Latest DVDs and downloads

Our pick of the latest films to watch at home this week

Welcome to Time Out Film’s DVD page, where you’ll find reviews of the latest DVD and Blu-ray releases, the biggest box sets and reissues of classic movies. Each week we’ll bring you a selection of the most exciting new titles, but we’ll also dig deep to unearth forgotten masterpieces, overlooked oddities and cult classics making their DVD debut.

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New releases
Box sets
Classic reissues

Amateur

Rated as: 3/5

What happened to Hal Hartley? For years he was widely regarded as one of the most interesting US indie writer-directors, then came 2001’s ‘No Such Thing’, a disappointment from which his career seems never to have recovered. Could the popularity of his work just have been a passing fad? On the evidence of this 1994 movie, undoubtedly one of his most robust achievements, it wasn’t – though this re-release does reveal how very much of its time the film was.

An intentionally off-kilter romantic-comedy-cum-crime-drama, its wry, stylised tale of the fatal brief encounter of a porn-writing ex-nun (Isabelle Huppert) and an amiable amnesiac (Martin Donovan) whose Mob-related past unfortunately catches up with him touches intelligently and lightly on a range of fruitful themes (guilt, responsibility, identity, exploitation). The comedy, however – ironic, absurdist, deeply deadpan – sometimes feels almost as dated as the phones, floppy disks, Wonderbras and an early Parker Posey cameo.

With its echoes of early Godard, the film still works, but it does somehow feel a little less relevant than at the time of release. Also reissued a little later this month are ‘Simple Men’ and ‘The Unbelievable Truth’, likewise among Hartley’s finest work. Geoff Andrew

Read the Time Out review of 'Amateur'

The Birds: 50th Anniversary Edition

Rated as: 5/5

Ornithophobics may wish to steer clear of this hugely welcome high-def anniversary edition of Hitchcock’s tense, superbly mounted Freudian thriller lest their condition is intensified ten-fold.

You know this film has reached parts others haven’t when you look up at a flock of seagulls and immediately think of Tippi Hedren running about with her arms in a flap. Or when filling up your car, you recall the scene at the gas station with the guy, the lit match, the leaking fuel and the group screaming at him behind the glass pay booth. Sheer brilliance from beginning to end, and better looking than ever here on Blu-ray.

Read the Time Out review of 'The Birds'

Motel Hell

Rated as: 3/5

How’s this for a composite play on ‘Texas Chainsaw Massacre’ and ‘Sweeney Todd’? Kevin Connor’s forgotten ’80s slasher centres on a pair of cheery choppers (Rory Calhoun and Nancy Parsons) who welcome their victims to their Bates-style motel before fashioning them into the most delicious smoked meats in the county.

Calhoun is especially menacing, his grinning performance bearing some resemblance to Terry O’Quinn in ‘The Stepfather’ and John Jarrat in ‘Wolf Creek’. It’s clearly jocular in tone but equally grisly and gruesome. This Blu-ray edition comes with a wealth of features including an audio commentary with the director, several interviews with cast members and a collector’s booklet with words by the critic Kim Newman.

Rear Window

Rated as: 5/5

This 1954 voyeurism thriller is Hitchcock at his very best. It’s chock full of immaculate detail: the framing, the colour palette, the performances and, of course, the highly suspenseful situation of watching James Stewart’s injured, wheelchair-bound photographer watching what he thinks is a murder being committed in an apartment opposite. A stunner in every respect. Out now on Blu-ray.

Read the Time Out review of 'Rear Window'

WarGames + WarGames 2: The Dead Code

Rated as: 3/5

John Badham caught the zeitgeist perfectly by directing one of the first movies to address videogame playing and the concept of computer hacking. It’s fab family entertainment all round and in stark contrast to Stuart Gillard’s appalling 2008 straight-to-video follow-up, which is nothing more than a nice, shiny coffee table coaster.

Read the Time Out review of 'WarGames'

Black Sabbath

Rated as: 3/5

Vintage Mario Bava from 1963 in which Boris Karloff introduces three adaptations from famous tales of the supernatural. Pictorially it’s amazing, and even the script and dubbing are above average.

Read the Time Out review of 'Black Sabbath'

The Great Gatsby

Rated as: 3/5

With Baz Luhrmann’s lavish F Scott Fitzgerald adaptation on the horizon, here’s another chance to catch up on 1974’s middle-of-the-road version starring Robert Redford and Mia Farrow. No extras of note.

Read the Time Out review of 'The Great Gatsby'

Jennifer's Body: Extended Edition

Rated as: 4/5

Karyn Kusama’s female-driven coming-of-age horror comedy is a welcome antidote to the sexless romanticism of ‘Twilight’ as it explores the premise that ‘hell is a teenage girl’. This extended version adds around five minutes of extra footage.

Read the Time Out review of 'Jennifer's Body'

Evil Dead II

If you thought Sam Raimi’s debut was a riot of flesh and bone, this one’s even more bonkers. It’s timely, too, given that Fede Alvarez’s blockbusting remake is about to be unleashed on British horror fans. Extras include audio commentaries and a short documentary.

Read the Time Out review of 'Evil Dead II'

Reservoir Dogs – Collector’s Edition

Rated as: 5/5

Tarantino fans need look no further than this 20th anniversary re-release packed with facts relating to the claret meister’s visceral debut. Along with the usual load of commentaries, interviews and deleted scenes, disc two features Tarantino talking about his influences, a scouting and location feature and several whacky add-ons.

Read the Time Out review of 'Reservoir Dogs'

Revolutionary Road

Rated as: 3/5

A repackaged re-release of Sam Mendes’s adaptation of Richard Yates’s 1961 novel about the breakdown of suburban dreams in 1950s Connecticut. Despite a Titanic pairing of Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio, the film failed to garner any Oscars on its release in 2009. Comes with a commentary, deleted scenes and a ‘making of’ doc.

Read the Time Out review of 'Revolutionary Road'