Inland Empire

Rental and retail: No one can do obscure menace and foreboding quite like David Lynch, and this three-hour trip is full of powerful, eerie ominousness. Quite what the plot is is anyone's guess.

Some Like It Hot (Special Edition)

Retail: Billy Wilder's 1960 cross-dressing comedy classic, with Monroe, Curtis and Lemmon all at their best.

The Family Friend

Retail: Stylish on the surface, yet grotesque and disturbing in subject matter, this Italian movie is shot with great imagination and sophistication.

Bamako

Retail: An examination of Africa's problems, which, for once, is filmed by an African, Abderrahmane Sissako, in his own backyard.

Lord of the Flies

Retail: A welcome re-release for the 1963 film which brought William Golding's allegorical 1954 novel to remarkable life.

The Minus Man

Retail: An offkey gem from 1999 starring Owen Wilson as a drifter with an 'urge' that makes him dangerous.

Flags of Our Fathers/ Letters From Iwo Jima

Rental and retail: Clint Eastwood's pair of films paint a grim but memorable picture of the last days of a war that had a clearer objective than any since.

Jan Svankmajer - The Complete Short Films

Retail: The BFI has put together a sumptuous collection of the Czech surrealist's endlessly experimental shorts.

A Touch of Spice

Rental and Retail: A nicely presented but stodgy attempt to present a Greek child's life through food.

Irresistible

Rental and Retail: A psychological thriller that tried too hard to be psychological and fails to thrill.

Salesman

Retail: The Maysles Brothers 1968 'pure' documentary about travelling bible salesmen in the US.

Black Book

Rental and retail: With more nudity that is strictly necessary, Paul Verhoeven's return to his native Holland results in a rolicking movie, full or passion and suspense.

Dead Man's Cards

Rental and retail: Shades of John Wayne and Gabby Hayes in this double-act set, of all places, in Liverpool.

Bad Boy Bubby

Retail: Rolf de Heer's film about a man who emerges into society after more than 30-years of seclusion remains shocking, disturbing and at times, very funny.

Starter for 10

Rental and retail: Predictable, rather cosy rites-of-passage romcom starring the likeable James McAvoy as a working class kid making his way at university.

The Page Turner

Retail and rental: A taut and chilly revenge tale which will appeal to Chabrol fans in particular - it's the kind of cultured suspense thriller he has turned out so often down the decades.

Peeping Tom

Retail: It's a deeply depraved film, and full of little black comedy touches, such as the casting of the cuddliest of comedy mainstays, Miles Malleson, as a dirty pics fan.

638 Ways to Kill Castro

Retail: An entertaining and informative look at America's fraught relationship with its little offshore communist neighbour.

Pan's Labyrinth

Retail and rental: Guillermo del Toro's film seamlessly meshes its contrasting genres and is one of those rare films about childhood that isn't for children.

Echo Park LA

Retail: It doesn't amount to an awful lot and the acting is pretty variable but there's a real feeling for the location in a small but distinctive film.

The Glass Key

Retail: Amorality and political corruption from the golden age of film noir, featuring thug's thug William Bendix in terrific two-fisted form.

Man Push Cart

Retail: A tiny, zero-budget film that is reminiscent of the first great neo-realist film Bicycle Thieves in both style and content.

World Trade Center

Rental and retail: After the brilliance of United 93, with its heartstopping documentary realism, it's back to familiar faces and familiar emotions.

The Death of Mr Lazarescu

Retail: It's billed as a comedy but the only laughs are of the blackest kind as our increasingly incoherent hero is shuttled round a number of hospitals busy with the aftermath of a bus crash, receives a number of lectures about his alcohol intake and is often ignored, but never quite gets the treatment he needs.

Miami Vice

Rental and retail: It looks glorious, but there's a hole at the centre that never transcends a rather mundane action movie plot.

Innocent Voices

Rental and retail: An absorbing view of the El Salvador civil war seen from the viewpoint of an 11-year-old boy. It's an age when most kids are desperate to get a little older, but not in this case: at 12, these children are routinely and forcibly drafted by the army.

Ice Age: The Meltdown

Rental and retail: It's all very jolly though never quite as inventive or memorable as its predecessor, whose human population is nowhere to be seen in this one.

Wah-Wah

Rental and retail: There's not much warmth in the snobby expat community set in late 60s Swaziland, but plenty of it in Richard E Grant's film, largely seen from a child's point of view and boasting an all-star British cast.

Offside

Retail: A charming if slightly ramshackle film about female football fans' attempts to sneak into the World Cup qualifying decider between Iran and Bahrain. Filmed on matchday as Iran qualified for the World Cup, it builds in some sly social satire.

36

Retail: Director Olivier Marchal's shorthand description, "The French Heat", is not far off the truth. It vies with Hong Kong's Infernal Affairs (set for a Scorsese remake) as best recent police procedural.

The Long Good Friday

Retail: The classic Docklands gangster movie is given an unusually classic reissue for its 25th anniversary re-release, including a very good "making of" documentary.

Enron

Retail: A succint and mostly comprehensible account of America's biggest bankruptcy.

Pierrepoint

Retail: Inevitably dour, but emotionally resonant look at the life story of Britain's best-known hangman, Albert Pierrepoint, played with characteristic melancholy by Timothy Spall.

Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid

Retail: One of those films butchered by its makers - MGM, though the DVD is on Warners - Sam Peckinpah's best movie deserves this loving treatment. It's his Magnificent Ambersons.

Hell

Retail: Referencing Greek mythology, it all seems too glossily precious to grip, though there's nothing wrong with the acting.

The Exterminating Angel

Retail: A wonderfully vicious dissection of human nature in what is effectively a disaster movie with no disaster, or a grown-ups' Lord of the Flies.

Shooting Dogs

Retail: It's a film about a tragedy seen by uncomprehending outsiders, with white liberal guilt and helplessness present and correct. It's harrowing to watch, but worth it.

Romance and Cigarettes

Retail: John Turturro's musical is a strange and hybrid beast... but the casting is often intriguing.

Tell Them Who You Are

Retail: A film about the great cinematographer Haskell Wexler, but there's no hint of hagiography.

Two for the Money

Rental and retail: The sort of routine movie Al Pacino knocks out between the memorable ones, this has very much the narrative arc of The Devil's Advocate.

Lower City

Retail: The plot - two friends fall for the same woman, an easygoing stripper played by by Alice Braga - is almost incidental to the grainy, handheld footage and some vivid set-ups. At its best, it drags you nose-first into an underworld you'd hate to live in.

North Country

Rentail and retail: Gruelling and earnest film about the first sexual harassment class action, with a fine performance from Charlize Theron.

March of the Penguins

Rental and retail: The massed ranks of flightless birds look like an army of Buster Keatons, and even manage a few pratfalls in what is in reality a tough story of endurance.

Walk the Line (Cert 12)

Rental and retail: Johnny Cash's story rises above the biopic clichés by being passionate and refreshingly raw. Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon strike sparks off each other and never hit a wrong note, even in their vocal performances.

March of the Penguins (Cert U)

Rental and retail: The massed ranks of flightless birds look like an army of Buster Keatons, and even manage a few pratfalls in what is in reality a tough story of endurance.

Imaginary Heroes

Rental and retail: Irredeemably gloomy film that plays like a parody of the US family-in-crisis movie.

The Big Lebowski

Retail: It's a not-all-that-special edition, in truth, but it's good to have another excuse to own every slob's favourite 90s film.

Where the Truth Lies

Rental and retail: Starting with high promise - arthouse star director Atom Egoyan, a nightclub showbiz-style pairing of Kevin Bacon and Colin Firth, and a mysterious murder - this adaptation of Rupert Homes' novel just goes on getting odder and more tangled.

The Aviator

VHS/DVD rental and retail: Scorsese's best film for over a decade; it's jaunty, propulsive and a visual feast. And DiCaprio excels as Howard Hughes, his boyish energy and fearsome determination shading subtly into eye-darting, tic-choked mania.

A Very Long Engagement

DVD rental and retail: The reunion of the director and star of international feel-good frenzy Amélie drains the Crayola hues of expectation right from the start.

Criminal

DVD rental and retail: LA remake of Argentine thriller Nine Queens: it's a comptetent translation that never mutates into its own animal.

Ray

VHS/DVD retail and rental: Jamie Foxx's performance as the great singer, composer, pianist and bandleader is note-perfect.

Closer

VHS rental and DVD retail and rental: The film adaptation of Patrick Marber's play lacks wit and contrasting characters.

Take My Eyes

DVD retail: We're used to Spanish films being glamorous, dramatic and, usually, by Almodóvar so this very downbeat rather glum look at a troubled married couple comes as a shock.

The Hunting of the President

VHS rental and DVD retail and rental: Another trawl through the extraordinary time when Bill Clinton was being endlessly interrogated on TV about his sex life.

Elektra

VHS/DVD retail and rental: Jennifer Garner's character Elektra seems to have morphed with her TV role as a hitwoman in Alias, to create a film that always reminds you of other, better movies.

Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events

VHS/DVD rental and retail: Kids love to scare themselves, says Rob Mackie, and the first Lemony Snicket movie provides them with ample opportunity.

Team America: World Police

VHS rental and DVD retail: The war on terror - with puppets. But the satire is scattershot and largely wide of the mark.

Gallivant

DVD retail: In which film-maker Andrew Kotting embarks on a whistle-stop tour of the British coastline, with granny and daughter in toe.

I'll Sleep When I'm Dead

VHS/DVD rental and retail: Clive Owen motors through the mean streets of south London in Mike Hodges' mean and moody gangland thriller.

Ocean's Twelve

VHS/DVD rental and retail: Steven Soderbergh sails an ocean too far with a heavy-handed caper comedy that's positively swimming with self-satisfied celebrities.

Sideways

DVD retail and rental: Paul Giamatti and Thomas Haden Church play Eeyore and Tigger-ish buddies this bittersweet classic.

London/ Robinson in Space

DVD retail: Unclassifiable but irresistible mix of documentary, drama, philosophy seminar and droll digressions. Paul Scofield is the fictional narrator of picaresque real-life journeys through 1990s Britain.

A Hole in My Heart

DVD retail: Very odd, claustrophobic tale of an amateur porn film, crop circles and Cronenberg-style body horror.

Meet the Fockers

DVD retail and rental: Pretty thin but wildy successful sequel to Meet the Parents. If you want a foreskin-in-the-fondue joke, you've come to the right place.

2046

DVD retail: Enjoyable but insubstantial sequel to In the Mood for Love with Tony Leung as a commitment-phobic playboy.

Garden State

DVD retail and rental: A troubled actor (writer-director Zach Braff) travels back to his New Jersey home, where a sparky Natalie Portman sets to work on his redemption.

City on Fire

DVD retail: Rob Mackie is dazzled by the neon-bright Hong Kong crime thriller.

Mean Streets

DVD retail: Sin, salvation and surprisingly rich comedy in Scorsese's still-powerful classic.

Phantom of the Opera

DVD retail and retail: Dreary songs and a far-from-scary phantom mean you'll long for the fat lady to sing.

End of the Century

DVD retail: Documentary tribute to cartoonish punk rock legends the Ramones.

Shakespeare, The Animated Tales

DVD retail: This is the animation equivalent of Shakespeare's Greatest Hits with its ghosts and imaginary daggers.

Beneath the Valley of the Ultravixens

DVD retail: The archetypal Russ Meyer romp - all frantic sex, mad camera angles and weird voiceover.

Milwaukee, Minnesota

DVD retail: An odd, but sporadically endearing indie film set in Fargo country.

L'Histoire de Marie et Julien

DVD retail: More doomy and gloomy than spooky, this film is part relationship drama and part ghost story.

The Incredibles

VHS and DVD rental and retail: Rob Mackie bows down before Pixar's superhero romp - the darkest, most inventive animation that the studio has yet produced.

Le Corbeau

DVD retail: Re-issued 40s classic from Henri-Georges Clouzot, spotlighting the corruption seething beneath the surface of a respectable French town.

The Forgotten

VHS and DVD rental and retail: Julianne Moore comes a-cropper in this duff chiller about a kid who might be dead, or might never have existed anyway. Forgettable indeed.

Boo, Zino & the Snurks

VHS and DVD rental and retail: Boo, Zino and the Snurks, since you ask, is none other than Germany's first ever CGI animation, ever. Still more remarkably, it's none too bad.

Finding Neverland

DVD rental and retail: Marc Forster's film plays fast and loose with the facts, but it works all the same.

Shaolin Soccer

DVD rental and retail: Gleefully demented tale from Hong Kong which takes the Dodgeball approach to football.

Bride and Prejudice

DVD rental and retail: After Bend It Like Beckham, Gurinder Chadha creates a much less likely combination: best seen with a gin and tonic on hand.

James Cagney DVD Collection

DVD retail: Nobody ever had a strut like Cagney. This quartet of greatest hits are invigorating viewing.

Oldboy

DVD retail: Rob Mackie trembles before an existential classic from Korea, as a wild-eyed protagonist discovers that revenge, like live octopus, is a dish best served cold.

Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason

VHS and DVD retail: Renee Zellweger returns to the trough of another BJ outing. But all that remains are left-overs.

Hero

DVD retail: Zhang Yimou's sumptuous, dream-like martial arts epic.

The Clearing

VHS rental and DVD rental and retail: A coolly realistic kidnap film with a cast including Robert Redford and Willem Dafoe.

The Tesseract

DVD rental and retail: Adaptation of the Alex Garland (pictured) novel which works much better than the ill-fated The Beach.

The Grudge

VHS and DVD rental and retail: Pointless remake of the Japanese horror starring Sarah Michelle Gellar, though the chills remain.

Saw

VHS and DVD retail and rental: Two men wake up to find themselves imprisoned by a serial killer in James Wan's grizzly drama.

Code 46

DVD retail: Set in a future Shanghai, Michael Winterbottom's dark and disturbing tale of cloning, memory-wiping, and the 'empathy virus'.

Shark Tale

VHS and DVD retail and rental: The latest fishy film from the DreamWorks studio with voices by WIll Smith and Robert De Niro.

Wimbledon

VHS and DVD retail and rental: Romantic comedy with a sporting touch, starring Paul Bettany and Kirsten Dunst.

The Motorcycle Diaries

VHS rental and DVD retail: Walter Salles' film about the ride around the world that made Che Guevara a key figure of the 20th century.

Before Sunset

VHS rental and DVD retail: Nine years on from the much-loved Before Sunrise, Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy meet again.

Bad Education

DVD retail: This is more like early Almodóvar, outrageous, flashy fun, often with screaming loud colour schemes and an impressive performance by Gael García Bernal.

The Village

VHS rental, retail and DVD retail: M Night Shyamalan's The Village feels like a cross between Little Red Riding Hood and a metaphor for post 9/11 America.

Dodgeball - A True Underdog Story

VHS rental and DVD retail: Ben Stiller in a parody of the sports underdog movie that actually works quite well.

16 Years of Alcohol

DVD retail: The balance of sensitive philosophical insights and Doc Martenned violence sets the tone for a striking tale set in Edinburgh.

The Terminal

VHS and DVD retail and rental: Steven Spielberg comes a cropper with this sentimental tale that aims for pathos and comedy and falls well short on both.