DVD, Blu-ray and TV

Since 24, the world's somehow overlooked Steven Bochco's ice-breaking 23-part epic series (here on six discs), which traced the ricocheting ramifications of a Hollywood murder trial in obsessive detail, locking us into addictive characters with exquisite week-on-week suspense. Daniel Benzali is the snidey-but-good lawyer, Stanley Tucci the reptilian suspect millionaire. It still ensnares you. Good as it gets.

Jean Cocteau's 1949 reworking of the myth of Orpheus (Jean Marais) portrays him as a beat poet torn between his art, his wife (Marie Déa) and the love of Death (Maria Casares) herself. The effects are a miracle of low-budget ingenuity, the dream-like imagery unforgettable: mysterious motorcycling assassins, poetry from beyond the grave on the radio, and all mirrors lead to the Underworld. A masterpiece.

Director Emir Kusturica assembled Johnny Depp, Jerry Lewis, Faye Dunaway, Lili Taylor and Vincent Gallo in the desert and waited for inspiration. Quite what he was on can only be imagined. The movie has its ups and downs, but does boast two prime pieces of Gallo-ana: a reenactment of Cary Grant's escape from a cropduster, and a classic set-to between De Niro and Pesci with Vinnie playing both parts. Mad.

Elmore Leonard's first modern fiction novel was originally filmed in 1969 with Ryan O'Neal in the starring role. It flopped. This remake (directed by Miami Blues' George Armitage) fares no better; it drifts aimlessly, while Owen Wilson's small-time crook, drawn into a relationship with the thrill-seeking girl of a local property developer, never engages your feelings. Morgan Freeman, Charlie Sheen and Vinnie Jones co-star.

Sam Fuller once claimed that the point of any opening sequence was to give the viewer an erection. Here we have Barbara Stanwyck in black, on a white stallion at the head of her 40 hired men. As lawman Barry Sullivan exclaims succinctly: "Whoa!" Shot in 11 days, in Cinemascope, this is Fuller firing on all cylinders, taking the '50s pulp western and squeezing more juice out of it than any of his contemporaries.

Along with Boyz N The Hood, this marks the film world's awakening to a dark period of gang violence in early-'90s LA. The story of Caine Lawson (Tyrin Turner), a young black man looking to escape the daily treadmill of bloodshed, isn't particularly original, but the Hughes brothers pull few punches. It's not a pretty sight, but the film now stands as a curious period piece.

Errol Morris' latest Oscar-winning documentary is no Moore-style polemic but an artful interrogation of infamous US Defence Secretary Robert McNamara, who gave Morris 23 hours of filmed interviews in 2001, before 9/11 and the Iraq war, though unspoken parallels are hard to ignore. A formidable intellectual bruiser at 87, the old Cold Warrior seizes what may prove to be his last chance to make peace with history. Riveting.

Broad comic remake of feminist chiller

Left limbless, deaf, dumb and blind by a WWI landmine, US GI Timothy Bottoms is locked away in a hospital. Considered beyond medical help, he drifts in memories and fantasies, until, years later, he finally finds a way to communicate—to little avail. Based on his 1939 novel, this 1971 anti-war parable was the only film directed by blacklisted scriptwriter Dalton Trumbo. At times awkward, it's nonetheless driven by an acute, angry intelligence. Hard to forget.

Denys Arcand reunites the Quebecois characters who made '86's The Decline Of The American Empire so witty and engaging, and despite their age, disillusion and failing health, they're as intellectually provocative as before. Yes, it's talky, but as one lies dying, his friends reminisce about days of drugs and libido, and his son finds a backbone. A moving, note-perfect Oscar-winner.