Ache

Oblique polemical melodrama as would-be epic

Magisterial, tough-hearted 1967 western from writer/director Tom Gries. Charlton Heston is a revelation as the eponymous ageing cowhand, a lonesome, unemployed illiterate, bushwhacked by deranged preacher Donald Pleasence and his boys. While recovering, he encounters Joan Hackett, who, although travelling through the wilderness to join her husband, offers the chance of a life he's never known.

Debut solo outing for ex-Teenage Fanclub sticksman

Third album of synthetic teutonica from German chanteuse

Black artists reinterpret the Fabs

Promisingly dazed US singer-songwriter

Made in 1990 but in a Serpico-style '70s tradition, Sidney Lumet's Q&A pits Nick Nolte's corrupt Irish-American cop against Timothy Hutton's idealistic assistant DA. Quality old-school fare, marred only by over-emphasis on a sub-plot involving Armand Assante's gang boss and Nolte's odd moustache and high-heeled shoes.

Well-connected singer-songwriter on the spot again. Features Will Oldham

South London duo head out West to beef up sound for follow-up to The Optimist LP

George Clooney's stylised spy drama based on the unreliable memoirs of Gong Show host Chuck Barris