The birth of our not so brave new world – the idea behind “mumblecore inventor” Andrew Bujalski’s brilliant almost mock-doc about 1970s computer programmers vying to outnerd each other.
Hours (Signature, cert 15, Blu-ray/DVD)
What an irony – Paul Walker dies, leaving behind a tense thriller proving he actually can act, about a new dad looking after baby while Hurricane Katrina destroys New Orleans.
Kelly + Victor (Verve, cert 18, Blu-ray/DVD)
Boy meets girl for miaow-miaow and erotic asphyxiation in this punchy, sex-soaked drama starring Antonia Campbell-Hughes – the daughter from TV’s Lead Balloon seen in an astonishing new light.
Museum Hours (Soda, cert 12, DVD)
A visiting Canadian is taken under the wing of an art-gallery guard in Vienna in this oblique, chatty documentary-like drama about taking the time to notice how wonderful life is.
White House Down (Sony, cert 12, Blu-ray/DVD)
The “Gerard Butler saves the President” movie Olympus Has Fallen was bad but wait till you see this “Channing Tatum saves the President” movie. It’s hilariously must-see terrible.
The Colony (E One, cert 18, DVD)
Laurence Fishburne dignifies this post-apocalyptic survival thriller set out in the snowy wastes, which abandons its aping of John Carpenter’s The Thing halfway through. Bad idea.
BOX SETS
Sherlock Series 1-3 (2entertain, cert 12, Blu-ray/DVD/DTO)
Sherlock Holmes reinvented – the texting detective – yet faithful to the playful spirit of Conan Doyle, is a triumph for writers, directors, actors, the BBC, everyone concerned.
The Client List Season 1 (Sony, cert 15, DVD)
After Ghost Whisperer, Jennifer Love Hewitt’s breasts get another series, about a Texas masseuse providing the perkiest most wholesome happy finishes you ever did(n’t) see.
The Paul Newman Collection (Fox, cert 15, DVD)
From a career with a lot of high notes, this is still a really great collection of Newman films – The Hustler, Hombre, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and The Verdict.
Released on Mon Jan 13
The Great Beauty (Artificial Eye, cert 15, Blu-ray/DVD)
A world-weary journalist faces down a life of excess in Italian genius Paolo Sorrentino’s astonishing, beautiful bookend to Fellini’s La Dolce Vita – worth it for the party scene alone.
Piercing Brightness (Soda, cert 12, Blu-ray/DVD)
Aliens arrive in Preston, Lancashire, in this exercise in trippy Northern sci-fi that’s studenty, mad and exhilarating. A remarkable debut by name-to-watch Shezad Dawood.
Promised Land (Universal, cert 15, Blu-ray/DVD)
Local Hero, more or less, with Matt Damon and Frances McDormand as a pair of mega-oil operators trying to get a small town to sign away its fracking rights. A charmer.
Riddick (E One, cert 15, Blu-ray/DVD)
Vin Diesel hits the reset button with this return to the franchise that made his name, a guns ’n’ grunts sci-fi actioner high on steroids, human growth hormone and testosterone.
You're Next (Kaleidoscope, cert 18, Blu-ray/DVD)
Cult horror guy Adam Wingard’s film about a rich family being slaughtered in their house out in the woods toys with genre expectations. Which explains the plot-holes, right?
In Real Life (Dogwoof, cert E, DVD)
Beeban Kidron’s alarming (alarmist?) documentary follows bukkake-familiar teenagers, gaming addicts, status-update junkies for a portrait of the internet as sinister, psychotic and out of control.
Winter of Discontent (New Wave, cert 15, DVD)
A muted, mournful Egyptian drama about the Tahrir Square uprising seeing events through the eyes of an activist, a torturer and a TV presenter unsure which way to jump.
BOX SETS
The Tunnel (Acorn, cert 15, Blu-ray/DVD)
The French-English remake of the Danish-Swedish The Bridge – the dead people are now in the Channel Tunnel – is pretty much exactly the same as the original. Pretty great, then.
Last Tango in Halifax Series 1&2 (2entertain, cert 12, DVD)
Series three is now in the works. Until then here’s the first 12 episodes of Sally Wainwright’s all-round hit starring Anne Reid and Derek Jacobi as pensioners in lurrve.
Death Wish 1-5 (Final Cut, cert 18, DVD)
The vigilante justice series of films made between 1972 and 1995 starring Charles Bronson and directed, at first, by Michael Winner. The first one is a good film. No, honestly.
Released on Mon Jan 6
Frances Ha
(Metrodome, cert 15, Blu-ray/DVD)
Greta Gerwig’s star-making performance as a ditz in New York powers Noah Baumbach’s tender character study — Annie Hall by way of TV’s Girls.
Upstream Colour
(Metrodome, cert 18, Blu-ray/DVD)
Shane Carruth’s follow-up to his brilliant Primer is a body-horror/love story. Full of trippy montage, it’s strange, beautiful and pretentious.
The Way Way Back
(Fox, cert 12, Blu-ray/DVD)
A teenage boy endures a holiday with useless mum Toni Collette and her douchebag guy (Steve Carell) in this sweet, beautifully acted coming-of-ager.
Insidious Chapter 2
(E One, cert 15 Blu-ray/DVD)
See Insidious 1 before embarking on this continuation, a well-cast exercise in Sixties/Seventies horror knock-off (okay, pastiche).
What Maisie Knew
(Curzon, cert 15, Blu-ray/DVD)
Another indictment of Seventies attitudes about two self-regarding parents (Steve Coogan, Julianne Moore) and their daughter.
Peacock
(Lionsgate, cert 12, DVD)
Imagine Norman Bates without the murder and you’ve got this drama starring Cillian Murphy as a crossdresser in Fifties smalltown America. Great period detail.
