Drama

• It's a Wonderful Life - 65th Anniversary Edition | DVD | (02/11/2009) from £24.28   |  Saving you £-6.29 (N/A%)   |  RRP £17.99

  Now perhaps the most beloved American film, It's a Wonderful Life was largely forgotten for years, due to a copyright quirk. Only in the late 1970s did it find its audience through repeated TV showings. Frank Capra's masterwork deserves its status as a feel-good communal event, but it is also one of the most fascinating films in the American cinema, a multilayered work of Dickensian density. George Bailey (played superbly by James Stewart) grows up in the small town of Bedford Falls, dreaming dreams of adventure and travel, but circumstances conspire to keep him enslaved to his home turf. Frustrated by his life, and haunted by an impending scandal, George prepares to commit suicide on Christmas Eve. A heavenly messenger (Henry Travers) arrives to show him a vision: what the world would have been like if George had never been born. The sequence is a vivid depiction of the American Dream gone bad, and probably the wildest thing Capra ever shot (the director's optimistic vision may have darkened during his experiences making military films in World War II). Capra's triumph is to acknowledge the difficulties and disappointments of life, while affirming--in the teary-eyed final reel--his cherished values of friendship and individual achievement. It's a Wonderful Life was not a big hit on its initial release, and it won no Oscars (Capra and Stewart were nominated); but it continues to weave a special magic. --Robert Horton

• Michael | DVD | (28/05/2012) from £7.05   |  Saving you £8.94 (55.90%)   |  RRP £15.99

  This acclaimed Austrian drama focuses on five months in the life of paedophile who keeps a 10-year-old boy locked in his basement.A protg of Michael Haneke, Markus Schleinzer's Michael is a triumph of uneasy cinema. With an unorthodox level of restraint, the director tells the story of a dull office drone who keeps a kidnapped young boy locked in his house.Despite its subversive edge, Michael successfully drains the shock out of a frightening premise and instead delivers a keen observational thriller. From its opening minutes, Michael reveals its alarming plot with a patient, naturalistic atmosphere.

• Lawrence Of Arabia | DVD | (08/09/2003) from £16.80   |  Saving you £-2.55 (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  ""A Miracle of a Film"" - Steven Spielberg This remarkable film follows the struggles of T.E. Lawrence (played by Peter O'Toole - My Favourite Year The Last Emperor) in uniting the hostile Arab factions during the First World War and leading them to victory over the ruling Turkish Empire. The film was released originally in 1962 to huge critical acclaim winning 7 Academy Awards including Best Picture and Best Director for David Lean.

• Guilty By Suspicion | DVD | (30/06/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  A witch hunt has begun. The hunters are politicians sitting before clicking cameras in HAUC hearing rooms. Hollywood is on trail. An David Merrill is asked to 'name names'. This powerful directorial and screenwriting debut of veteran producer Irwin Winkler vividly recreates the creative community's infamous Blacklist era. De Niro plays Merrill an A-list director who can revive his stalled career by testifying against friends who are suspected communists. Annette Bening is Merrill's e

• Paradise Alley (Dual Format) | Blu Ray | (04/09/2017) from £12.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  For the first time ever on Blu-Ray comes Sylvester Stallone's directorial debut from 1978, his first project after his Best Original Screenplay and Best Actor Oscar nominations for Rocky in 1976. Stallone actually wrote this first but it was the success of Rocky that made this film possible Stallone recalls: I was very broke and I optioned the screenplay of PARADISE ALLEY to a real how should I say this maggot, who put his hooks in so deep I could never get it away from him. So the first time I went in to meet Chartoff and Winkler, I was there on an acting job. I didn't get it, but on the way out I said, I have this screenplay called PARADISE ALLEY. They said to bring it over and I did. They wanted to make it, but the other cretin that I had optioned it to was so obnoxious, so overbearing, that the producers wanted nothing to do with me or the screenplay. So on the way out, they said, If you have any ideas, we'd be happy to look at them. That night I went home - even a fire extinguisher couldn't cool the burning in my brain. The door of opportunity was wide open and I had nothing to carry over its threshold. That's when I started to write ROCKY. So thank God for the maggot; otherwise I never would've written the story of Mr. Balboa.

• The Last Command (1928) | Blu Ray | (16/05/2016) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Emil Jannings stars in the film which won the first ever Academy Award for best Actor for his role in this stunning early masterpiece from director Josef von Sternberg (The Blue Angel). An exiled Russian general turned Hollywood extra (Emil Jannings, in an incredibly passionate performance) is chosen by a former adversary (William Powell) to play a role that resembles his former self and gradually loses his grip on reality. Equally a sharp witted satire of the Hollywood machine and a heartbreaking drama about one man's emotional downfall, Josef von Sternberg's The Last Command (his second major Hollywood picture) is one of the finest and most significant films of its era. Featuring exemplary cinematography, beautifully designed sets, and rousing Revolution sequences, The Masters of Cinema Series is proud to present the worldwide Blu-ray debut of this wonderfully composed masterpiece.

• Born To Be Blue | DVD | (25/07/2016) from £8.97   |  Saving you £4.02 (44.82%)   |  RRP £12.99

  In the 1950s, Chet Baker (Ethan Hawke - Boyhood) was one of the most famous trumpeters in the world, renowned as both a pioneer of the West Coast jazz scene and an icon of cool. By the 1960s, he was all but washed up, his career and personal life in shambles due to years of addiction. Creatively blending fact with fiction and driven by Hawke's virtuoso performance, Born to Be Blue unfolds at a key moment in the 1960s, just as Baker attempts to stage a hard-fought comeback, spurred in part by a passionate romance with a new flame (Carmen Ejogo - Selma). Click Images to Enlarge

• A Touch of Frost: Series 1 | DVD | (01/06/2009) from £20.38   |  Saving you £4.61 (22.62%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Includes the feature-length episodes 'Care & Protection' 'Not With Kindness' and 'Conclusions'. David Jason is the gritty and dogged Detective Inspector Jack Frost a man who has little time for paperwork or the orthodox approach. This release features all the episodes from Series One of A Touch of Frost.

• Radio | DVD | (20/09/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  The inspiring true-life story of the relationship between a high-school football coach and a mentally-challenged man nicknamed "Radio" who together transform their South Carolina community.

• Wings of Fame | DVD | (31/08/2015) from £17.53   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• The Blackheath Poisonings - The Complete Series | DVD | (26/04/2010) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £14.99

  The Blackheath Poisonings: The Complete Series

• The Banger Sisters | DVD | (21/07/2003) from £4.26   |  Saving you £11.73 (275.35%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Goldie Hawn and Susan Sarandon star as two former rock groupies from the 60s reunited in the present day. One is a waitress, nostalgic for the old days, and the other is a prominent socialite eager to forget her past.

• All Or Nothing | Blu Ray | (15/11/2021) from £14.98   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  From BAFTA winning director Mike Leigh with stunning performances from Timothy Spall, Lesley Manville, Ruth Sheen and Marion Bailey, All or Nothing is an incredible tale of the intertwining lives of several families on a housing estate in London. Following different tales of melancholy, alcoholism, a violent abusive boyfriend and a frustrated unemployed youth - there seems to be no hope for a brighter future and no chance of escape yet glimmers of joy and humour still prevail. Boasting first time screen performances from Sally Hawkins, Daniel Mays and James Corden this brand new restoration is an authentic and deeply enjoyable Mike Leigh classic.

• Sebastiane | DVD | (18/06/2001) from £29.98   |  Saving you £-9.99 (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  The first and only film shot entirely in subtitled Latin, Sebastiane is Derek Jarman's first work as a director (though he shared the job with the less well-known Paul Humfress) and is a strange combination of gay nudie movie, pocket-sized Ancient Roman epic and meditation upon the image of Saint Sebastian. It opens with the Lindsay Kemp dance troupe romping around with huge fake phalluses to represent the Ken Russell-style decadence of the court of the Emperor Diocletian in AD 303, then decamps to Tuscany as Diocletian's favourite guard Sebastian (Leonardo Treviglio) is demoted to ordinary soldier and dispatched to a backwater barracks because the Emperor (Robert Medley) suspects him of being a covert Christian. The bulk of the film consists of athletic youths in minimal thongs romping around the countryside, soaking themselves down between bouts of manly horseplay or sylvan frolic. It all comes to a bad end as the lecherous but guilt-ridden commanding officer Severus (Barney James) fails to cop off with Sebastian and instead visits floggings and tortures upon his naked torso, finally ordering his men to riddle the future saint with arrows, thus securing him a place in cultural history. The public schoolboy cleverness of scripting dialogue in Latin--a popular soldier's insult is represented by the Greek "Oedipus"--works surprisingly well, with the cast reeling off profane Roman dialogue as if it were passionate Italian declarations rather than marbled classical sentences. The film suffers from the not-uncommon failing that the best-looking actor is given the largest role but delivers the weakest performance: Treviglio's Sebastian is a handsome cipher, far less interesting than the rest of the troubled, bullying, awkward or horny soldiers in the platoon. Peter Hinwood, famous for the title role in The Rocky Horror Picture Show, can be glimpsed in the palace orgy. The countryside looks as good as the cast, and Brian Eno delivers an evocative, ambient-style score. --Kim Newman

• The Proposition | DVD | (17/07/2006) from £6.09   |  Saving you £13.90 (228.24%)   |  RRP £19.99

  A brother is faced with an impossible proposition in this period Australian thriller.

• Silent Souls | DVD | (22/10/2012) from £6.59   |  Saving you £9.40 (142.64%)   |  RRP £15.99

  When Miron's beloved wife Tanya passes away, he asks his best friend Aist to help him say goodbye to her according to the rituals of the Merya culture, an ancient Finno-Ugric tribe from Lake Nero, a picturesque region in West-Central Russia. Although the Merya people blended with the Russians in the 17th century, their myths and traditions live on in the modern life of their descendants. The two men set out on a road trip thousands of miles across the boundless landscape. With them are two sm...

• The Miracle Worker | DVD | (03/05/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Patty Duke and Anne Bancroft had been playing their respective roles as Helen Keller and her teacher, Annie Sullivan, on Broadway for some time before director Arthur Penn (The Left-Handed Gun) built a mesmerisingly beautiful film around their layers-deep performances. Duke is astonishing as the deaf, blind, mute Keller, who awakens to an awareness of language under Sullivan's determined guidance. Bancroft is fascinating and focused. Penn wisely kept his adaptation unencumbered by cinematic indulgence. The black-and-white film is sparse and charged with the immediacy of the drama. The Miracle Worker's script is by William Gibson, who also wrote the original play. --Tom Keogh

• The Madness Of King George | DVD | (28/01/2002) from £12.95   |  Saving you £-2.96 (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  More wit than wisdom? More style than substance? Both these charges have been levelled at The Madness of King George, but neither are entirely fair. It could be that the notional subject matter--the psychological collapse of George III, later attributed to the neurological disease porphyria--implies a profound, analytical approach of the kind associated with Oliver Sachs. However, as the screenplay was written by Alan Bennett, based upon his stage play The Madness of George III, what we have here is a typically shrewd, elegant and poignant depiction of how the world seems when viewed by someone who sees things in their own unique way. And as it is by Bennett, who allows himself a brief, bumbling cameo appearance, the dialogue is of course scalpel-sharp throughout and often extremely moving.The historical accuracy is strong on detail, but there's an element of artistic license, such as the depiction of HRH's apparent partial recovery at the close of the film (although the scene itself, in which Hawthorne's befuddled monarch rallies himself to address his subjects, is a joy). In the end, though, we really don't mind.On the DVD: the widescreen DVD extras include the theatrical trailer, a featurette and a lucid commentary by director Nicholas Hytner. --Roger Thomas

• ER: Complete Season 1 | DVD | (23/02/2004) from £22.50   |  Saving you £23.49 (104.40%)   |  RRP £45.99

  Set in a Chicago County General Hospital, the multi-Emmy winning ER is very much in the tradition established by the earlier Hill Street Blues. Like that series, ER also features a range of strong characters whose personal lives often reflect the turmoil of their working environment. It also similarly features a deft, fast-moving mix of comedy, intrigue and tragedy. It could also be seen as a precursor to The West Wing, in that we regard with some awe the ability of these characters to keep on top of the mounting chaos in their day-to-day lives and the myriad problems thrown at them. In ER, this chaos may mean crack addicts, violent patients tumbling through plate glass screens, vindictive colleagues or a chief of staff who insists that fellow surgeons operate on his sick dog. The first series is best known for introducing George Clooney to the world as the likable but maverick Dr Ross; the show has often featured star guests such as Sally Field and Ewan McGregor, among others, while several seasons have seen the coming and going of various personnel. However, if one character embodies the strength of ER it's Dr Mark Greene (Anthony Edwards), whose dedication to his job has seen him turn down lucrative and cosier offers in the private sector, and who is an exemplar of decency, selflessness and emotional stability. The episodes dealing with his father's death were among the most moving in the series, touching as they did on a theme never far from ER's surface, that of reconciliation with mortality. --David Stubbs

• Silence | DVD | (28/10/2013) from £8.85   |  Saving you £7.14 (80.68%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Eoghan is a sound recordist who is returning to Ireland for the first time in 15 years for a job capturing noises in areas free from man-made sound. His quest takes him to remote terrain away from towns and villages. Throughout his journey he is drawn into a series of encounters and conversations which gradually divert his attention towards a more intangible silence bound up with the sounds of the life he had left behind. Influenced by elements of folklore and archive Silence unfolds with a quiet intensity where poetic images reveal an absorbing meditation on themes relating to sound and silence history memory and exile. Special Features: Trailer