DVD, Blu-ray and TV

In present-day China, two drifters run a murderous scam, luring unsuspecting marks into working alongside them down the coal mines. There they kill their prey, fake a cave-in, then collect hush-money from mine-owners terrified about being shut down. Shot guerrilla-style in China's bleakest provinces—and promptly banned by the country's authorities—former documentarist Li Yang's feature debut is a spare, stunning slice of naturalist noir.

No lip-syncing, backing tracks or gimmicks—only consummate talent on these 'live' late-'50s clips from Canadian TV. Cab Calloway ("Minnie The Moocher") is at his most bizarre, Nat King Cole ("Stay With Love") is finger-poppin' smooth and Sammy Davis Jr ("Gypsy In My Soul/Perdido") is a human dynamo, while the gem in this collection is Duke Ellington working in a quintet setting.

Roland Joffé's 1989 movie examines America's wartime race to develop the atomic bomb by focusing on the relationship between General Groves (a bullish Paul Newman) and haunted genius Robert Oppenheimer (Dwight Schultz), but dilutes the intensity by opening out to sketch in other players (including John Cusack and Laura Dern). Still, this is worthy, sombre, respectable drama.

Bizarre documentary atmospherically recreating strange events that took place in a small Wisconsin town in the 1890s. Economic depression and an epidemic spark off a succession of murders and suicides, and insanity is rife—most memorably in the form of the cocaine-fuelled Mary Sweeney, who travelled the whole state killing windows. Compelling.

Tori has chosen a surprisingly conventional in-concert format for her first-ever DVD. Recorded in Florida last year, it's an intense performance, the songs drawn mostly from her recent Scarlet's Walk album, augmented by old favourites such as "Cornflake Girl" and "Professional Widow".

David Fincher's homage to Hitchcock (the North By Northwest title sequence, Howard Shore's score, the Rope/Vertigo-like apartment-as-stage conceit) finds Jodie Foster as the beleaguered mum trying to stay one step ahead of Forest Whitaker, Dwight Yoakam and Jared Leto's housebreakers

The idea of Ralph Fiennes' sibling shooting a doc about God and guns in South Central LA is inherently tiresome. But, in fact, Sophie F manages to get inside the soul of this torn community. Grace Jones' pastor brother Noel is as fake as any pulpit rhetorician, but his Hoover Street church is a revival of hope.

Shot at Brixton Academy at the end of Moloko's 2003 tour, this is a limp wander through the band's hits which even Roisin Murphy can't lift. There's none of the inter-band tension that a year on the road might have generated, and they even manage to mangle "Sing It Back". For devotees only.

Mel Brooks' 1974 spoof western isn't a patch on The Producers or Young Frankenstein, due to a lacklustre script. What memorable moments there are come courtesy of Cleavon Little's hip black sheriff, Gene Wilder's alcoholic gunfighter, Madeline Kahn's faultless Marlene Dietrich impression and Slim Pickens busting up that infamous campfire farting scene.

In Arthur Penn's 1958 film The Left-Handed Gun, Billy The Kid (Paul Newman) was portrayed as a neurotic, self-destructive teen rebel who behaved like James Dean with a six-gun. Penn threw in the framing device of having a journalist follow Billy through his career of crime. Little Big Man (1970) also features a journalist looking to embroider the facts, but this time the writer meets his match in the shape of the wizened, 121-year-old Jack Crabb (Dustin Hoffman hidden behind several layers of make-up).