Arguably the two most powerful kitchen-sink dramas of the early ’60s were both adapted from the works of author Alan Sillitoe. Saturday Night And Sunday Morning (1960), directed by Karel Reisz, provided British cinema with an equivalent to Brando thanks to Albert Finney’s electrifying performance as marriage-wrecking factory-hand Arthur Seaton (“I’m a fighting pit-prop of a man who wants a pint of beer, that’s me!”). But Finney perhaps lacked the surly sophistication of borstal boy Tom Courtenay in Tony Richardson’s later The Loneliness Of The Long Distance Runner (1962). Scripted by Sillitoe from his own short story, where Reisz’s film looks antiquated in plot and pace, Richardson’s seems fresh and emotively ferocious in its attack on the English class system at that time. Courtenay’s is a more empathetic and complicated anti-hero than Finney’s, and undoubtedly Runner flexes its working-class wrath that bit louder, though neither of these films should be missed.

James Coburn’s last film is a well-meaning but hardly unforgettable drama about a father’s search across America for the owner of the gun that killed his daughter. The narrative structure is contrived, and although it’s only 86 minutes long, you feel yourself growing old watching it.

The much-praised Hunter-Hunsinger debut was one of last year’s best Britflicks, boasting deft characterisation and a staunch refusal to be ‘bubbly’. Three stories spin off from a mutual friend’s funeral, with Douglas Henshall, Tom Hollander and the sublime Bill Nighy pursuing ill-advised affairs. So subtle it could almost be French!

Tom Stoppard directs this 1990 screen version of his ingenious 1967 play about two supporting characters from Hamlet. Stoppard opens up the play’s theatrical setting well, and his brilliant dialogue remains intact. Sadly, the two leads?Oldman and Roth?are uninspiring.

There are no headless bats in Black Sabbath?Never Say Die SANCTUARY and Ozzy doesn’t even get to shout, “Sharon, how does the DVD work?” But we do find Osbourne in typically headbanging form in a 1978 Sabbath concert that includes “War Pigs” and “Paranoid”. No extras, though. Together Forever?Run-DMC Greatest Hits ARISTA comes in the wake of the murder of Jam Master Jay, and supplements video hits with a decent mini-documentary. Yet once groundbreaking tracks such as “You Talk Too Much” seem tame today and don’t even merit hip hop’s now obligatory parental advisory sticker. There’s certainly one on Outlawz Worldwide EAGLE VISION as Tupac’s former Death Row crew entertain groupies, discuss their weapons of choice and generally cuss their way through a package that at least recognises it takes more than a few old MTV videos to make a worthwhile DVD. The advantages of a decent budget are obvious on Ben Harper?Pleasure And Pain VIRGIN , as director Danny Clinch creates a superior film about the charismatic singer’s life on and off the road. Plenty of live performances and extras. You wonder how Electric Prunes Rewired SNAPPER can work, given there’s no surviving footage of the psychedelic pioneers who gave us “I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night)”. The clue is in the title: Rewired is based on their 2002 reunion tour, which limits its interest. Finally, compilations of ancient performances abound. Choose your era?So You Want To Be A Rock ‘n’Roll Star CLASSIC PICTURES contains performances from the late ’60s ranging from Thunderclap Newman to the Crazy World Of Arthur Brown, while Ice Cool Eighties UNCUT DVD CO is narrated by Paul Morley and proves that decade had its share of highlights, from the Style Council to Julian Cope.

Terrence Malick was 29 when he wrote and directed Badlands. From the off, opinions were divided about him. Nobody was denying that he was bright?Harvard graduate, Rhodes scholar, former lecturer, he’s easily the most intellectual of the great US directors who emerged in the 1970s. Prior to Badlands, he’d co-scripted the Paul Newman vehicle Pocket Money and directed a short film, Lanton Mills, with backing from the American Film Institute. Key collaborators were convinced that he was a genius and that Badlands would turn out to be a classic. Other crew members weren’t so sure. Several quit during shooting; Malick was a hard taskmaster and?as Martin Sheen recalls?”there just wasn’t money for anything” (the film was independently financed and made on a pittance). Still, as the actor told his mutinous colleagues: “Hang on in there. You’re gonna be real proud of this.”

Badlands is the story of a pair of young killers, inspired by the real-life case of Charles Starkweather and Caril Fugate, who’d gone on a killing spree in Nebraska and Wyoming in the late 1950s, leaving 10 people dead. Malick treats his murderous delinquents with extraordinary tenderness. If Kit (Sheen) is a psychopath, he’s a charming one with a James Dean haircut and an engaging sense of self-importance. Holly (Spacek), meanwhile, is a small-town ing

Stylish Norwegian thriller, remade last year by Christopher Nolan, whose version is almost eerily faithful to the original. Nolan had the powerhouse cast?Pacino, Robin Williams, Hilary Swank?but this probably has the sharper atmospheric edge, and director Erik Skjoldbj

Audrey Tautou’s wide-eyed, innocent expressions are subverted cleverly in this Gallic romance-mystery. Hints of Hitchcock, but a mention of Memento’s inevitable, as we see the story first through her eyes, then through those of the object of her amour fou, Samuel Le Bihan. Doesn’t soar, but studded with scenes both picturesque and psychologically taut.

If Easy Rider spelled the end of the hippie dream, then Chainsaw provided the full-blown nightmare. A camper van full of paisley-shirted, astrology-obsessed kids pulls up in rural Texas only to discover Leatherface and his family only too willing to show them some local hospitality. The opening half-hour still remains the most unnerving in horror history.

Run-of-the-mill contemporary Bollywood fare?a riot of colour, violence, heavy-duty tearjerking and song. But its tale of a beautiful young girl, Nandini (Karishma Kapoor), whose marriage sees her uprooted from a comfortable life in Canada back to the poverty of India, is a cut above. There she confronts her tyrannical father-in-law, striking as feminist a blow as Bollywood allows.

Oblique, arcane and infuriatingly sluggish, even by Tarkovsky’s standards (makes Andrei Rublyov look like Moulin Rouge), Nostalgia is the litmus test for arthouse cinephiles. The ‘story’ of a Russian poet locked in existential agony while researching an obscure 18th-century composer is brimful of breathtaking tableaux, portentous dialogue and primal symbolism (flickering flame as human soul). But is it enough?

John Sayles scripted this Jaws-onland rip-off, with Robert Forster as the cop chasing a giant man-eating monster down in the sewers. Forster’s dogged, and some of the set pieces are pretty nifty, but the plot’s farcical, and this isn’t strong on intellectual content despite its obligatory eco-message. The sequel is a made-for-TV retread, of practically zero interest.