot which follows Cronauer as he teaches English to some Vietnamese kids, falls for a local girl and narrowly misses being killed in a terrorist attack. However, it is the sheer frenetic genius of Williams’ largely improvised radio monologues that account for the film’s box office success. On the DVD: Good Morning Vietnam gets the special edition DVD with digitally remastered audio and picture. Extras include a couple of previews--both the theatrical and a teaser trailer--as well as a production diary which contains interviews with director Levinson, crew and the real Cronauer. But the best feature by far is the "Raw Monologues": introduced by Levinson, this featurette shows the process that Robin Williams went through to improvise the radio slots and is a valuable insight into the comedic talents of the film’s star.--Kristen Bowditch

• Homicide - Series 1 | DVD | (26/02/2007) from £16.98   |  Saving you £-1.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £13.99

  One of the most critically acclaimed shows in TV history Homicide: Life On The Street re-invigorated a tired genre by focusing on the grueling work of solving murders instead of an endless succession of bloody crimes and car chases. Inspired by David Simon's Edgar Award-winning account of Baltimore homicide detectives and brought to television by director Barry Levinson (Rain Man Oz) and writer Paul Attanasio (Gideon's Crossing) Homicide boasted a powerhouse cast featuring Ned Beatty (Deliverance) Yaphet Kotto (Alien) Richard Belzer (Law & Order: SVU) and breakout star Andre Braugher (Frequency). The critical response was overwhelming: Homicide won multiple Emmy and Writer's Guild of America Awards and is one of just two shows in history to claim three Peabody Awards. Now Homicide debuts on DVD with this collector's set featuring all 13 episodes from the first two seasons. Episodes Comprise: 1. Gone For Goode 2. A Ghost Of a Chance 3. Son Of A Gun 4. A Shot In The Dark 5. Three Men And Adena 6. Dog And Pony Show 7. And The Rockets' Dead Glare 8. Smoke Gets In Your Eyes 9. The NIght Of The Living Dead

• Toys | DVD | (17/04/2019) from £13.32   |  Saving you £-0.33 (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Enter a spectacular world of whimsy fun and fantasy in this acclaimed visual extravaganza. Leslie Zevo is a fun-loving adult who must save his late father's toy factory from his evil uncle a war-loving general who builds weapons disguised as toys. Aided by his sister and girlfriend Leslie sets out to thwart his uncle and restore joy and innocence to their special world.

• Wag The Dog | DVD | (01/10/1999) from £19.85   |  Saving you £0.14 (0.71%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Wag the Dog (1997) is a rarity: an intelligent, sophisticated and very funny film about American politics. Just before an election the President--in an uncanny anticipation of real life--gets sexually involved with a young woman, leaving spin-doctor Robert De Niro to think of something quick. He enlists Hollywood producer Dustin Hoffman to help him concoct a war against Albania to take the public's mind off the President's peccadilloes. Both stars are in top form, with Hoffman particularly funny as the larger than life producer. Scripted by David Mamet (House of Games, Glengarry Glen Ross) and directed by Barry Levinson, (whose previous comedies include Good Morning, Vietnam with Robin Williams and Tin Men with Danny De Vito) Wag the Dog manages to make you laugh even while you're thinking about how true the insights are, and how politics is getting more like the media every day. On the DVD: The so-called platinum DVD is packed with features. There is a series of production shots, assembled in no particular order, some showing the director watching filming on his monitor. There are interview clips with Hoffman, De Niro, Anne Heche, William H Macy and Barry Levinson talking about the film, plus scrolled filmographies. There's an audio commentary on the whole film by Levinson and Hoffman, occasionally rambling but with some interesting insights. In another feature, Macy talks at some length about David Mamet. There are extensive scroll-down production notes giving useful information (such as the film's budget), and finally a 50-minute documentary in which producer Jane Rosenthal talks about the relationship between the film and real-life politics. Her comments are supplemented by such luminaries as writer Budd Schulberg, director John Frankenheimer, newscaster Tom Brokaw and Dee Dee Myers, former White House press secretary. The Dolby Digital soundtrack is good quality, as is the image in 16:9 ratio. --Ed Buscombe

• Sleepers | Blu Ray | (12/04/2011) from £16.99   |  Saving you £3.00 (17.66%)   |  RRP £19.99

  To four boys growing up on the streets in the mid 1960s Hell's Kitchen was a place of innocence ruled by corruption. The infamous New York City neighbourhood that stretched north from 34th to 56th Street and pushed west from the 8th Avenue to the Hudson River was guided by both priest and gangsters. The children who grew up there shared joyful times but subscribed to a sacred social code-crimes against the neighbourhood were not permitted and when they did occur punishment was severe. Four friends made a mistake that changed their lives forever...

• Rain Man | DVD | (17/04/2019) from £3.95   |  Saving you £16.04 (406.08%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Charlie Babbitt (Tom Cruise) expects a vast inheritance after his father dies. But the entire fortune is left to Raymond (Dustin Hoffman) his older brother, an 'autistic Savant' Charlie never even knew existed.

• Good Morning Vietnam | Blu Ray | (02/11/2015) from £19.99   |  Saving you £-7.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Academy Award ® winner Robin Williams* shakes up 1965 Saigon as irreverent, non- conformist DJ Adrian Cronauer. Imported by the army for an early morning radio show, Cronauer blasts the formerly staid, sanitised airwaves with a constant barrage of rapid-fire humour and the hippest tunes from back home. The G.I.s love him but the top brass is outraged. Riddled with side-splitting comic bombshells and studded with hot '60s hits, the film depicts Cronauer's raucous Saigon adventures and a world gone mad

• Sleepers | DVD | (17/04/2019) from £5.69   |  Saving you £10.30 (181.02%)   |  RRP £15.99

  The first thing you need to know about Sleepers is that it's based on a novel by Lorenzo Carcaterra that was allegedly based on a true story. The movie repeats this bogus claim, which was attacked and determined by a wide majority to be misleading. Knowing this, Sleepers becomes problematic because it's too neat, too clean, too manipulative in terms of legal justice and dramatic impact to be truly convincing. And yet, with its stellar cast directed by Barry Levinson, it succeeds as gripping entertainment, and its tale of complex morality--despite a dubious emphasis on homophobic revenge--is sufficiently provocative. It's about four boys in New York's Hell's Kitchen district who are sent to reform school, where they must endure routine sexual assaults by the sadistic guards. Years after their release, the opportunity for revenge proves irresistible for two of the young men, who must then rely on the other pair of friends (Brad Pitt, Jason Patric), a loyal priest (Robert De Niro), and a shabby lawyer (Dustin Hoffman) to defend them in court. Despite the compelling ambiguities of the story, there's never any doubt about how we're supposed to feel, and the screenplay glosses over the story's most difficult moral dilemmas. At its best, Sleepers grabs your attention and pulls you into its intense story of friendship and the price of loyalty under extreme conditions. The movie's New York settings are vividly authentic, and Minnie Driver makes a strong impression as a long-time friend of the loyal group of guys. --Jeff Shannon, Amazon.com

• Rain Man | Blu Ray | (21/02/2011) from £7.99   |  Saving you £8.00 (100.13%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Dustin Hoffman joins Tom Cruise to bring a funny and moving tale of brotherly love to the screen. Heartless Charlie Babbitt expects a vast inheritance after his estranged father dies. But Raymond his institutionalised older brother someone he's been totally unaware of is willed the entire fortune instead. Raymond is an 'autistic Savant' with severely limited mental abilities in some areas but with genius gifts in others. When Charlie kidnaps Raymond the crazy cross-country drive back to Los Angeles teaches them both a few lessons in life. For as they overcome their mutual distrust of each other a deep bond is forged as they painfully share past memories present problems and a possible shining future together.

• Robert Redford - Screen Legends | DVD | (05/06/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  More than just a pretty boy Robert Redford has consistently proven his considerable acting abilities in a number of great films over the past 5 decades. This box set features 4 of his finest hours! The Natural (Dir. Barry Levinson 1984): Nothing would stop Roy Hobbs from fulfilling his boyhood dream of baseball superstardom. Robert Redford stars in this inspiring fable that begins when 14-year-old Hobbs (Redford) fashions a powerful bat from a fallen oak tree. He soon impres

• Sphere | DVD | (23/10/1998) from £2.87   |  Saving you £12.38 (768.94%)   |  RRP £13.99

  From yet another derivative science fiction novel by Michael Crichton comes Sphere, an equally derivative and flaccid movie, in which three top Hollywood stars struggle to squeeze tension and excitement out of material that doesn't match their talents. You're supposed to find awe and mystery in Crichton's story about a team of scientists and scholars who discover a 300-year-old alien spacecraft deep on the ocean floor, but mostly you feel that this is all much ado about nothing. The exploration team consists of a psychologist (Dustin Hoffman), mathematician (Samuel L Jackson), biochemist (Sharon Stone), and an astrophysicist (Live Schreiber), and when they enter the alien ship they discover a mysterious sphere inside. What they don't know is that the sphere has the power to manipulate their thoughts and perceptions, and before long the scientists' undersea habitat is a veritable haunted house of frightening visions and creeping paranoia. Who can be trusted? What is the sphere's purpose, and why is it on the ocean floor? Sphere makes some attempt to answer these questions, but the film is a mess, and it leads to one of the most anticlimactic endings of any science fiction film ever made. There are moments of high intensity and psychological suspense, and the stellar cast works hard to boost the talky screenplay. But it's clear that this was a hurried production (Hoffman and director Barry Levinson made Wag the Dog during an extended production delay), and as a result Sphere looks and feels like a film that wasn't quite ready for the cameras. Though it's by no means a waste of time, it's undeniably disappointing. --Jeff Shannon, Amazon.com

• Disclosure | DVD | (17/04/2019) from £6.35   |  Saving you £7.64 (120.31%)   |  RRP £13.99

  Michael Crichton's bestselling novel was both a high-tech thriller and source of controversy with its hot-button plot about a man's charge of sexual harassment against a female colleague and former lover. The movie, directed by Barry Levinson, turned these issues into a prurient thriller dressed up in glossy production values, virtual reality computer graphics and steamy sex between Michael Douglas and Demi Moore. Having cornered the market on roles for men whose brains are located south of their waistline, Douglas is well cast as the computer-industry guy who loses a plush promotion to the opportunistic Moore, and he's perfected the expression of paranoid panic. If you don't think about it too much, this is one of those films that can draw you into its manipulative web and really grab your attention. Disclosure is more entertaining than thought provoking (because the filmmakers basically danced around the story's potential controversy), but there's enough star power and visual glitz to make this an enjoyable ride. --Jeff Shannon

• Homicide - Series 2 - Complete | DVD | (16/07/2007) from £22.99   |  Saving you £17.00 (73.95%)   |  RRP £39.99

  One of the most critically acclaimed shows in TV history Homicide: Life On The Street re-invigorated a tired genre by focusing on the grueling work of solving murders instead of an endless succession of bloody crimes and car chases.

• Bugsy | DVD | (09/10/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Bugsy represents an almost miraculous combination of director, writer and star on a project that represents a career highlight for everyone involved. It's one of the best American gangster movies ever made--as good in its own way as any of the Godfather films--and it's impossible to imagine anyone better than Beatty in the movie's flashy title role. As notorious mobster and Las Vegas visionary "Bugsy" Siegel, Beatty is perfectly cast as a man whose dreams are greater than his ability to realise them--or at least, greater than his ability to stay alive while making those dreams come true. With a glamorous Hollywood mistress (Annette Bening) who shares Bugsy's dream while pursuing her own upwardly mobile agenda, Bugsy seems oblivious to threats when he begins to spend too much of the mob's money on the creation of the Flamingo casino. Meyer Lansky (Ben Kingsley) and Mickey Cohen (Harvey Keitel) will support Bugsy's wild ambition to a point, after which all bets are off, and Bugsy's life hangs in the balance. From the obvious chemistry of Beatty and Bening (who met and later married off-screen) to the sumptuous reproduction of 1940s Hollywood, every detail in this movie feels impeccably right. Beatty is simply mesmerising as the man who invented Las Vegas but never saw it thrive, moving from infectious idealism to brutal violence in the blink of an eye. Director Barry Levinson is also in peak form here, guiding the stylish story with a subtle balance of admiration and horror; we can catch Bugsy's Vegas fever and root for the gangster's success, but we know he'll get what he deserves. We might wish that Bugsy had lived to see his dream turn into a booming oasis, but the movie doesn't suggest that we should shed any tears. --Jeff Shannon

• What Just Happened? | DVD | (27/04/2009) from £2.80   |  Saving you £14.45 (938.31%)   |  RRP £15.99

  "What Just Happened" is a sharp comedy about two nail-biting, back-stabbing, roller-coaster weeks in the world of a middle-aged Hollywood producer (Robert De Niro).

• Young Sherlock Holmes And The Pyramid Of Fear | DVD | (02/02/2004) from £11.98   |  Saving you £7.00 (77.86%)   |  RRP £15.99

  What would have happened if Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson had met as schoolboys? Why the solution is elementary - nothing but adventure! And that's just what director Barry Levinson gives us in this special effects spectacular that sends the super-sleuth on his very first case! When a plague of bizarre puzzling murders grip London young Holmes and his new found friend Watson find themselves unwittingly entangled in the dark mystery. So 'the fame is afoot!' And the budding detect

• Envy | DVD | (10/01/2005) from £4.19   |  Saving you £15.80 (377.09%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Ben Stiller stars as a normal guy who becomes consumed by jealousy when a get-rich-quick scheme of his best friend (Jack Black) actually succeeds.

• Rain Man | Blu Ray | (01/09/2014) from £9.69   |  Saving you £10.30 (106.30%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Rain Man is the kind of touching drama that Oscars are made for--and, sure enough, the film took Academy honours for best picture, director, screenplay and actor (Dustin Hoffman) in 1988. Hoffman plays Raymond, an autistic savant whose late father has left him $3 million in a trust. This gets the attention of his materialistic younger brother, a hot-shot LA car dealer named Charlie (Tom Cruise) who wasn't even aware of Raymond's existence until he read his estranged father's will. Charlie picks up Raymond and takes him on a cross-country journey that becomes a voyage of discovery for Charlie, and, perhaps, for Raymond too. Rain Man will either captivate or irritate you (Raymond's sputtering of repetitious phrases is enough to drive anyone crazy), but it is obviously a labour of love for those involved. Hoffman had been attached to the film for many years, as various directors and writers came and went, but his persistence eventually paid off--kind of like Raymond in Las Vegas. Look for director Barry Levinson in a cameo as a psychiatrist near the end of the film. --Jim Emerson, Amazon.com

• Envy | DVD | (10/12/2007) from £6.54   |  Saving you £3.45 (34.50%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Ben Stiller stars as a normal guy who becomes consumed by jealousy when a get-rich-quick scheme of his best friend (Jack Black) actually succeeds.