Drama

• Bridget Jones Diary 1-3 | DVD | (17/02/2025) from £8.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• Cinema Paradiso | DVD | (21/05/2001) from £19.99   |  Saving you £-4.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Giuseppe Tornatore's beautiful 1988 film about a little boy's love affair with the movies deservedly won an Oscar for Best Foreign Film and a Special Jury Prize at Cannes. Philippe Noiret plays a grizzled old projectionist who takes pride in his presentation of screen dreams for a town still recovering from World War II. When a child (Jacques Perrin) demonstrates fascination not only for movies but also for the process of showing them to an audience, a lifelong friendship is struck. This isn't just one of those films for people who are already in love with the cinema. But if you are one of those folks, the emotional resonance between the action in Tornatore's world and the images on Noiret's screen will seem all the greater--and the finale all the more powerful. --Tom Keogh

• La terra trema (Limited Edition) | Blu Ray | (23/06/2025) from £17.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  In the fishing village of Aci Trezza, Sicily, the Valastro family dream of a better life. Living modestly thanks to merciless wholesalers, eldest son Ntoni takes matters into his own hands and - with the help of a bank loan - starts fishing alone. The venture is initially a success but an unexpected shipwreck means the family must soon fend for themselves. Originally commissioned as propaganda by the Communist Party, master filmmaker Luchino Visconti (The Leopard, Death in Venice) used the real villagers of Aci Trezza as his stars to craft a docu-fictional melodrama about the difficulties of rural life post-World War II. La terra trema was nominated for the Golden Lion at the 1948 Venice Film Festival and is considered one of the finest examples of Italian neorealist cinema. LIMITED EDITION BLU-RAY SPECIAL FEATURES 2K restoration of the film by Cineteca Nazionale Uncompressed mono PCM audio New interview with critic Christina Newland Interview with Italian politician and journalist Pietro Ingrao Interview with assistant director Francesco Rosi Interview with Turi Vasile Trailer Newly improved English subtitle translation Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Time Tomorrow Limited edition booklet featuring new and archival writing Limited edition of 3000 copies, presented in full-height Scanavo packaging with removable OBI strip leaving packaging free of certificates and markings

• Threads - Special Edition (UK Exclusive Remastered 2018) | DVD | (09/04/2018) from £19.97   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Hideously plausible when first broadcast in 1984, this BBC TV docu-drama now seems like a terrifying might-have-been, although a great deal of what it says about the probable aftermath of a nuclear attack remains horribly pertinent. Scripted by Barry Hines (author of the novel on which Ken Loach's Kes was based) and directed by Mick Jackson (who later went to Hollywood with The Bodyguard and Volcano), at the time Threads seemed like a response to the American TV movie The Day After although it stands nobly on its own. Showing the after-effects of World War III on the United Kingdom by concentrating on two Sheffield families linked by an unplanned pregnancy, it illustrates the scientific, political, medical and social consequences of the severing of the many vital connective "threads" that support a Western society. Grim in a particularly 1980s way, this is a compulsive if uncomfortable watch and accomplishes a great deal without the distraction of spectacle, picking through all the melted milk bottles and firing squad traffic wardens to find the human horror at the heart of it all. --Kim Newman

• A Woman of Paris Blu-Ray (Criterion Collection) | Blu Ray | (07/04/2025) from £22.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Remarkable for its psychological nuance and its boldly modern perspective on an independent woman's search for fulfillment, Charlie Chaplin's long-overlooked silent masterpiece A Woman of Paris is a revelation.

• The White Queen | DVD | (19/08/2013) from £10.99   |  Saving you £29.00 (263.88%)   |  RRP £39.99

  Based on Philippa Gregory's best selling The Cousin's War series, The White Queen is a stunningly rich tale of love and loss, seduction and deception, betrayal and murder, vibrantly woven through the stories of three different yet equally driven women - Elizabeth Woodville, Margaret Beaufort and Anne Neville. The year is 1464 and England has been at war for nine years battling over who is the rightful King of England. This is a war between two sides of the same family, The House of York and T...

• Endeavour S1-9: Collector's Edition | DVD | (06/11/2023) from £81.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• Cambridge Spies | DVD | (02/06/2003) from £19.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Cambridge Spies, the BBC's moody 2003 dramatisation of the most notorious debacle in the history of the British Secret Service, raises the spectre of the treachery of Philby, Burgess, MacLean and Blunt for a generation of viewers who can only imagine the shockwaves generated by their duplicity. Inevitably the story suffers from the basically repellent quality of its raw material. Determinedly non-judgemental, it frequently stumbles along a precarious path between romantic eulogy and fact-based fable of the perils of idealism. For all the handsome casting, the characters have little charm to compensate for their deeds. Their motivations are sketched only vaguely. Even in moments of personal vulnerability, however poignant the performances, sympathy is at a premium. But it has its high points as an atmospheric soap opera: the recreation of a period that stretches from the radical aspects of 1930s university life at Cambridge to Cold War London, dipping into the Spanish Civil War and the Washington diplomatic circle en route, is vivid. The acting, too, is fine. Tom Hollander's rampantly dissolute Burgess verges constantly on parody. But Toby Stephens (Philby), Samuel West (a frosty Blunt) and Rupert Penry-Jones (an emotionally wrung-out MacLean) work wonders with Peter Moffat's insubstantial script. On the DVD: Cambridge Spies is a handsome production with a cinematic quality enhanced by an appropriately edgy soundtrack and widescreen presentation. The main extra is the commentary shared by director Tim Fywell, producer Mark Shivas and writer Peter Moffat. It's a rather self-congratulatory affair, but includes some interesting insights: attempts to film some events in their real location met with refusal, suggesting that in some quarters, the outrage and embarrassment that Burgess, Philby and MacLean left in their wake is still very close to the surface. --Piers Ford

• Grace: Series 1-5 | DVD | (12/05/2025) from £64.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• That Thing You Do! | DVD | (30/06/2003) from £5.49   |  Saving you £0.50 (9.11%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Tom Hanks's debut as a writer and director is a lively, affectionate account of the shooting-star career of a forgotten (fictional) 1960s pop-rock band called The Wonders--as in "one-hit wonders". Hanks plays the manager of the group, which includes drummer Guy "Sticks" Patterson (Tom Everett Scott) who works the floor at his parents' appliance store in Erie, Pennsylvania; Jimmy (Johnathon Schaech), the talented and temperamental lead singer and songwriter; Lenny (Steve Zahn), the goofy guitarist; and Ethan Embry as a geeky little fellow identified in the cast list only as "The Bass Player". The movie traces their meteoric rise and fall, from cutting their first record, to going on tour with a Phil Spector/Motown-type revue, to the internal tensions that lead to the band's disintegration, which comes when they fail to follow up their smash hit single, "That Thing You Do!" And that song, by the way, is so catchy it would definitely have been a hit in 1964--and deserves to be one today. This delightful movie would make a great double-bill with Allison Anders's wonderful Grace of My Heart. --Jim Emerson

• Silver Linings Playbook | DVD | (01/04/2013) from £4.80   |  Saving you £15.19 (316.46%)   |  RRP £19.99

  In lesser hands than director David O. Russell, Silver Linings Playbook could have been a typically cringe-inducing throwaway Hollywood rom-com. As it is, this unusual and deeply affecting story of crazy love is a bold observation about the joys and tragedy of life lived by deeply flawed characters facing triumph and adversity against a backdrop of painfully familiar family dysfunction. It's also a tremendous achievement in formal structure, with a flair for storytelling that's as moving as it is delightful. Bradley Cooper plays Pat, an until-recently undiagnosed bipolar person who's just home from a lengthy stay in a mental institution and doing his darnedest to get his head and his life back on track. His concerned parents, vividly embodied by Robert De Niro and Jacki Weaver, have plenty of troubles of their own when they warily take him in and tiptoe around the eggshells of a psyche that still veers wildly from seeming self-control to scary bouts of mania. Pat has a plan to win back the unfaithful wife whose restraining order is still in force because of the violent episode that sent him away after he nearly killed her lover. Interjected into this wobbly family scenario is Tiffany, a friend of a friend who is embroiled in her own turmoil of mental instability following the recent death of her husband. Jennifer Lawrence is a charming revelation as Tiffany, flexing sensitive acting muscles that are as toned as her lithe form. She throws herself into the role of a depressed, promiscuous young woman who needs Pat in her life about as much as she needs another personal tornado to rip her apart. But the movie magically reveals that these two disturbed souls have a destiny that's never really in doubt; although the whirlwind turns the movie takes to get them there are often breathtaking. Russell liberally adapted the movie from Matthew Quick's 2008 novel, and he deftly imbues the story with a vibrant sense of place (suburban, blue-collar Philadelphia) and each character, no matter how tangential to Pat and Tiffany's journey, with quirks and nuances that brilliantly reveal their essence. The subject of mental illness has rarely been portrayed with such honesty and candid respect. Constantly keeping us off guard, Silver Linings Playbook soars from darkness to a kind of screwball comedy that is as tender and touching as it is unpredictable. There are several tour-de-force moments that Russell constructs with the surest hand of direction, dialogue, and the talents of his cast. A key scene unfolds in a small living room where eight people are crammed together, each adding important pieces to the whole, and which thrums with a masterfully rhythmic pace. Another sequence follows the buildup to one of Pat's manic outbursts with a dizzying and increasingly stressful manifestation of the madness careening around in his head. It seems hard to believe that a love story with real humour, real pain, and genuine resonance that gets from point A to point B--it begins with a lone figure mumbling to himself and ends with a jubilantly staged ballroom dance--can succeed with so few missteps. But Silver Linings Playbook turns it all into an absorbing reality wherein life stumbles heartwarmingly toward what real love is all about. --Ted Fry

• Captain Fantastic | DVD | (23/01/2017) from £6.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Deep in the forests of the Pacific Northwest, a father (Viggo Mortensen) devoted to raising his six kids with a rigorous physical and intellectual education is forced to leave his paradise and enter the world.

• Westworld | Blu Ray | (06/11/2017) from £10.95   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Inspired by the 1973 motion picture of the same name, Westworld is a one-hour drama series about a futuristic theme park populated by artificial beings. Written and directed by Michael Crichton this dark odyssey about the dawn of artificial consciousness and the evolution of sin is set at the intersection of the near future and the reimagined past. It explores a world in which every human appetite, no matter how noble or depraved, can be indulged. 1. Pilot 2. Chestnut 3. The Stray 4. Six Impossible Things 5. Contrapasso 6. Trace Decay 7. Trompe L'Oeil 8. The Adversary 9. Job's Root 10. The Bicameral Mind.

• Northanger Abbey | DVD | (26/03/2007) from £4.99   |  Saving you £13.00 (260.52%)   |  RRP £17.99

  Catherine Moreland (Felicity Jones ) a spirited young beauty from the country enters into the depraved society of Bath with dreams and fantasies sparked by her love of gothic romance novels. There she meets two men vying for her affection - the dashing and jealous John Thorpe (William Beck) and the gentle and sincere Henry Tilney (JJ Feild). Despite the advice of her mischievous new friend Isabella (Carey Mulligan) Catherine treats neither as more than a dear friend. That is until Catherine accepts an invitation to Northanger Abbey from Henry`s grave and severe father General Tilney (Liam Cunningham). Her passion for the dark and mysterious feeds her imagination as tyrannical fathers and diabolical villains work their evil on forelorn heroines trapped in isolated castles much like Northanger....

• Love, Rosie | DVD | (02/03/2015) from £6.19   |  Saving you £13.80 (222.94%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Rosie (Lily Collins; The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones) and Alex (Sam Claflin; The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1) have been best friends since the age of six but as they are approaching university fate forces them to go their separate ways. Can their relationship survive the years and the miles? And at the back of Rosie’s mind is whether they were meant to be more than just good friends all along. Misunderstandings circumstances and sheer bad luck have kept them out of each other’s arms but when presented with the ultimate opportunity will they gamble everything for the chance to be together at last? Based on the bestselling novel “Where Rainbows End” by Cecilia Ahern Love Rosie is a fresh and heart-warming story about friendship true love and luck that shows how sometimes fate just can’t stop meddling.

• A Month in the Country (DVD + Blu-ray) | Blu Ray | (20/06/2016) from £16.31   |  Saving you £3.68 (22.56%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Adapted from the novel of the same name by J L Carr, A Month in the Country, is set during a 1920s summer in rural Yorkshire. Tom Birkin (Colin Firth), a destitute World War I veteran coming to terms with the after-effects of the war, has been employed by a village church to carry out restoration work on a medieval mural. During his time in the slow-paced village, Birkin forms a close friendship with archaeologist James Moon (Kenneth Branagh), a fellow veteran who is also emotionally scarred following the conflict. The film follows Birkin as he settles into village life, forming romantic relationships and bonding with families and locals. Neglected after its initial 1987 cinema release, the film features a score by Howard Blake (The Snowman, The Avengers) and is notable for its strong British cast which also includes Natasha Richardson, Patrick Malahide and Jim Carter.

• St Elmo's Fire | DVD | (17/05/2010) from £7.99   |  Saving you £0.99 (19.80%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Billy: life has changed since school but has Billy noticed? Wendy: respectable hardworking and a virgin. Daddy says ""marry a nice boy"" but she has other ideas! Alec: success wealth and a wife. He knows what he wants but can he have it? Kevin: what's his secret? Scared of Women? Gay? Or is it something that'll really shock his best friend? Jules: life is one high-powered party. Sex drugs and really pushing life to the limit. Leslie: she loves her work and she loves her boyfriend...

• The Lost King | DVD | (12/12/2022) from £5.00   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  In 2012, having been lost for over 500 years, the remains of King Richard III were discovered beneath a carpark in Leicester. The search had been orchestrated by an amateur historian, Philippa Langley, whose unrelenting research had been met with incomprehension by her friends and family and with scepticism by experts and academics. THE LOST KING is the life-affirming true story of a woman who refused to be ignored and who took on the country's most eminent historians, forcing them to think again about one of the most controversial kings in England's history.

• Ghost Dog: The Way Of The Samurai | DVD | (10/06/2002) from £12.00   |  Saving you £-2.01 (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Forest Whitaker makes an unlikely modern samurai with his laser-sighted pistols, shabby street clothes, and oddly graceful gait--but then Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai is an unusual film. Quirky, contemplative and at times absurd, it is just the kind of offbeat vision we have come to expect from the fiercely independent Jim Jarmusch (Stranger than Paradise, Dead Man). Whitaker is Ghost Dog, a mysterious New York hit man who lives simply on a tenement rooftop and follows a code of behaviour outlined in : Hagakure: The Book of the Samurai (passages of this book are interspersed throughout the film). When the local mob marks him for death in a complicated code of Mafiosi-style honour, Ghost Dog sends a cryptic message to his foes. "That's poetry. The poetry of war", remarks mobster Henry Silva, with sudden respect upon reading the verse. He could be describing the ethereal beauty of Jarmusch's vision, full of wonderful imagery (a night drive across town seems to float in time) and off-centre humour. Though it briefly stalls in a series of assassinations (Jarmusch is no action director), it settles back into character-driven drama in a quietly epic showdown, equal parts samurai adventure, spaghetti western and existential crime movie. The film is likely too unconventional and offbeat for general audiences, but cult-movie buffs and Jarmusch fans will appreciate his idiosyncratic vision. He finds a strange sense of honour in the clash of Old World traditions, and salutes his heroes with a skewed but sincere respect. --Sean Axmaker

• The Way Back | DVD | (09/05/2011) from £5.28   |  Saving you £14.71 (278.60%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Directed by six-time Academy Award nominee Peter Weir, The Way Back is an epic story of survival, solidarity and indomitable human will.