"Director: Milos Forman"

• One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest | DVD | (12/04/1999) from £6.90   |  Saving you £7.09 (102.75%)   |  RRP £13.99

  One of the key movies of the 1970s, when exciting, groundbreaking, personal films were still being made in Hollywood, Milos Forman's One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest emphasised the humanistic story at the heart of Ken Kesey's more hallucinogenic novel. Jack Nicholson was born to play the part of Randle Patrick McMurphy, the rebellious inmate of a psychiatric hospital who fights back against the authorities' cold attitudes of institutional superiority, as personified by Nurse Ratched (Louise Fletcher). It's the classic antiestablishment tale of one man asserting his individuality in the face of a repressive, conformist system--and it works on every level. Forman populates his film with memorably eccentric faces, and gets such freshly detailed and spontaneous work from his ensemble that the picture sometimes feels like a documentary. Unlike a lot of films pitched at the "youth culture" of the 1970s, One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest really hasn't dated a bit, because the qualities of human nature that Forman captures--playfulness, courage, inspiration, pride, stubbornness--are universal and timeless. The film swept the Academy Awards for 1976, winning in all the major categories (picture, director, actor, actress, screenplay) for the first time since Frank Capra's It Happened One Night in 1931. --Jim Emerson

• Amadeus | DVD | (17/04/2019) from £9.99   |  Saving you £4.00 (40.04%)   |  RRP £13.99

  The satirical sensibilities of writer Peter Shaffer and director Milos Forman (One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest) were ideally matched in this Oscar-winning movie adaptation of Shaffer's hit play about the rivalry between two composers in the court of Austrian Emperor Joseph II--official royal composer Antonio Salieri (F. Murray Abraham), and the younger but superior prodigy Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Tom Hulce). The conceit is absolutely delicious: Salieri secretly loathes Mozart's crude and bratty personality but is astounded by the beauty of his music. That's the heart of Salieri's torment--although he's in a unique position to recognise and cultivate both Mozart's talent and career, he's also consumed with envy and insecurity in the face of such genius. That such magnificent music should come from such a vulgar little creature strikes Salieri as one of God's cruellest jokes, and it drives him insane. Amadeus creates peculiar and delightful contrasts between the impeccably re-created details of its lavish period setting and the jarring (but humorously refreshing and unstuffy) modern tone of its dialogue and performances--all of which serve to remind us that these were people before they became enshrined in historical and artistic legend. Jeffrey Jones, best-known as Ferris Bueller's principal, is particularly wonderful as the bumbling emperor (with the voice of a modern mid-level businessman). The film's eight Oscars include statuettes for Best Director Forman, Best Actor Abraham (Hulce was also nominated), Best Screenplay and Best Picture. --Jim Emerson Note: this region two DVD is a "flipper" with a break between sides A and B.

• Hair | DVD | (06/08/2001) from £15.11   |  Saving you £-2.12 (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Milos Forman's 1979 film of the 1968 musical Hair is far more watchable than it has any right to be. Controversial though the original stage version might have been at the time, it has not dated well. It was written back when most people thought the Vietnam War was a good idea and long hair on men a signifier of a hopelessly corrupt society, rather than the other way around. By the time the belated movie adaptation arrived attitudes had changed, and what made Hair so unique had become commonplace. However, the exuberance of the performances (led by Treat Williams) and the enduring appeal of some of the songs makes this movie version of Hair, even today, entirely impossible to dislike. On the DVD: The only extra is the theatrical trailer which, much like the film itself, is quite a cute period piece. Inexplicably, the scene-searching menu is not arranged by song, making it infuriatingly difficult to locate the tune you want, unless you already know the movie so well, which would leave little point in hearing these songs again anyway. --Andrew Mueller

• Amadeus | Blu Ray | (17/04/2019) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Amadeus triumphs as gripping human drama sumptuous period epic glorious celebration of the music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - and as the winner of eight 1984 Academy Awards including Best Picture (produced by Saul Zaentz) Actor (F. Murray Abraham) Director (Milos Forman) and Adapted Screenplay (Peter Shaffer).

• One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest | Blu Ray | (16/02/2009) from £7.99   |  Saving you £12.00 (150.19%)   |  RRP £19.99

  A nice rest in a state mental hospital beats a stretch in the pen right? Randle P. McMurphy (Nicholson) a free-spirited con with lightning in his veins and glib on his tongue fakes insanity and moves in with what he calls the nuts. Immediately his contagious sense of disorder runs up against numbing routine. No way should guys pickled on sedatives shuffled around in bathrobes when the World Series is on. This means war! On one side is McMurphy. On the other is soft-spoken Nurse Ratched (Louise Fletcher) among the most coldly monstrous villains in film history. At stake is the fate of every patient on the ward...

• Man On The Moon | DVD | (04/04/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  A master at manipulating audiences, Kaufman could generate belly laughs, stony silence, tears or brawls.

• Valmont | DVD | (02/04/2007) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Overshadowed by Stephen Frears' Dangerous Liaisons which was shot at the same time and also used the same source of Choderlos de Laclos's epistolary novel 'Les Liaisons Dangereuses' Forman's film has a lot going for it. It was scripted by Jean-Claude Carriere its director of photography was Miroslav Ondricek and it has Bening and Firth in the lead roles of Merteui and Valmont the scheming widow and her lover who bet on the corruption of an honourable woman.

• Hair (DVD + Blu-ray) | Blu Ray | (28/10/2019) from £16.49   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  The film, loosely based on the 1968 Broadway musical Hair: An American Tribal Love-Rock Musical, centres on two men, Claude (John Savage, The Deer Hunter, a naïve young man from America's 'Bible Belt' and Berger (Treat Williams), the leader of a hippie tribe in New York. Drafted into the army and soon to ship out to Vietnam, Claude spends his last time as a civilian with Berger, learning for the first time about race and class issues in 60s America. He soon meets and falls for Shelia, a rich debutante with a rebellious soul. Welcome to the Age of Aquarius. The film marked Milos Forman's return to directing after winning an Oscar® for One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest in 1975 and was nominated for two Golden Globes in 1980. Special features: Presented in High Definition and Standard Definition Aquarius (1966, 8 mins): the Age of Aquarius arrives in Nancy Hanna's jazzy psychedelic animation San Francisco (1968, 15 mins): Anthony Stern's award-winning impressionistic documentary shot on the streets of San Fran, stunningly soundtracked with a rare early version of Pink Floyd's 'Interstellar Overdrive' Indian Pop Instrumental (c1970, 3 mins): enigmatic English musos look east with this marvellously mysterious music film Discomania (1979, 24 mins): Oscar Riesel's star-spangled British disc-dancing extravaganza from the glory days of glitterballs, lurex, sequins and rollerskates Nicholas Ray in Conversation (1969, audio only): the legendary filmmaker memorably concluding his screen career in Hair - reflects upon his legacy with film critic VF Perkins at London's NFT ***FIRST PRESSING ONLY*** Fully illustrated booklet with new writing on the film by Ellen Cheshire, new interview with the film's screenwriter Michael Weller and an essay on director Milos Forman by Kieron McCormack

• Amadeus -- Director's Cut 2-Disc Special Edition | DVD | (14/10/2002) from £14.98   |  Saving you £-0.99 (N/A%)   |  RRP £13.99

  A note-perfect cinematic event whose immortality was assured from its opening night, Amadeus is an unlikely candidate for the Director's Cut treatment. Like one of Mozart's operas, the multiple Oscar-winning theatrical version seemed perfectly formed from the outset--ideal casting, costumes, sets, cinematography, lighting, screenplay, music, music, music--so the reinstatement of an extra 20 minutes simply risks adding "too many notes". Yet though this extended cut can hardly be said to improve a picture that needed no improvement, it does at least flesh out a couple of small subplots and shed new light on certain key scenes. Here we learn why Constanze Mozart bears such ill-will towards Salieri when she discovers him at her husband's deathbed: he has insulted and degraded her after she came to him for help. We also see deeper into the reasons why Mozart has no pupils: not only has Salieri poisoned the Emperor's mind against him, but the only promisingly lucrative teaching job he can find ends disastrously when he realises that the master of the house just wants music to quiet his barking dogs. In a humiliating coda to that episode, a drunk and desperate Wolfgang returns later to beg for money only to be coldly rejected. The structure of the picture is otherwise unaltered. On the DVD: Amadeus--The Director's Cut finally accords this masterful work the DVD treatment it deserves. The handsome anamorphic widescreen picture is accompanied by a choice of Dolby 5.1 or Dolby stereo sound options, and it's all contained on one side of the disc (the original single-disc DVD release was that crime against the format, a "flipper"). Director Milos Forman and writer Peter Shaffer provide a chatty though sporadic commentary, but they're obviously still too mesmerised by the movie to do much more than offer the odd anecdote. Disc 2 contains an excellent new hour-long "making of" documentary, with contributions from Forman, Shaffer, Sir Neville Marriner and all the main actors, taking in the scriptwriting, choice of music, casting and problems involved in filming in Communist Czechoslovakia with half the crew and extras working for the Secret Police. --Mark Walker

• Goya's Ghosts | DVD | (10/09/2007) from £6.73   |  Saving you £13.26 (197.03%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Painter Francisco Goya faces a scandal involving his muse, who is labeled a heretic by a monk.

• One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest (2 Disc Special Edition) | DVD | (07/08/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £13.99

  A nice rest in a state mental hospital beats a stretch in the pen right? Randle P. McMurphy (Nicholson) a free-spirited con with lightning in his veins and glib on his tongue fakes insanity and moves in with what he calls the ""nuts"". Immediately his contagious sense of disorder runs up against numbing routine. No way should guys pickled on sedatives shuffled around in bathrobes when the World Series is on. This means war! On one side is McMurphy. On the other is soft-spoken Nurse Ratched (Louise Fletcher) among the most coldly monstrous villains in film history. At stake is the fate of every patient on the ward...

• Ragtime | DVD | (07/07/2008) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  A portrait of America in the early part of the twentieth century based on a bestselling novel by E.L. Doctorow and directed by Oscar winning film maker Milos Forman.

• One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest | DVD | (30/10/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £13.99

  A big Oscar winner in 1975, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest still holds up remarkably well. Ken Kesey's novel, an allegory of repression and rebellion set in a mental hospital in the early 1960s, is cannily adapted by Czech director Milos Forman into a comedy drama with a cool, unassuming, near-documentary look. Jack Nicholson has his most jacknicholsonian role as Randle P McMurphy, a livewire troublemaker who unwisely cons his way out of prison and into a mental institution without realising he has switched from serving a sentence with a release date to being committed until adjudged sane by the same people he is winding up on a daily basis. Louise Fletcher, in a career-defining turn, is Nurse Ratched, the soft-spoken sadist who represents the worst type of matronly authoritarianism and clashes with Randle all down the line. Taking another look at the picture after all these years, it's a surprise that all the unknown actors who seemed like real mental patients have graduated to becoming prolific character actor stars: Danny DeVito, Christopher Lloyd, Vincent Schiavelli, Brad Dourif, the late Will Sampson, Sidney Lassick, Michael Berryman. Unlike many Best Picture Oscar winners, this deals with profound subject matter without seeming self-important: Forman's approach and all-round great acting make it play as a small character story as well as a Big Statement about the human condition. Full marks also for Jack Nitzsche's musical saw-based score. On the DVD: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest comes to DVD in a two-disc special edition with a great-looking anamorphic 1.85:1 print and 5.1 Dolby Digital soundtrack, plus tracks in French and Italian and optional subtitles in half a dozen languages. Disc 2 has the trailer, about 13 minutes of deleted scenes (mostly from the first third of the film, and all pretty good) and a making-of retrospective documentary with interesting material from producers Michael Douglas (who inherited the rights from Kirk) and Saul Zaentz, Forman, screenwriter Bo Goldman and many cast-members (though not Nicholson). There's also a commentary track by Forman, Douglas and others which repeats a few things from the documentary but also goes into more scene-specific detail about the development and shooting. --Kim Newman

• A Blonde in Love | DVD | (24/01/2011) from £10.99   |  Saving you £2.00 (18.20%)   |  RRP £12.99

  A Blonde In Love

• A Blonde In Love | Blu Ray | (29/07/2019) from £17.98   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  A factory manager in rural Czechoslovakia bargains with the army to send men to the area, to boost the morale of his young female workers, deprived of male company since the local boys have been conscripted. The army sends reservists, mostly married middle-aged men - and the local beauty Andula, spurns those bold enough to try to win her, for the jazz pianist, newly come from Prague to perform. He seduces her and impresses her, telling her most women are round, like guitars but you are a guitar by Picasso . Staying the night with him causes a lecture on a young woman's honour at her hostel so she throws over her other suitors and makes her way to Prague to find the young man. His protective Mamma and weary Pappa are not pleased when she arrives on the doorstep with her suitcase.

• Black Peter | Blu Ray | (09/07/2018) from £19.98   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Presented from a brand new 4K restoration of the film from original materials, Second Run presents the debut feature film of the late, great Czech filmmaker Milos Forman. Black Peter is a wonderfully wry and provocative comedy about a young man growing up in a 1960s Czech provincial town. Taking the Best Film prize at the 1964 Locarno Film Festival, this early masterpiece of the emerging Czech New Wave brought to the screen something that Czechoslovak filmgoers weren t used to an authentic testimony about the lives of young people. Forman went on to become the most successful of all his Czech contemporaries, moving to America where he had huge international hits with films like One Flew Over the Cuckoo s Nest and Amadeus works that won him Best Director Academy Awards in 1976 and 1985 respectively. Forman made many important American films, but stayed true to his Czech roots. Black Peter, along with his other early works (which include his classic 1965 film A Blonde in Love), perfectly capture the authenticity and atmosphere of life in the eastern bloc during the early 60s, and the feelings of Czech teenagers in youthful rebellion on the cusp of the Prague Spring. BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION CONTENTS: Black Peter ( erný Petr, 1964) presented from a brand new 4K restoration of the film from original materials by the Czech National Film Archive. Life As It Is: Milos Forman on his Czech films: Part one of an archival film-by-film interview, newly edited for this release with never-before-seen footage. All-new audio commentary by film historian Michael Brooke Trailer Booklet featuring new writing on the film by an author, academic and programmer Jonathan Owen New and improved English subtitle translation. Region free Original soundtrack in 2.0 Dual Mono 24-bit LPCM audio World Premiere on Blu-ray

• The People Vs Larry Flynt (Special Edition) | DVD | (25/08/2003) from £5.98   |  Saving you £7.01 (117.22%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Directed by Milos Forman, The People vs. Larry Flynt is the fictionalised, but true, story of how smut-peddler Larry Flynt--the poor man's redneck Hugh Hefner--ended up appealing a libel case (brought by televangelist Jerry Falwell) to the US Supreme Court and winning a major legal victory that affected all Americans. It transpires that the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights--as brought to life in this splendidly quirky and alternately reverent and irreverent comedy--ensures everyone's freedom by protecting a whole range of expression, from the banal to the outrageous. Scripted by the writers of Ed Wood (another affectionately twisted biography of a disreputably eccentric entertainment figure), The People vs. Larry Flynt applies a similar sort of exaggerated and telescoped editorial-cartoon sensibility to the wild life and times of Hustler skin-magazine publisher Larry Flynt. There are terrific performances by Woody Harrelson as Flynt, grunge-star-turned-glamour-puss Courtney Love as his wife Althea and Edward Norton as their lawyer (a composite character). --Jim Emerson

• Valmont | DVD | (25/02/2008) from £12.41   |  Saving you £-6.42 (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Overshadowed by Stephen Frears' Dangerous Liaisons which used the same source of Choderlos de Laclos's epistolary novel 'Les Liaisons Dangereuses' Forman's film has a lot going for it. In 18th-century France a cruel and calculating playboy Valmont makes a malicious wager with the equally wicked Madame de Merteuil: Valmont must dishonor the married Madame de Tourvel by sleeping with her. If Valmont succeeds he gets the privilege of Merteuil's bed as well. But when Valmont sets out on his task the unexpected happens - he falls in love with Tourvel! And now Merteuil will stop at nothing to destroy Valmont's newfound passion.

• One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest | Blu Ray | (15/04/2013) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  A big Oscar winner in 1975, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest still holds up remarkably well. Ken Kesey's novel, an allegory of repression and rebellion set in a mental hospital in the early 1960s, is cannily adapted by Czech director Milos Forman into a comedy drama with a cool, unassuming, near-documentary look. Jack Nicholson has his most jacknicholsonian role as Randle P McMurphy, a livewire troublemaker who unwisely cons his way out of prison and into a mental institution without realising he has switched from serving a sentence with a release date to being committed until adjudged sane by the same people he is winding up on a daily basis. Louise Fletcher, in a career-defining turn, is Nurse Ratched, the soft-spoken sadist who represents the worst type of matronly authoritarianism and clashes with Randle all down the line. Taking another look at the picture after all these years, it's a surprise that all the unknown actors who seemed like real mental patients have graduated to becoming prolific character actor stars: Danny DeVito, Christopher Lloyd, Vincent Schiavelli, Brad Dourif, the late Will Sampson, Sidney Lassick, Michael Berryman. Unlike many Best Picture Oscar winners, this deals with profound subject matter without seeming self-important: Forman's approach and all-round great acting make it play as a small character story as well as a Big Statement about the human condition. Full marks also for Jack Nitzsche's musical saw-based score. On the DVD: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest comes to DVD in a two-disc special edition with a great-looking anamorphic 1.85:1 print and 5.1 Dolby Digital soundtrack, plus tracks in French and Italian and optional subtitles in half a dozen languages. Disc 2 has the trailer, about 13 minutes of deleted scenes (mostly from the first third of the film, and all pretty good) and a making-of retrospective documentary with interesting material from producers Michael Douglas (who inherited the rights from Kirk) and Saul Zaentz, Forman, screenwriter Bo Goldman and many cast-members (though not Nicholson). There's also a commentary track by Forman, Douglas and others which repeats a few things from the documentary but also goes into more scene-specific detail about the development and shooting. --Kim Newman

• The Jack Nicholson Collection | DVD | (03/09/2012) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £14.23

  One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, Batman, The Bucket List & Mars Attacks