DVD, Blu-ray and TV

Stunningly underrated, ferocious portrait of Wild Bill Hickok

The original Mamet movie, a bravura directorial debut and a punchy manifesto, 1987's...Games pits frigid psychologist Lindsay Crouse against louche confidence trickster Joe Mantegna in the eponymous Chicago poker joint. Crouse is intrigued, Mantegna applies the charm, but soon the cons escalate and, in true Mametian style, the line between 'shark' and 'mark' disintegrates.

From the brief heyday of the Czech new wave, Jiri Menzel's 1968 Oscar winner (Best Foreign Language Film) retains much bawdy charm and a bravely downbeat ending. A young railway station apprentice in a small town, oblivious to the climax of WWII, longs to get laid, finding relief with a comely Resistance fighter. More witty, imaginative and romantic than it sounds.

Possibly Mike Figgis' least-known film, this moody 1991 erotic mystery is like Stormy Monday set in Binghamton, NY. A writer visits his dying mother and uncovers secrets about a 30-year-old murder while shagging his friend's wife. It looks sexy, but the moodiness leads to tedium, and Kim Novak's heinously wasted.

We'll always have Casablanca, thank God. This tale of lost souls waiting out WWII in the doldrums of a Moroccan café may well be the best film ever made—the Epstein brothers' dialogue still crackles, and the central love affair between Bogart and Bergman just keeps on pulling you in. Play it again!

Quirky, intelligent kids movie about a young offenders' prison camp where the inmates have to dig huge holes in the Texas desert each day, since the warden (Sigourney Weaver) is hoping to discover an outlaw's missing gold. A great cast (John Voight, Henry Winkler, Eartha Kitt), and an utter delight.

Munich, 1918, where (fictional) art dealer Max Rothman (John Cusack) befriends and encourages the young artist Adolf Hitler (Noah Taylor). But Max is Jewish... Even if the overall results are a bit glib and predictable, both of the central performances are terrific—especially Taylor, whose Hitler is a creepily believable human being.

Throughout cinema history there have been certain flashpoints, the sparks produced when a director and an actor recognise in each other their alter ego: Ford and Wayne; Scorsese and De Niro. Perhaps the most intense of these has been the extraordinary collaborations between German visionary Werner Herzog and the fabled maniac who became his artistic double and evil twin, the late Klaus Kinski. This incredible set chronicles their tempestuous relationship via the five features they made together.

Early Peter Greenaway movie ('85), from when his undeniable visual genius wasn't yet smothered by pretentiousness. Zoologist twin widowers (!) mourn their wives but begin an affair with a survivor of the crash which killed them, whose leg's been amputated. And set the animals free from the zoo. Homages to Vermeer, a Michael Nyman score, and relentless perversity with a point. Exhilarating!

Shekhar Kapur directed this third version of AEW Mason's regimental romance about the Sudanese war. Unfortunately, his ambitions to turn it into a critique of British imperialism are drowned under James Horner's glutinous score and colourless performances from the vapid Heath Ledger and chums. Notable exception—Djimon Hounsou, as the noble nomad who saves our brave English boys from a fiery desert hell. There's also one great battle scene.