King Lear re-enacted in modern-day Liverpool as crime boss Richard Harris, broken by the senseless murder of wife Lynn Redgrave, splits his empire between his two black-hearted daughters. The dialogue's got a touch of the Guy Ritchies and the violence is silly, but Harris—cunning, lean, leonine—commands the screen.

Tom DiCillo's fascination with the chasm between talent and celebrity comes to the fore in this mischievously smart relationship comedy. New Yorkers Matthew Modine and Catherine Keener are drifting apart; when aspiring thespian Modine is fired from a role as an extra in a Madonna video, he hits rock bottom. Bitingly brilliant, with cameos from Steve Buscemi and Daryl Hannah. DVD EXTRAS: Scene selection. (CR)

A '70s remake of the Hitchcock classic, with Angela Lansbury as an English nanny kidnapped on a German train on the eve of WWII. Can dizzy US heiress Cybill Shepherd foil this Nazi plot with the aid of rugged news photographer Elliott Gould? It might have worked if they'd played it straight; instead, they go for screwball comedy, and it's a disaster.

John Malkovich slums it as the evil mastermind plotting to turn Britain into a giant prison camp, while Rowan Atkinson, as the titular rubbish spy, presses all the wrong buttons. Puerile, deeply unfunny and, as an advert for our country, downright treasonable. A crime, if memory serves, still punishable by death.

Released along with four other François Truffaut films, this '77 piece is one you either love or hate. The auteur's autobiographical protagonist roves around Paris, picking up and ditching a stream of women, musing over what constitutes the perfect female ankle, and philosophising like Woody Allen on opium. Old-school; intense.

Tub-thumping story of how America conquered the final frontier

The fundamental tension here isn't whether bipolar salesman Barry (Adam Sandler) will end up with doe-eyed English executive Lena (Emily Watson). No, the question here is one of authorship. At a snappy 97 minutes, detailing Sandler's eccentric but essentially loveable dufus, his explosive temper and wacky air-miles scam, it fits neatly into the Sandler lineage. Yet, with Sandler's broader antics leavened by long tracking shots and static arthouse takes, the film is recognisably the work of pop-auteur Paul Thomas Anderson.

David Essex and his cheeky grin may have starred in two of the '70s' great British rock'n'roll fantasy movies, That'll Be The Day and Stardust, but he came a cropper in this 1980 motorbiking mess. Champion racers macho it out—it's clichéd, lazy and sexist. Then again, how many movies star Essex, Beau Bridges and Harry H Corbett?

Veteran Georgian director Otar losseliani cobbles together this amiable slice of menopausal whimsy, following middle-aged factory worker and wannabe painter Vincent (Jacques Bidou) as he breaks his blue-collar routine and flees to romantic Venice. There he encounters other eccentric middle-aged men, spies on some skirt-lifting nuns, climbs a roof, drinks some wine, and then returns home, a wiser man. DVD EXTRAS: Interview with director losseliani, trailer, filmography.

Mildly engaging Mexican comedy concerning female empowerment; a kind of My Big Lardy Greek Wedding for liberals. Should our heroine work to feed the poor folks, or follow her dream of further education? Will she learn that true beauty comes from within and body size isn't everything as we arrive at the dénouement? At least it hasn't got Rosie Perez screeching through it.