DVD reviews

2012

#Island of Lost Souls June

The 1932 film of H.G. Wells’s Dr Moreau story is disturbing and subtextually explosive, writes Michael Atkinson

#The Mizoguchi Collection May

The films of Mizoguchi Kenji combine detachment with intense emotional involvement, argues Brad Stevens

#On the Bowery April

Nick Bradshaw revisits Lionel Rogosin’s pioneering 1956 drama-doc shot on the mean streets of New York

#Three Popular Films by Jean-Pierre Gorin March

Nick Pinkerton on the French director whose essay films offer us the chance to see the ordinary and the day-to-day with a fresh eye

#The Conversation February

A tale of surveillance and hacking, The Conversation is uncannily relevant to our times, writes Michael Brooke

#Miklós Jancsó - cinema’s lost language January

Miklós Jancsó’s ‘musicals’ use songs, crowds and landscape to express social struggle, writes Jonathan Romney

2011

#Touch of Evil December

Touch of Evil has been described as the last film noir. More like the first last film noir, reckons Brad Stevens

#Harakiri November

A fierce and thrilling critique of notions of honour, Harakiri is, says Michael Brooke, one of the greatest of all Japanese films

#Face to Face October

An intense, stripped-bare psychodrama, Face to Face reminds us why Bergman’s films are essential viewing, says Michael Atkinson

#Two documentaries by Tsuchimoto Noriaki September

Tsuchimoto Noriaki’s films are immersed in the language, perceptions and environments of his subjects, says Chris Fujiwara

#Szindbád August

Michael Atkinson marvels at the swoonsome beauty of a revived gem of 1970s Hungarian cinema

Jacques Tourneur westerns July

Jacques Tourneur is known for noir and horror. But, argues Tim Lucas, his westerns were every bit as extraordinary

Dressing for Pleasure – The Films of John Samson May

John Samson’s documentaries cast the same gentle eye on trainspotters and fetishists, says Joseph Bevan

#A Blonde in Love April

Geoffrey Macnab relishes the humour and humanity of Milos Forman’s film about love in a Cold War climate

#Morgan: A Suitable Case for Treatment March

Paul Tickell on a decade of counterculture and class change – and the Karel Reisz movie that defined it

#The Elia Kazan Collection February

Elia Kazan’s explorations of post-war society reveal him to be one of America’s greats, argues Graham Fuller

#Hotel Terminus: The Life and Times of Klaus Barbie January

Marcel Ophuls’s film about Klaus Barbie poses profound moral questions about war and guilt, writes Nick James

2010

#The Thin Red Line December

Michael Atkinson hails Terrence Malick’s elegiac, mainstream-defying war epic, now given the Criterion treatment with extras that clear up a little of the mystery – and add to the mythology

Possession November

Michael Brooke on one of the most viscerally vivid portraits of a disintegrating relationship ever committed to film

#3 silent classics by Josef von Sternberg October

Before talkies, before Dietrich, Josef von Sternberg was a master of silent film-making, writes Michael Atkinson

#Walkabout + Picnic at Hanging Rock September

Unfathomably old and vast, the Outback offers the perfect setting for film as fable or allegory, writes James Bell

#Antônio das Mortes August

Michael Chanan on the extraordinary films of Glauber Rocha, shooting star of the Latin American new wave

#Girly + Goodbye Gemini August

Tim Lucas finds more than a touch of Tennessee Williams’ southern gothic in two tales of familial decadence

#The Fugitive Kind July

Brando lights the emotional touchpaper in Sidney Lumet’s Tennessee Williams adaptation. By Tim Lucas

#Ride with the Devil June

Ang Lee’s film about the American Civil War is an understated, undervalued classic, writes Graham Fuller

#Valley of the Bees May

Marketa Lazarová director Frantisek Vlácil was much more than a one-work wonder, says Michael Brooke

#Mad Dog Morgan April

This tale of the celebrated Irish bushranger in mid-19th-century Australia pushes all the right buttons (except the anamorphic one), writes Tim Lucas

ODDSAC March

Sam Davies watches a horrordelic new ‘visual album’ from Animal Collective and director Danny Perez

#Manhunt March

Fritz Lang’s Nazi-hunt thriller is a catalogue of cinematic invention – and a keen-eyed criticism of pre-war America, argues Tim Lucas

#Tarzan after Johnny Weissmuller February

Two actors ruled the jungle after Johnny Weissmuller handed in his loincloth. Tim Lucas on the ape men

#Messiah of Evil January

Tim Lucas welcomes the impeccably restored return of a 1970s horror masterpiece

2009

#Brigitte Bardot 5-Film Collection

Tim Lucas on an overlooked Brigitte Bardot box-set showcasing some of the French screen icon’s less familiar films

#L’important c’est d’aimer

Tim Lucas on Romy Schneider, giving the performance of her life in Andrzej Zulawski’s tale of broken hearts and lost dreams

#The Howl

Tim Lucas admires the revolutionary electricity and formal adandon of Tinto Brass’ 1968 The Howl

#Woodstock

On the 40th anniversary of the festival, Woodstock returns in fine remastered form, writes Tim Lucas

#In Treatment

In Treatment makes gripping drama out of the conversations of a therapist and his patients. Tim Lucas analyses its success

#I Can No Longer Hear the Guitar / Emergency Kisses

Tim Lucas on Philippe Garrel’s surprisingly tender films about his heroin-fuelled relationship with legendary chanteuse Nico

#The She Beast

Tim Lucas rediscovers the flawed but fascinating debut of Witchfinder General director Michael Reeves

#Exposed

The 1970s Swedish sex movie Exposed is, says Tim Lucas, unexpectedly subversive and full of almost Buñuelian ruses

#The Exterminating Angel and Simon of the Desert

Two new Buñuel releases shed light on the maestro’s Mexican sojourn. Tim Lucas on surrealism's sly old devil

#Magnificent Obsession

Directors John M. Stahl and Douglas Sirk both filmed the same bestselling tearjerker. Tim Lucas spots the difference

#White Dog

Tim Lucas on a controversial 1982 film now held by many to be director Samuel Fuller’s last great American movie

#The Quare Fellow

Tim Lucas on an unlikely screen adaptation of Brendan Behan’s behind-bars drama The Quare Fellow

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Last Updated: 04 May 2012