DVD, Blu-ray and TV

Paul Verhoeven's last pre-Hollywood film (from 1983) is a minor classic. Depressed alcoholic writer Gerard Reve (a tremendous, dishevelled Jeroen Krabbé) finds succour in the arms of a vampish beautician (Renée Soutendijk) only to discover, thanks to a series of gory flashbacks, he's due for much more than a makeover. Funny and fever-ish by turns, it's Basic Instinct for surrealists.

He hasn't made a record since 1970, but the Syd Barrett legend continues to grow. Narrated by Newsnight's Kirsty Wark and first shown as a BBC documentary, this serious-minded 50-minute film examines the legacy of the Floyd's original Crazy Diamond, mostly through interviews with former band members Dave Gilmour, Rick Wright, Nick Mason and Roger Waters. They paint a harrowing picture of Barrett's disintegration, although the Madcap himself is reduced to a ghost-like presence, seen only in a few flickering frames of archive footage.

There are no headless bats in Black Sabbath—Never Say Die SANCTUARY and Ozzy doesn't even get to shout, "Sharon, how does the DVD work?" But we do find Osbourne in typically headbanging form in a 1978 Sabbath concert that includes "War Pigs" and "Paranoid". No extras, though.

Set at the death of the samurai age, Japanese master Nagisa Oshima's first feature in 13 years charts the disruption of a militia barracks by the arrival of Ryuhei Matsuda's androgynously beautiful young swordsman. A partial return to the erotic obsession of In The Realm Of The Senses, it's a bleak but mesmerically beautiful movie where realism balances with dreamy stylisation.

The clinically style-obsessed Tony Scott might not have been everybody's choice to helm a Tarantino script just as St Quentin was white-hot (seems a while ago now, huh?), but he made a splendid 1993 pulpy pot-boiler which, in sum, outshines its pithy but disjointed parts. Christian Slater and Patricia Arquette are the doomed Detroit lovers-on-the-run with a suitcase of coke, negotiating baroque badlands after Slater kills sleazoid pimp Gary Oldman and his comedy dreadlocks. Everyone who's anyone turns up to harass the couple and their sad dad Dennis Hopper.

A Bosnian and a Serb share a trench in this Oscar-winning anti-war film which uses farce and satire to convey its message. The director's an experienced documentary maker; there's truth in his portrayal of an absurd conflict. Sadly the late, great British actress Katrin Cartlidge, ever one to support worthy causes, is miscast as an egocentric reporter.

A cult favourite back when our people were fair and had stars in their hair, this addled 1974 sensory epic follows legendary surfer and cameraman George Greenough's search for the perfect wave. Set to the ping-pongs of Pink Floyd's "Echoes", the final 20 minutes are surf-cinema's equivalent of 2001's Stargate sequence—but it's for boardheads and Floyd completists only. Give us Point Break any day.

An assured if unspectacular directorial debut from Bill Paxton, Frailty turns Se7en on its head, splices in The Sixth Sense and casts a crazy-eyed Matthew McConaughey as an enigmatic witness to the mysterious "Hand of God" serial killings. The look is Southern Gothic, the performances solid, and the final reel twist wildly courageous.

Someone seems to have decided that Ashley Judd and Morgan Freeman are a marketable team, and their umpteenth crime thriller together is brought to you by the estimable Carl Franklin. Judd's a perky lawyer whose husband (a wooden Jim Caviezel) may or may not be a mass murderer. Freeman's an amusing drunk, but sadly the plot's the last word in generic, and the 'twists' wear neon signs on their heads.

Koyaanisqatsi is arguably the best stoner movie of all time, although Godfrey Reggio probably didn't realise that in '83. Aerial photography of forests, animals; etc, sweeps across to expansive time-lapse shots of factory complexes and nuclear power plants. The big country's poeticised and exposed to Philip Glass' insistent score. Powaqqatsi, the '88 sequel, explored Third World exploitation, but the original's the must-see.