An all time classic 60s movie glamourising the real life story of the Barrow gang who terrorised the American South in the early 30s. 'Reclaiming the American gangster movie, after it had been stolen by the Nouvelle Vague, Penn's film was so successful (and so imitated) that it inevitably met with some grudging devaluation. But it's still great, half comic fairytale, half brutal fact, it reflects the essential ambiguity of its heroes by treading a no man's land suspended between reality and fant find out more...

Perhaps Caine's defining role as the ruthless London villain in Newcastle to sort out some gang bovver. When he finds out his niece has become embroiled with some very seedy characters, his involvement becomes far deeper. A violent and slick thriller with an excellent feel for both time and location and a comment on the despair of Britain in the 1970s. find out more...

Eight months after a disastrous job in Kiev left him physically and mentally scarred, ex-soldier turned contract killer, Jay, is pressured by his partner, Gal, into taking a new assignment. As they descend into the dark and disturbing world of the contract, Jay begins to unravel once again, his fear and paranoia sending him deep into the heart of darkness. An find out more...

Mary and Phylis are two perky young teenagers until they're kidnapped by three escaped convicts and repeatedly brutalized. 'The Last House On the Left' was Wes Craven's directorial debut and a twisted little bunny it is to; vicious, mean and exploitative, it makes other video nasties of the era, such as 'Texas Chainsaw Massacre', look positively comic. It also proved remarkably influential on later film makers. There are loads of extras on this double disc release. find out more...

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Set in the Sino-Japanese war, Yasuzo Masumura's black-and-white anti-war film tells of an army nurse who sexually services an amputee and falls in love with a drug-addicted surgeon. This can't be recommended to the squeamish, but neither can its nuanced eroticism nor its passionate, unpredictable moral focus, be easily shaken off. Comparable with Altman's MASH, it suggests a less comic treatment of the same theme, how to preserve one's humanity in impossible circumstances, but its ethics are con find out more...

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When a Woman Ascends the Stairs might be Japanese filmmaker Mikio Naruse's finest hour, a delicate, devastating study of a woman, Keiko, played heartbreakingly by Hideko Takamine, who works as a bar hostess in Tokyo's very modern post-war Ginza district. Sly, resourceful, but trapped, Keiko comes to embody the conflicts and struggles of a woman trying to establish her independence in a male-dominated society. A profoundly moving masterpiece. find out more...