Drama

• Mildred Pierce | Blu Ray | (09/09/2024) from £29.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Melodrama casts noirish shadows in this portrait of maternal sacrifice from Hollywood master Michael Curtiz. Joan Crawford's iconic performance as Mildred, a single mother hell-bent on freeing her children from the stigma of economic hardship, solidified Crawford's career comeback and gave the actor her only Oscar. But as Mildred pulls herself up by her bootstraps, first as an unflappable waitress and eventually as the well-heeled owner of a successful restaurant chain, the ingratitude of her materialistic firstborn (a diabolical Ann Blyth) becomes a venomous serpent's tooth, setting in motion an endless cycle of desperate overtures and heartless recriminations. Recasting James M. Cain's rich psychological novel as a murder mystery, this bitter cocktail of blind parental love and all-American ambition is both unremittingly hard-boiled and sumptuously emotional. FILM INFO- United States- 1945- 111 minutes- Black & White- 1.37:1- English 4K UHD + BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES- 4K digital transfer, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack- One 4K UHD disc of the film presented in HDR and one Blu-ray with the film and special features- Conversation with critics Molly Haskell and Robert Polito- Excerpt from a 1970 episode of The David Frost Show featuring actor Joan Crawford- Joan Craw¬ford: The Ultimate Movie Star, a 2002 feature-length documentary- Q&A with actor Ann Blyth from 2006, presented by filmmaker Marc Huestis and conducted by film historian Eddie Muller- Segment from a 1969 episode of the Today show featuring Mildred Pierce novelist James M. Cain- Trailer- English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing- PLUS: An essay by critic Imogen Sara Smith- Cover by Sean Phillips

• Age of Consent (Standard Edition) | Blu Ray | (22/03/2021) from £9.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Based on Norman Lindsay's controversial autobiographical 1935 novel, Age of Consent is the story of an artist (James Mason), grown tired of producing art for wealthy Americans, who moves to the wilds of Australia's Great Barrier Reef where he meets Cora (Helen Mirren), a teenage girl who inspires him and becomes his muse as well as the object of his desire. The penultimate film from the great Michael Powell (Black Narcissus, The Red Shoes, Peeping Tom), Age of Consent explores the obsessive nature of an artist approaching the twilight of his career. Misjudged and mis-handled on its initial release (when the distributor removed key scenes and re-scored the film), Age of Consent is now regarded as one of Powell's key works. Extras High Definition remaster Original mono audio Two presentations of the film: the 2005 restoration of the director's cut, scored by Peter Sculthorpe (107 mins); and the studio cut, scored by Stanley Myers (100 mins) Audio commentary with film historian Kent Jones (2009) The Beauty of the Image: The John Player Lecture with Michael Powell (1971, 85 mins): archival audio recording of the celebrated filmmaker in conversation with Kevin Gough-Yates at London's National Film Theatre The Guardian Interview with Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger (1985, 105 mins): archival audio recording of the Archers in conversation with Ian Christie at London's National Film Theatre Age of Innocence (2018, 38 mins): an in-depth appraisal of Age of Consent by Ian Christie, author of Arrows of Desire: The Films of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger Making ˜Age of Consent' (2009, 17 mins): production manager Kevin Powell, composer Peter Sculthorpe and editor Anthony Buckley recall the film's turbulent history Martin Scorsese on ˜Age of Consent' (2009, 6 mins): the acclaimed director discusses the impact and legacy of Powell's film Helen Mirren: A Conversation with Cora (2009, 13 mins): the award-winning actor reflects on one of her earliest and most memorable film roles Down-Under with Ron and Valerie Taylor (2009, 10 mins): a conversation with the celebrated underwater photographers The Boy Who Turned Yellow (1972, 54 mins): Powell and Pressburger's final collaboration, made for the Children's Film Foundation Original theatrical trailer Image gallery: promotional photography and publicity material for Age of Consent and The Boy Who Turned Yellow New and improved English subtitles for the deaf and hard-of-hearing

• The Other Side Of Love | DVD | (30/10/2006) from £4.72   |  Saving you £2.53 (73.12%)   |  RRP £5.99

  An innocent mother condemned to a life sentence fights for the rights of her children and for justice. Based on a true story.

• SOS TITANIC | DVD | (02/04/2012) from £5.74   |  Saving you £10.25 (178.57%)   |  RRP £15.99

  April 15th 1912 will be remembered as one of the darkest days in history, the day the Titantic sank on its maiden voyage from Southampton to New York. Of the 2, 206 passengers and crew only 703 survived that fateful journey and this is their story. Based on eyewitness accounts S.O.S Titanic is one of the most meticulously researched and vivid portrayals of the horrific events that took place. A lavishly produced, gripping and extremely tense recreation of a tragic night that shook the world.

• What's New Pussycat? (Eureka Classics) Blu-ray edition | Blu Ray | (02/12/2019) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Eureka Entertainment to release WHAT'S NEW PUSSYCAT?, Clive Donner's zany screwball comedy starring Peter Sellers and Peter O'Toole, for the first time on Blu-ray in the UK as part of the Eureka Classics range from 2 December 2019. It's tough being the cat's meow! A zany blend of slapstick gags and madcap comedy, What's New Pussycat?, starring Peter Sellers, Peter O'Toole and Woody Allen in his acting and screenwriting debut, is the wildest, wackiest film to emerge from the swinging '60s. Michael (O'Toole) is a mademoiselle magnet. His demented psychiatrist (Sellers) and sex-starved friend (Allen) would kill for this problem, but his would-be fiancé (Romy Schneider) might just kill him. Undergoing therapy, Michael tries to reform, but it won't be easy with sex kittens like Ursula Andress, Paula Prentiss and Capucine on his tail! Wonderfully directed by Clive Donner (The Caretaker) and featuring the hit title song written by Burt Bacharach and performed by Tom Jones, Eureka Classics presents What's New Pussycat? on Blu-ray for the first time in the UK. Features: Presented in 1080p from a high-definition digital restoration Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard-of-hearing Uncompressed LPCM 2.0 audio Brand new and exclusive audio commentary by film critics Emma Westwood and Sally Christie Original theatrical trailer A collector's booklet featuring a new essay by Simon Ward

• The Story Of Adele H | DVD | (04/08/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  The Story of Adele H is Francois Truffaut's dramatisation of the true story of Adele Hugo, the daughter of French author-in-exile Victor Hugo, and her romantic obsession with a young French officer. It's a cinematically beautiful and emotionally wrenching portrait of a headstrong but unstable young woman. Adele (Isabelle Adjani, whose pale face gives her the quality of a cameo portrait) travels under a false name and spins half-a-dozen false stories about herself and her relationship to Lieutenant Pinson (Bruce Robinson), the Hussar she follows to Halifax, Nova Scotia. Pinson no longer loves her, but she refuses to accept his rejection. Sinking further and further into her own internal world, she passes herself off as his wife and pours out her stormy emotions into a personal journal filled with delusional descriptions of her fantasy life. Beautifully shot by Nestor Almendros in vivid colour, Truffaut's re-creation of the 1860s is accomplished not merely in impressive sets and locations but in the very style of the film: narration and voiceovers, written journal entries and letters, journeys and locations established with map reproductions, and a judicious use of stills mixing old-fashioned cinematic technique with poetic flourishes. The result is one of Truffaut's most haunting portraits, all the more powerful because it's true. --Sean Axmaker

• Poirot - Agatha Christie's Poirot - The ABC Murders | DVD | (16/06/2003) from £6.87   |  Saving you £3.12 (45.41%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Three bodies are found. Beside each lies a copy of the ABC Railway Guide. The police are baffled. But the killer has made one mistake; he has challenged Hercule Poirot to unmask him...

• Sirens | DVD | (20/05/2002) from £14.96   |  Saving you £0.03 (0.20%)   |  RRP £14.99

  Sirens is an affectionate, semi-fictional comedy of manners set in 1930s Australia. In an audacious stroke of casting Hugh Grant plays a stereotypically awkward and diffident Englishman, in this case a Church of England priest. The priest is despatched into the Blue Mountains west of Sydney in an effort to press the Good Word upon Norman Lindsay, an artist whose lurid works are scandalising the upright citizenry. Lindsay--capably played here by Sam Neill--really existed and though he fancied himself as a dashing Bohemian artist, his paintings were dreadful. Sirens sees Grant's rigidly decent young priest and his equally prim wife (Tara Fitzgerald) gradually tempted further and further into the rustic bacchanalia that Lindsay has founded up in the bush. This sensual world is represented by Lindsay's young muses, played by supermodel Elle MacPherson, a pre-Ally McBeal Portia De Rossi and Kate Fischer. The three are more or less unclothed for most of the film, and spend what seems an unnecessary amount of time washing each other in rock-pools. This may or may not reflect awareness on the part of the producers that the film's predictable plot and overwrought dialogue weren't going to fill a lot of seats without some help. On the DVD: Sirens is presented in 1.85:1 widescreen, but there are no extra features.--Andrew Mueller

• The Prince And The Pauper | DVD | (22/02/2010) from £10.18   |  Saving you £5.81 (57.07%)   |  RRP £15.99

  The Prince And The Pauper

• Ray | Blu Ray | (21/03/2011) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Riding high on a wave of Oscar buzz Foxx proved himself worthy of all the hype by portraying blind R&B legend Ray Charles in a warts-and-all performance that Charles approved shortly before his death in June 2004. Despite a few dramatic embellishments of actual incidents (such as the suggestion that the accidental drowning of Charles's younger brother caused all the inner demons that Charles would battle into adulthood) the film does a remarkable job of summarizing Charles's strengths as a musical innovator and his weaknesses as a philandering heroin addict who recorded some of his best songs while flying high as a kite. Foxx seems to be channeling Charles himself and as he did with the life of Ritchie Valens in La Bamba director Taylor Hackford gets most of the period details absolutely right as he chronicles Ray's rise from chitlin circuit performer in the early '50s to his much-deserved elevation to legendary status as one of the all-time great musicians. Foxx expertly lip-syncs to Ray Charles' classic recordings but you could swear he's the real deal in a film that honours Ray Charles without sanitizing his once-messy life.

• Men Of Honour (Blu-ray) | Blu Ray | (09/04/2007) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  A military drama starring Robert De Niro and Cuba Gooding Jr that tells the true story of Carl Bashear who combated racism to become the US Navy's first African-American deep-sea diver.

• Experimenter | DVD | (29/02/2016) from £10.35   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Yale University, 1961. Stanley Milgram designs a psychology experiment in which people think they're delivering electric shocks to an affable stranger strapped into a chair in another room. Subjects are told it's about memory, but the experiment is really about conformity, conscience, and free will. Milgram is trying to test people's tendency to comply with authority. His controversial experiments and results hit a nerve, and got him accused of being a deceptive, manipulative monster. Much like Mad Men and Masters of Sex, EXPERIMENTER is a stylish and engaging look at a fascinating period of American history. It features a strong cast including Winona Ryder (Black Swan), Peter Sarsgaard (Black Mass), Taryn Manning (TV series Orange is the New Black) and John Leguizamo (John Wick).

• Holy Motors | Blu Ray | (28/01/2013) from £9.42   |  Saving you £10.57 (112.21%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Leos Carax returns to cinema after a 13-year hiatus with Holy Motors, a brilliant, visually striking film that was one of the toasts of this year's Cannes Film Festival.

• Miracle | DVD | (28/02/2005) from £8.08   |  Saving you £6.91 (85.52%)   |  RRP £14.99

  If you believe in yourself anything can happen. In 1980 amidst the tense political climate of the Cold War Herb Brooks (Kurt Russell) took over as coach of the U.S. Olympic hockey team. With the help of affable assistant coach Craig Patrick (Noah Emmerich) Brooks selected a group of twenty amateur hockey players who faced the daunting task of bringing respectability to their country's floundering program. While Brooks was well aware that his team lacked the talent and expe

• You & I | DVD | (25/04/2016) from £7.39   |  Saving you £8.60 (53.80%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Summer in Berlin. Jonas is planning a trip through the little known area of the Uckermark in preparation for a photography project. He invites his best friend, Phillip, to come along. They haven't met since the time they spent together in London. So they pack up their Mercedes camper and take off across uncharted territory, stopping whenever they see something they like, taking pictures and generally enjoying a laid-back road trip. The fact that Phillip is gay has never been an issue for either of them. When they pick up a hitchhiker named Boris, however, who shows Jonas some interesting spots and starts to make moves on Phillip, the friendship of the two starts to fray. Maybe three's a crowd after all? By the end of the summer, things between Jonas and Phillip won't ever be the same again.

• The Last Station | DVD | (21/06/2010) from £6.19   |  Saving you £11.80 (190.63%)   |  RRP £17.99

  "The Last Station" is a love story set during the last year of the life and turbulent marriage of the great Russian writer Leo Tolstoy and his wife the Countess Sofya.

• Devil's Own | DVD | (01/10/1999) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Any movie starring Brad Pitt and Harrison Ford has got to be worth seeing, right? That's as close to a guarantee as this well-meaning thriller ever gets, however, and the talents of Pitt and Ford are absolutely vital in making any sense out of this dramatically muddled scenario. Ostensibly the movie's about an IRA terrorist (Pitt) who escapes from British troops in Belfast and travels to New York City, where he stays in the home of a seasoned cop (Ford) who has no idea of the terrorist's true identity. (Why a veteran cop would host a complete stranger in his home is one of those shaky details you're better off not thinking about.) But while Pitt's passionate character waits to make an arms deal for his IRA compatriots back in Ireland, The Devil's Own conveniently avoids any detailed understanding of the Northern Ireland conflict, focusing instead on the cop's moral dilemma when he discovers that his young guest is a terrorist. The film is superbly acted, and overall it's quite worthwhile, but don't look to it for an abundance of plot logic or an in-depth understanding of Protestant-Catholic tensions in Northern Ireland. (For that, take a look at In the Name of the Father or the underrated historical biopic Michael Collins.) --Jeff Shannon.

• The Princess Of Montpensier | Blu Ray | (31/10/2011) from £11.49   |  Saving you £11.50 (100.09%)   |  RRP £22.99

  1562. In France, during the reign of Charles IX, the wars of religion are raging...Marie de Mzires, heiress to one of the kingdom's greatest fortunes, loves the young Duc de Guise, known in the annals of history as le Balafr, Scarface. She believes he loves her back, but her father forces Marie to marry the Prince de Montpensier, whom she has never met.This is the story of the violent, passionate rivalry that develops between Frances' most powerful men, a rivalry with Marie as the prize.

• Charlie Chan | DVD | (01/11/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.24

  Though the Charlie Chan film franchise has earned brickbats for its casting of Caucasian actors as the Asian sleuth, the movies have retained popularity among aficionados of '40s-era B-crime pictures, and the six-disc Charlie Chan Chanthology, all featuring Sidney Toler as Chan, should please that crowd. The Missouri-born Toler starred in 11 Chan pictures for Fox before purchasing the rights to the character from creator Earl Derr Biggers's widow and bringing it to budget studio Monogram, where he starred in 11 more Chans before his death in 1947 (Roland Winters replaced him in six more features until 1949). At Monogram, Chan became a Secret Service Agent (a move calculated to cut down on exotic locations and sets), and comedy was integrated into the plots via Mantan Moreland's chauffeur Birmingham Brown; Benson Fong also joined the cast as Number Three Son Tommy, with occasional appearances by daughter Frances (Frances Chan) and son Eddie (Edwin Luke, brother of Keye Luke, who played Number One Son Lee in the Fox Chans). Other than that, the six films collected here (the first six Chans for Monogram, and all but five directed by Phil Rosen) are largely indistinguishable from one another save for the murder victims and their demises. In The Secret Service, Chan investigates the death of a wartime inventor; a San Francisco socialite expires in The Chinese Cat; daughter Frances is involved in the murder of a psychic in Meeting at Midnight (a.k.a. Black Magic); another government scientist is killed in The Jade Mask, and death by remote control is the focus of The Scarlet Clue. Director Phil Karlson (Kansas City Confidential) adds some noirish atmosphere to The Shanghai Cobra, which has bank employees dying from apparent snakebites. Dated and controversial as they may be, the Chan films are engaging diversions for vintage mystery fans. No extras are featured in the set. --Paul Gaita

• Twin Peaks: Season 2 (UK Version) | DVD | (22/03/2010) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £49.99

  Homecoming Queen Laura Palmer is found dead, washed up on a riverbank, wrapped in plastic sheeting. FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper is called in to investigate the murder of this young woman in the small, North-western town of Twin Peaks.