In his final starring role, Richard Harris glowers impressively as the Irish underworld patriarch in Don Boyd's inspired relocation of Shakespeare's King Lear to contemporary Liverpool, Sadly Boyd directs with a low-voltage energy which flattens out intense emotion and visceral violence into brightly lit, blandly shot TV cop drama.

Atmospheric 1967 Norman Jewison thriller, and its weaker 1970 sequel from Gordon Douglas. The first, which won Oscars for Best Picture and Rod Steiger, is dryly observed, with Steiger's bigoted Southern sheriff warming to Sidney Poitier's detective as they solve a murder—a big anti-racism statement in its time. The second takes Poitier's Tibbs character to San Francisco, for no pressing reason.

Two years before GoodFellas, Jonathan Demme nailed the comical backstage soap opera element of modern-day mobsters and their brassy womenfolk in this cheery 1988 farce. Michelle Pfeiffer is the blousy Mafia wife who wants out, while Matthew Modine plays the FBI agent on her trail. It feels a little too clean and lightweight today, but the roots of The Sopranos are buried in here somewhere.

Jane Campion's second film (1990) tells the life story of Janet Frame, a New Zealand author who overcame poverty, chronic shyness and (misdiagnosed) schizophrenia to achieve international acclaim. Kerry Fox stars, while Campion hones her own stylistic match of trippy fantasy and gauche intimacy. Earnest, with detours into the ethereal. DVD EXTRAS: Three interviews with Campion, filmographies, trailer, biography of Janet Frame.

Why 511? Because, on June 2, 2002, New Order performed in front of 10,000 rain-lashed revellers at Finsbury Park, and their 16-song set list comprised five Joy Division tracks and 11 by the band they became following the suicide of Ian Curtis.

Leaving aside the Paul Williams soundtrack and Jodie Foster's performance (which aren't bad), Alan Parker's 1930s kiddie gangster musical, which dates back to 1976, combines a dozen bad things, including clunky dialogue, child actors, obvious sets and dull direction. Kids would probably find it patronising, and to the rest of us it falls somewhere between cloyingly cute and downright dodgy. DVD EXTRAS: Trailers, storyboards, trivia, character notes, photo gallery.

The ultimate journeyman, Kevin Reynolds is back with his explosively soulless adaptation of Dumas' classic. Formerly solid character stars Guy Pearce and Jim Caviezel don Hobbit haircuts and bored expressions as the socially mismatched childhood friends torn apart by jealousy and betrayal. It's clunky and mechanical, and lacking in even the faintest directorial fingerprint, yet it bounces you safely to the finish. DVD EXTRAS: Making Of..., audio commentary, deleted scenes, sword-fight choreography documentary and sound design featurette.

Set in and around a half-built rubble-strewn suburb of nowhere Vienna, pounded by summer sunstroke, and featuring brutal scenes of rape and battery, Dog Days is a bracing blast of arthouse nihilism from Austrian auteur Ulrich Seidl. And like a bleak psychotropic Short Cuts, the success of this multi-character piece depends on how the viewer responds to Seidl's remarkable yet savagely pessimistic world view.

Sandra Bullock got little credit for branching out as a gum-chewing, neurotic hardcase in this clever Barbet Schroeder cop thriller. Two Dostoyevsky students commit the perfect murder as an intellectual challenge; it's up to boozy Bullock and sidekick Ben Chaplin to rattle their smugness. Schroeder ensures it has a dark heart.

Oliver Stone's typically overwrought biopic of Jim Morrison has been much-mocked down the years, perhaps unfairly. It's full of Stone's signature bombast and is characteristically laden with all manner of wild and windy symbolism, but it has rather more going for it than popular reputation usually allows—not least, a surprisingly good performance from Val Kilmer as The Lizard King himself, fantastic duplication of vintage concert footage, especially the re-staging of the infamous Miami bust, and the patently deranged Crispin Glover as Andy Warhol to fucking boot!