Drama

• The Lady in the Van | Blu Ray | (07/03/2016) from £12.98   |  Saving you £14.00 (127.39%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Maggie Smith stars in this British comedy drama adapted from the play by Alan Bennett which is based on true events from his life. When suburban homeowner Alan Bennett (Alex Jennings) discovers a dishevelled woman living in her van parked on his street, he strikes up an unlikely friendship with her and invites her to park in his driveway for a few weeks. As Bennett and the other residents of the Camden street shower Miss Shepherd (Smith) with food and gifts to make her feel welcome, the generosity, although seemingly unappreciated, does not go unnoticed and the previously lonely woman becomes intent on staying put. The all-star cast also includes Jim Broadbent, James Corden and Dominic Cooper.

• Cinema Paradiso | DVD | (07/12/2020) from £9.49   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  A CELEBRATION OF YOUTH, FRIENDSHIP, AND THE EVERLASTING MAGIC OF THE MOVIES A winner of awards across the world including Best Foreign Language Film Oscar, 5 BAFTA Awards including Best Actor, Original Screenplay and Score, the Grand Prize of the Jury at the Cannes Film Festival and many more. Giuseppe Tornatore's loving homage to the cinema tells the story of Salvatore, a successful film director, returning home for the funeral of Alfredo, his old friend who was the projectionist at the local cinema throughout his childhood. Soon memories of his first love affair with the beautiful Elena and all the highs and lows that shaped his life come flooding back, as Salvatore reconnects with the community he left 30 years earlier.

• Road To Perdition | Blu Ray | (24/05/2010) from £10.75   |  Saving you £9.24 (85.95%)   |  RRP £19.99

  From the Oscar winning director of 'American Beauty' comes a '30s gangster tale with Tom Hanks as Michael Sullivan, a hit man for an Irish gang in the Midwest during the Depression.

• The Long Good Friday | DVD | (10/10/2005) from £12.96   |  Saving you £-1.98 (N/A%)   |  RRP £7.99

  In the savage and deadly world of the gangland king the man at the top is ruler only for as long as he controls everything in his territory. For that man the rewards can be infinite but so are the dangers. Harold Shand is enjoying the height of his powers and he is on the verge of something that would make his current 'arrangements' small fry. But stronger forces than even he can control have moved in and taken over. Climaxing in one long and bloody day of terror an Easter Good Friday he is to see his empire begin to crack and crumble.

• A Touch of Frost: Series 7, 8 and 9 | DVD | (04/10/2004) from £15.98   |  Saving you £9.01 (56.38%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Further investigations with garrulous detective Frost (David Jason)... Includes: Line Of Fire Benefit Of The Doubt and Mistaken Identity.

• Hamlet | DVD | (19/04/2010) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  David Tennant stars as Hamlet. Tennant is joined by fellow cast members from the popular Royal Shakespeare Company production including Patrick Stewart as Claudius. Tennant won a great deal of praise and accolades for his role in the Shakespeare play with The Guardian referring to the Scot as the greatest Hamlet of his generation. In this Royal Shakespeare Company production the titular prince of Denmark returns home to his family's castle of Elsinore after years of attending school in Germany to find out his father has died and his uncle Claudius is the new king. To make matters worse Claudius has married Hamlet's mother Queen Gertrude whom he has unusually strong feelings for. Hamlet is visited by his father's ghost who asks him to seek revenge for his murder.

• Greystoke - The Legend Of Tarzan, Lord Of The Apes | DVD | (13/09/2004) from £8.23   |  Saving you £5.76 (69.99%)   |  RRP £13.99

  An infant child is raised by apes after being shipwrecked off the west coast of Africa. As he grows he learns the laws of the jungle and eventually claims the title Lord of the Apes. Yet years later when he is returned to civilization as the Earl of Greystoke Tarzan (Christopher Lambert in his first English speaking role) remains uncertain as to which laws he should obey; those of man or those of the jungle...

• Girl on the Bridge | DVD | (20/11/2000) from £7.30   |  Saving you £12.69 (173.84%)   |  RRP £19.99

  A modern fairytale shot in glittering black and white, The Girl on the Bridge is a wholly entertaining concoction.

• Birdman Of Alcatraz (Masters of Cinema) Dual Format (DVD & Blu-ray) | Blu Ray | (06/08/2018) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Often acknowledged as one of the best prison films ever made, Birdman of Alcatraz was director John Frankenheimer's first huge success and received rave reviews for its performances, cinematography (by the great Burnett Guffey; From Here to Eternity, Bonnie and Clyde) and Frankenheimer's directing. Burt Lancaster stars as the notorious prisoner, Robert Stroud, sentenced to a life of solitary confinement for murdering a prison guard. When he finds an injured sparrow in the prison yard, Stroud nurses it back to health and discovers a new calling in life. Over the years he becomes a renowned ornithologist, and even a respected author, achieving a greater sense of purpose behind prison walls than many in the outside world will ever know. With an all-star cast that includes Karl Malden (A Streetcar Named Desire), Thelma Ritter (Pickup on South Street), Telly Savalas (The Dirty Dozen) and Edmond O'Brien (The Barefoot Contessa), The Masters of Cinema Series is proud to present John Frankenheimer's Birdman of Alcatraz for the first time on Blu-ray in the UK. Features: 1080p presentation of the film on Blu-ray, with a progressive encode on the DVD. LPCM mono soundtrack (Uncompressed on the Blu-ray) Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard-of-hearing Audio commentary with film historian and editor Paul Seydor, moderated by Twilight Time's Julie Kirgo and Nick Redman Illusion of Freedom: Richard H. Kline on John Frankenheimer's Birdman of Alcatraz (29 mins) a new video piece on the film An exclusive new video interview with film historian Sheldon Hall Original theatrical trailer A collector's booklet featuring new writing on the film by Travis Crawford, as well as a selection of archival imagery from the film's production

• Finding Forrester | DVD | (06/03/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Sean Connery and Rob Brown star as an eccentric, reclusive novelist and a talented young scholar & athlete. As the young man gets to know his mentor he must face up to a tough decision about his dreams to write and play sport.

• All The President's Men | DVD | (13/02/2006) from £7.78   |  Saving you £9.21 (118.38%)   |  RRP £16.99

  In the Watergate Building lights go on and four burglars are caught in the act. That night triggered revelations that drove a U.S. President from office. Washington reporters Bob Woodward (Robert Redford) and Carl Bernstein (Dustin Hoffman) grabbed the story and stayed with it through doubts denials and discouragement. The entire President's Men is their story. The film also explores a working newspaper where the mission is to get the story - and to get it right.

• Gummo (Criterion Collection) UK Only | Blu Ray | (04/11/2024) from £29.29   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Harmony Korine's debut feature is an audacious, lyrical evocation of America's rural underbelly, and an elegy in the southern-gothic tradition of William Faulkner and William Eggleston. Shot in Korine's native Nashvillestanding in for the tornado-ravaged Xenia, Ohiothe rough-hewn film follows two young friends, Tummler and Solomon, as they ride around town, huffing glue and hunting stray cats, their every local encounter charged with vaudevillian anarchy as well as deep pathos. At once transgressive and empathetic, disturbing and undeniably beautiful, Gummo is a one-of-a-kind portrait of angelic and devilish souls caught in a cultural void, circumscribed by poverty and the depleted, alienated spiritual life of late-twentieth-century America.ShareFilm Info¢ United States¢ 1997¢ 89 minutes¢ Colour¢ 1.85:1¢ English¢ Spine #1238¢ New interview with Korine¢ Conversation from 1997 between Korine and filmmaker Werner Herzog¢ Split Screen: Projections episode from 2000 featuring Korine in conversation with host John Pierson¢ Trailer¢ English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing¢ PLUS: An essay by film critic Carlos Aguilar and an appreciation by filmmaker Hype Williams¢ New illustration by Joao Rosa

• Moses The Lawgiver - The Complete Mini-Series | DVD | (05/03/2007) from £14.98   |  Saving you £7.00 (53.89%)   |  RRP £19.99

  The epic story of a man a hero and a nation. An infant escapes the edict calling for the death of all male Hebrew babies and is raised in the Egyptian Court by a princess who gives him the name Moses. After her death Moses (Burt Lancaster) returns to his poverty sticken people including his sister Miriam (Ingrid Thulin) and brother Aaron (Anthony Quayle). He flees into the desert to marry Ziporah the Chief of the Midianites. There he encounters the voice of God in the burning bush. Moses goes back to Egypt confronts the Pharoah predicts the ten plagues leads the Exodus recieves the Ten Commandments takes the Israelites from exile and finally before his death sees the Promised Land.

• The Bill - The Complete Series 1 | DVD | (06/06/2005) from £34.99   |  Saving you £-5.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £29.99

  The old lady of UK crime-drama finally makes its way to DVD with this box set of series. Bringing hard-hitting storylines and gritty acting The Bill was something of a revolution when it first hit our screen courtesy of ITV. Now in it's 21 year the Bill continues to march on to TV legend status. Episodes comprise: 1. Funny Ol' Business - Cops & Robbers 2. A Friend In Need 3. Clutching At Straws 4. Long Odds 5. It's Not Such A Bad Job After All 6. The Drugs Raid 7. A Dange

• Immaculate Conception (Standard Edition) | Blu Ray | (19/08/2024) from £4.77   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  A Western couple (played by Melissa Leo and James Wilby) working in Pakistan visit an unconventional holy shrine to harness its spiritual powers to help them conceive a child. There, they are lavished with the attentions of the shrine's leader (an exceptional performance from Zia Mohyeddin - Lawrence of Arabia, Khartoum) and her followers, but their methods and motives are not all that they seem, and the couple's lives are plunged into darkness. This ravishing, unsettling film from director Jamil Dehlavi (Born of Fire, Jinnah) is a deeply personal work which raises questions of cultural and sexual identity, religious fanaticism and the abuse of power. INDICATOR STANDARD EDITION SPECIAL FEATURES New 2K restoration by Powerhouse Films from the original negative, supervised and approved by director Jamil Dehlavi and cinematographer Nic KnowlandOriginal stereo audioAlternative original mono mixSaints and Sinners (2019, 6 mins): a new interview with writer, producer, director Jamil DehlaviA Dangerous Picture (2019, 20 mins): celebrated actor James Wilby recalls the difficulty and good fortune involved with the production of the filmLeap of Faith (2019, 22 mins): actor Ronny Jhutti remembers the experience of working on his feature-film debutExotic Warmth (2019, 17 mins): Nic Knowland reflects on the challenges of making the film on locationOriginal trailerNew and improved English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing

• The Lotus Eaters - Complete Series 1 | DVD | (02/11/2009) from £9.79   |  Saving you £6.20 (63.33%)   |  RRP £15.99

  To eat the fruit of the lotus is to lose the desire to return home. But everyone who does has a reason. Shepherd's bar is a focal point for a group of expatriates living in and around a small town on the isle of Crete. Run and owned by reformed Alcoholic Erik Shepherd the bar is a temptation that is never far from Erik's mind and his faltering marriage to Ann (Wanda Ventham) provides little respite from his addiction. When Donald Culley (James Kerry) arrives on the island the populace are drawn to this charming handsome stranger. However Culley knows something about Ann that could prove far more devastating that Erik's drinking. Featuring the complete series 1 of the BBC's The Lotus Eaters.

• A Raisin In The Sun | Blu Ray | (01/10/2018) from £17.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  The classic film version of Lorraine Hansberry's revelatory dramastarring Sidney Poitier and Ruby Deenewly restored. LORRAINE HANSBERRY's A Raisin in the Sun was the first play by a black woman to be on Broadway and is now an immortal part of the theatrical canon. Two years after its premiere, the production came to the screen, directed by DANIEL PETRIE. The original starsincluding SIDNEY POITIER (In the Heat of the Night) and RUBY DEE (Do the Right Thing)reprise their roles as members of an African American family living in a cramped Chicago apartment, in this deeply resonant tale of dreams deferred. Following the death of their patriarch, the Youngers await a life insurance check they hope will change their circumstances, but tensions arise over how best to use the money. Vividly rendering Hansberry's intimate observations on generational conflict and housing discrimination, Petrie's film captures the high stakes, shifting currents, and varieties of experience within black life in midcentury America. Features: New 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack Interview from 1961 with playwright and screenwriter Lorraine Hansberry New interview with Imani Perry, author of Looking for Lorraine, on the reallife events on which the play is based Episode of Theater Talk from 2002 featuring producer Philip Rose and actors Ruby Dee and Ossie Davis Excerpt from The Black Theatre Movement: From A Raisin in the Sun to the Present, a 1978 documentary, with a new introduction by director Woodie King Jr. New interview with film scholar Mia Mask, editor of Poitier Revisited Trailer PLUS: An essay by scholar Sarita Cannon

• David Copperfield | DVD | (20/08/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Like a fine gourmet meal, the BBC's 1999 adaptation of David Copperfield has something to suit every taste: a well-paced screenplay that keeps the tale bowling along without losing the delights of some of Dickens' most sparkling dialogue; a rich gallery of characters; and a cast which features many of Britain's favourite actors. There is, of course, plenty of high comedy but some very tight direction checks any tendencies to over-ripe performance. The whole production is tightly integrated: from David's idyllic if cloistered childhood with his beloved mother and their devoted servant Peggotty, through the shattering arrival of a sadistic stepfather, rescue by his eccentric Aunt Betsey Trotwood and a journey into maturity where his very innocence makes him the unwitting agent of tragedy before all is resolved. Ciaran McMenamin is the mature David, his youthful face increasingly clouded by the gathering of experience. Trevor Eve oozes evil as his stepfather Mr Murdstone, ultimately neutralised by Maggie Smith's Aunt Betsey, a comic performance of true genius that gives frequent flashes of the vulnerable human being beneath. In other inspired pieces of casting, Nicholas Lyndhurst's incubus-like Uriah Heep haunts every scene he's in, and Pauline Quirke's Peggotty exudes the motherly warmth that sustains David during his darkest moments. Three hours of classic drama heaven. --Piers Ford

• Bad Education / Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down / Live Flesh / All About My Mother / Talk To Her | DVD | (27/12/2004) from £17.93   |  Saving you £32.06 (178.81%)   |  RRP £49.99

  Bad Education (aka La Mala Educacion) (2004): Acclaimed Spanish director Pedro Almodovar's serio-comic examination on the effect of Franco-era religious schooling and sexual abuse on the lives of two longtime friends. Tie Me Up Tie Me Down (aka Atame!) (1990): A love story with strings attached! Recently released from a mental institution Ricky (Banderas) sets in motion his grand plan. Hunting down the porn star with whom he once had sex Ricky tries to convince her t

• The Descendants | DVD | (03/09/2012) from £3.45   |  Saving you £16.54 (479.42%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Only Oscar-winning writer-director Alexander Payne (Sideways) would think to cast the famously handsome George Clooney as a dishevelled dad in his outstanding adaptation of Kaui Hart Hemmings's tragicomic novel. Clooney dials down the glamour to play Matt King, a Hawaii real-estate attorney with a propensity for unflattering shirts and ill-fitting trousers. When Matt's wife, Elizabeth, ends up in a coma after a water-skiing accident, Matt must learn to balance the parenting of his resentful daughters, Scottie (Amara Miller) and Alexandra (Shailene Woodley, The Secret Life of the American Teenager), with the sale of a pristine plot of Kauai land that stands to make the King cousins, including scruffy Hugh (Beau Bridges), a fortune. As Elizabeth's condition worsens, Matt contacts friends and relatives, like her fiercely protective father (Robert Forster), so that they'll have the chance to say goodbye. In the process, he finds out she was having an affair with realtor Brian Speer (Matthew Lillard, effectively cast against type), so he and the girls, including Alex's hilariously mellow friend, Sid (Nick Krause), go on an island-hopping trip, ostensibly to add Brian to the mix, but Matt really wants to find out what his wife saw in the guy. His journey from naiveté to knowledge brings out Clooney's soulful side, creating a believably flawed, deeply sympathetic figure. If Payne leans too heavily on the slack-key soundtrack, his love for his characters, including Judy Greer as Matt's female counterpart, results in his most emotionally satisfying movie to date. --Kathleen C. Fennessy