Drama

• Sweet Smell of Success | Blu Ray | (30/03/2015) from £10.98   |  Saving you £11.00 (122.36%)   |  RRP £19.99

  A classic from the late 1950s, The Sweet Smell of Success looks at the string-pulling behind-the-scenes action between desperate press agent Sidney Falco (Tony Curtis) and the ultimate power broker in that long-ago showbiz Manhattan, gossip columnist J.J. Hunsecker (Burt Lancaster). Written by Ernest Lehman and Clifford Odets (who based the Hunsecker character on the similarly brutal and power-mad Walter Winchell), the film follows Falco's attempts to promote a client through Hunsecker's column--until he is forced to make a deal with the devil and help Hunsecker ruin a jazz musician who has the nerve to date Hunsecker's sister. Shooting on location, mostly at night, director Alexander MacKendrick and cinematographer James Wong Howe capture this New York demi-monde in silky black and white, in which neon and shadows share a scarily symbiotic relationship--a near-match for the poisonous give-and-take between the edgy Curtis and the dismissive Lancaster. --Marshall Fine, Amazon.com

• Doom Patrol: Season 2 | Blu Ray | (22/02/2021) from £7.49   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  DC's strangest group of heroes: Cliff Steele aka Robotman (Brendan Fraser), Larry Trainor aka Negative Man (Matt Bomer), Rita Farr aka Elasti-Woman (April Bowlby), Crazy Jane (Diane Guerrero), and Victor Stone aka Cyborg (Joivan Wade) are back again to save the world that is if they can find a way to grow up both figuratively and literally. Following the defeat of Mr. Nobody, the Doom Patrol now find themselves mini-sized and stranded on Cliff's toy race car track. Here they begin to deal with their feelings of betrayal with Niles Caulder aka The Chief (Timothy Dalton), while confronting their own personal baggage. And as each member faces the challenge of growing beyond their own past traumatic experiences, they must come together to embrace and protect the newest member of the family, Dorothy (Abigail Shapiro), Caulder's daughter, whose powers remain a mysterious but real threat to bringing on the end of the world. Doom Patrol: The Magic of Makeup - The prosthetics wizards of Doom Patrol's make-up department reveal the secrets that help bring characters like Larry and Dorothy to life. We'll also highlight some of the menagerie of characters they've enjoyed working on across both seasons. Doom Patrol: Season 2 - Come Visit Georgia PSA with Carey Meyer, Production Designer.

• Billy Elliot | Blu Ray | (19/09/2011) from £9.99   |  Saving you £12.00 (150.19%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Inside every one of us is a special talent waiting to come out. The trick is finding it. Starring Julie Walters and newcomer Jamie Bell the film (based on a real-life story) follows the progress of little Billy Elliot a motherless 11 year-old from a poor Durham pit village. When young Billy chooses ballet classes over boxing lessons his life is changed forever. He decides to keep the lessons secret from his father a coal miner but when his ballet instructor persuades him to try out for the Royal Ballet School in London Billy must make the choice between family responsibilities and his dreams... Billy Elliot received plenty of recognition at the Academy Awards picking up nominations for Best Supporting Actress Best Director and Best Screenplay.

• Licorice Pizza | Blu Ray | (06/06/2022) from £8.41   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  California's San Fernando Valley, 1973. Gary Valentine (Cooper Hoffman) is a precocious high schooler and child star who meets - and is immediately besotted with - Alana (Alana Haim), a twenty-something photographer's assistant trying desperately to find herself. The two of them form an unlikely bond, and soon begin running around the Valley together taking part in Gary's many haphazard schemes.

• Vice | Blu Ray | (03/06/2019) from £5.00   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  From Adam McKay, the Oscar-winning co-writer and director of The Big Short and featuring transformative performances from Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Sam Rockwell and Steve Carell, Vice is the unmissable, hilarious and most relevant film of the year. The untold and epic true story of how Dick Cheney, a bureaucratic Washington insider, quietly became the most powerful man in the world as Vice-President to George W. Bush, reshaping the country and the globe in ways that we still feel today.

• The League of Gentlemen | DVD | (13/01/2020) from £16.98   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  A disgruntled veteran recruits a group of disgraced colleagues to perform a bank robbery with military precision

• American History X | DVD | (17/04/2019) from £5.99   |  Saving you £7.00 (116.86%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Derek Vinyard (Edward Norton), the charismatic leader of a group of young white supremacists, lands in prison for a brutal, hate-driven murder. Upon his release, ashamed of his past and pledging to reform, Derek realises he must save his younger brother, Danny (Edward Furlong), from a similar fate. A groundbreaking controversial drama about the tragic consequences of racism in a family.

• Lars And The Real Girl | DVD | (18/08/2008) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  A delusional young guy (Ryan Gosling) strikes up an unconventional relationship with a doll he finds on the Internet.

• Wilde | Blu Ray | (14/12/2015) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £17.99

  Wilde could easily have been nothing more than another well-dressed literary film from the British costume drama stable, but thanks to a richly textured performance from Stephen Fry in the title role, it becomes something deeper--a moving study of how the conflict between individual desires and social expectations can ruin lives. Oscar Wilde's writing may be justifiably legendary for its sly, barbed wit, but Wilde the film is far from a comedy, even though Fry relishes delivering the great man's famous quips. It takes on tragic dimensions as soon as Wilde meets Lord Alfred Douglas, known as Bosie, the strikingly beautiful but viciously selfish young aristocrat who wins Oscar's heart but loses him his reputation, marriage and freedom. Fry is brilliant at capturing how the intensity of Wilde's love for Bosie threw him off balance, becoming an all-consuming force he was unable to resist. Jude Law expertly depicts both Bosie's allure and his spitefully destructive side, there are subtle supporting performances from Vanessa Redgrave, Jennifer Ehle and Zoe Wanamaker, and the period trappings are lavishly trowelled on. But this is Fry's show all the way: from Oscar the darling of theatrical London to Wilde the prisoner broken on the wheel of Victorian moralism, he doesn't put a foot wrong. It feels like the role he was born to play. --Andy Medhurst

• Secrets & Lies | Blu Ray | (02/03/2015) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  If a film fan had never heard of director Mike Leigh, one might explain him as a British Woody Allen. Not that Leigh's films are whimsical or neurotic; they are tough-love examinations of British life--funny, outlandish and biting. His films share a real immediacy with Allen's work: they feel as if they are happening now. Leigh works with actors--real actors--on ideas and language. There is no script at the start (and sometimes not at the end). Secrets and Lies involves Hortense (Marianne Jean-Baptiste), an elegant black woman wanting to learn her birth mother's identity. She will find it's Cynthia (Brenda Blethyn), who is one of the saddest creatures we've seen in film. She's also one of the most real and, ultimately, one of the most loveable. Timothy Spall is Cynthia's brother, a giant man full of love who is being slowly defeated by his fastidious wife (Phyllis Logan). There is a great exuberance of life in Secrets & Lies, winner of the Palme D'Or and best actress (Blethyn) at the 1996 Cannes Film Festival--not Zorba-type life but the little battles fought and won every day. Leigh's honest interpretation of daily life is usually found only on the stage. Secrets & Lies is more realistic than a stage production, however, especially when Leigh shows us uninterrupted scenes. Critic David Denby states that Leigh has "made an Ingmar Bergman film without an instant of heaviness or pretension." If that sounds like your cup of tea, see Secrets & Lies. --Doug Thomas

• Tommy | DVD | (23/01/2012) from £9.55   |  Saving you £3.44 (36.02%)   |  RRP £12.99

  If you've ever wanted to hear Jack Nicholson sing or marvel at the sight of Ann-Margret drunkenly cavorting in a cascade of baked beans, Tommy is the movie you've been waiting for. The Who's brilliant rock opera is sublimely matched by director Ken Russell's penchant for cinematic excess during the peak of his filmmaking audacity. Tommy revolves around the 'deaf, dumb, and blind kid' (Roger Daltrey) who survives the childhood trauma that stole his senses to become a Pinball Wizard in Pete Townshend's grandiose attack on the hypocrisy of organised religion. Tommy's odyssey is rendered through wall-to-wall music, from the bloodstream shock of Tina Turner to Elton John's towering rendition of 'Pinball Wizard' and Daltrey's epiphanous rendition of 'I'm Free'. Other star performers include Eric Clapton and the Who's drummer Keith Moon in this classic of creative rock cinema.

• The Passionate Friends | DVD | (15/09/2008) from £5.95   |  Saving you £7.04 (118.32%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Through her marriage to a wealthy financier Mary Justin has the freedom and comfort she has always yearned for but her life is one that lacks emotional fulfilment. On a visit to Switzerland she runs into an old friend Steven Stratton with whom she once had a passionate love affair many years before her marriage. Her meeting with Steven rekindles old memories of a friendship of the most beautiful kind. If only they could begin again...

• The Waltons - Season 2 | DVD | (03/07/2006) from £22.49   |  Saving you £17.50 (77.81%)   |  RRP £39.99

  The welcome mat's out on Walton's Mountain. A year has gone by on Walton's Mountain. The Depression has deepened but so have the love and respect that hold the Waltons together. Share good times and hard times with America's favourite family in this 5-disc set featuring all 24 of the episodes from season 2 including 'The Thanksgiving Story' a poignant movie-length tale that won an Emmy Award for Best Writing in Drama (Series). This is the year John-Boy graduates from high

• Hornblower - Complete Collection | DVD | (24/08/2009) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £49.99

  The complete collection of Horatio Hornblower's (Ioan Gruffudd) hi-jinks on the high seas! Set during the 18th Century Napoleonic Wars this action packed epic award-winning series is based on C.S. Forester's classic novels.

• Pathfinders - The Complete TV Series | DVD | (22/05/2006) from £12.17   |  Saving you £7.82 (64.26%)   |  RRP £19.99

  During World War II the Pathfinder squadrons of RAF Bomber Command were the elite. All volunteers their particularly dangerous task was to fly in advance of bombing raids over occupied Europe later Nazi Germany to 'light up' the target with flares and incendiaries... Based on material supplied by surviving members of the force Pathfinders is a gripping and highly realistic TV series. Tense and action-packed this classic ITV series brilliantly evokes the combat experience

• Friends With Benefits | DVD | (06/02/2012) from £2.98   |  Saving you £15.01 (503.69%)   |  RRP £17.99

  The relationship between two friends gets complicated when they decide to get romantic. Dylan (Justin Timberlake) and Jamie (Mila Kunis) think it's going to be easy to add the act of sex to their friendship, but getting physical leads to complications!

• Uhf | Blu Ray | (27/07/2015) from £17.53   |  Saving you £-2.54 (N/A%)   |  RRP £14.99

  Weird Al' Yankovic, Kevin McCarthy (Innerspace), Michael Richards (Seinfeld), David Bowe (The Cable Guy), Victoria Jackson (Saturday Night Live) and Fran Drescher (The Nanny) star in this inspired comedy about a offbeat guy who turns a deadbeat TV station into a raging success! Broadcasting Weird Al's unique brand of humour, UHF is a place you'll want to visit with increasing frequency! George Newman (Weird Al) is a daydreamer whose hyperactive imagination keeps him from holding a steady job, that is until his uncle hires him to manage Channel 62, a station that's losing money and viewers fast. But when George replaces the station's reruns with bizarre programs like 'Wheel of Fish' and 'Raul's Wild Kingdom' (where poodles fly from third storey windows), ratings begin to soar! Stay tuned!

• Fifty Shades Freed (Blu-ray + digital download) | Blu Ray | (18/06/2018) from £6.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Jamie Dornan and Dakota Johnson return as Christian Grey and Anastasia Steele in Fifty Shades Freed, the climactic chapter based on the worldwide bestselling 'Fifty Shades' phenomenon. Believing they have left behind shadowy figures from their past, newlyweds Christian and Ana fully embrace an inextricable connection and shared life of luxury. But just as she steps into her role as Mrs. Grey and he relaxes into an unfamiliar stability, new threats could jeopardise their happy ending before it even begins.

• Mary Queen of Scots (Blu-ray) | Blu Ray | (20/05/2019) from £21.95   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Mary Queen of Scots explores the turbulent life of the charismatic Mary Stuart (Academy Award® nominee Saoirse Ronan). Queen of France at 16, widowed at 18, Mary defies pressure to remarry and instead returns to her native Scotland to reclaim her rightful throne. By birth, she also has a rival claim to the throne of Elizabeth I (Academy Award® nominee Margot Robbie), who rules as the Queen of England. Determined to rule as much more than a figurehead, Mary asserts her claim to the English throne, threatening Elizabeth's sovereignty. Rivals in power and in love, the two Queens make very different choices about marriage and children. Betrayal, rebellion and conspiracies within each court imperil both Queensdriving them apart, as each woman experiences the bitter cost of power. Bonus Features Include Feature Commentary with director Josie Rourke and Composer Max Richter An Epic Confrontation Tudor Feminism Something About Marys

• 45 Years DVD | DVD | (11/01/2016) from £6.08   |  Saving you £9.91 (162.99%)   |  RRP £15.99

  There is just one week until Kate Mercer's 45th wedding anniversary and the planning for the party is going well. But then a letter arrives for her husband. The body of his first love has been discovered, frozen and preserved in the Swiss Alps.