DVD, Blu-ray and TV

Action emperor John Woo raises hell in the Pacific for this noisy WWII epic, which is grounded in real events. The grand-canvas battle scenes rule, but Nic Cage's hammy turn as an emotionally scarred hero charged with guarding a Navajo code-talker lets the side down. Still, the battle sequences are up there with Sam Fuller's best. DVD EXTRAS: Several backstage documentaries, commentary by a genuine Navajo code-talker, shared chat between Cage and co-star Christian Slater.

An immaculate, determinedly unsentimental Marc Forster film, with breathtakingly honest performances from Halle Berry and, especially, Billy Bob Thornton. Death Row prison guard Thornton's family are traditionally racist; Berry's husband (Sean "Puffy" Combs) is executed. In a pit of despair, an unlikely, colour-blind love blooms between the two. One of 2002's best. DVD EXTRAS: Extra footage, cast and film-makers commentaries, isolated soundtrack.

Director Peter Watkins' mid-1960s work for the BBC still shines. Culloden recreated the famous battle as if covered by a modern news team—a radical approach for the time. More controversially, The War Game showed that nuclear war was an unwinnable nightmare, and was consequently banned by the Beeb, though it picked up an Oscar when released theatrically in 1966.

Despite the presence of the hapless Josh Hartnett, Tim Blake Nelson (him from O Brother, Where Art Thou) stirs up a sprightly, sinister revamp of Othello. Mekhi Phifer's fine as the school basketball hero who blows his future when jealous Josh, in the lago role, convinces him Julia Stiles is a duplicitous Desdemona. All this and Martin Sheen trying to look non-presidential as the sports coach.

In his final starring role, Richard Harris glowers impressively as the Irish underworld patriarch in Don Boyd's inspired relocation of Shakespeare's King Lear to contemporary Liverpool, Sadly Boyd directs with a low-voltage energy which flattens out intense emotion and visceral violence into brightly lit, blandly shot TV cop drama.

Tight script and fantastic acting from Rob Brydon, but what is the actual point of this much lauded two-hour divorcee monologue? In theory it's a comedy, but with not a single laugh in the entire series there's a very real danger for non-pseuds that its supposed greatness will completely pass you by. They won't be running repeats of this at Christmas next year, that's for sure.

Three Hollywood favourites starring the silver-tongued man of style

In an ideal world, Blondie would have existed only on video. The golden Deborah, adored by the camera, would now live forever as a shimmering punk siren, blessed with a voice of both honey and crystalline clarity. Harry fronts Blondie at their 1983 farewell concert in Toronto uncomfortably, inelegantly, and sings without any of the vitality of the sassy little Kittens whose success has prompted this release.

Clint Eastwood's classic final word on the western genre

The rap trio who defined cool in the '90s for want-not-to-be-middle-class white boys have probably released this two-disc video compilation just in time, before they become horribly passé. Fair play to them, though, these are 18 of the best pop promos ever filmed, from Spike Jonze's cop show pastiche for "Sabotage" through to the robot-battling epic "Intergalactic" and the '60s action spoof for "Body Movin'" (featuring a great chicken-in-the-face scene). Camp as hell. Are we sure they're not gay?