Billy

Ken Loach's 1969 masterpiece (based on Barry Hines' novel and produced/co-written by Tony Garnett, later behind This Life and The Cops) remains the template for grim oop north dramas. Its honesty, spontaneity and spiky humour shame more recent dilutions such as the appalling, infuriatingly overrated Billy Elliot. When a young Yorkshire lad, ignored by his loutish mom and brother and beaten down by grumpy, bullying teachers, finds a baby kestrel on the moors, he discovers a purpose in life, vowing to train it to fly. Only one teacher (Colin Welland) is sympathetic.

Ex-Smashing Pumpkin man teams up with David Pajo, formerly of Slint

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.

Bobby and Billy return in flat sequel

Chronically misfiring comedy written and directed on an off day by Billy Bob Thornton, who also stars. He and Laura Dern are a bickering Arkansas couple, spending time with her eccentric white trash family. Little happens, but the casting of Ben Affleck and Jamie Lee Curtis as husband and wife has to be among the world's weirdest.

Eighteen tracks from legendary sessions that constitute The Big Bang of country music

Danish duo's debut garage-rock blast

It's over a decade since former actor Will Oldham took his first faltering steps in a forgotten backwater of American music. When Oldham began recording with his brother Paul in 1992 he was recovering from a nervous breakdown, staking out an area that provided a refuge for his skewed, haunted but unusually perceptive sensibility.

The Killer's country comeback years on 28-track twofer

American space cowboys release UK-only EP of early releases