It all seems so oddly innocent, like a '90s Britpop update of Cliff's Summer Holiday capers. Essentially a glorified tour film, shot between 1991 and 1993, Star Shaped captures Blur at a major crossroads in their career, as they seek to shed the baggy influences of their debut album Leisure and reinvent themselves in response to the rise of grunge and their own ailing popularity in the UK. "The whole thing about pop music is you're ripping off as many people as you possibly can,"an improbably baby-faced Damon Albarn philosophises early on.

It's scripted by David Mamet, but what raises Danny DeVito's 1992 biopic is Jack Nicholson's role as the irascible union boss/Mob associate who 'went missing' in the '70s. Charting five decades, from bullying rise in the trucking game in the 30s, through troubles with the Kennedys, to Hoffa's presumed assassination, it's an ambitious undertaking, often muddled. Nicholson, though, hidden behind false nose, bulldozes through like Cagney. Neglected, but one of the performances of his career.

John Frankenheimer's ruthlessly constructed, hugely entertaining actioner is essentially three stand-out car chases (Paris by night, Nice, and Paris by day) surrounded by a heist movie, a silver McGuffin suitcase, a sassy Provo pin-up (Natascha McElhone), an ex-CIA hitman (De Niro), the Russian Mafia, Sinn Fein and the Northern Ireland Peace Process. Naturally.

It's 1988 and rising features writer at New Republic magazine Stephen Glass has charm, style, modesty and good looks. Trouble is, his reportage is pure fiction. Billy Ray's film, based on a true story, juxtaposes two fine performances from Hayden Christensen, who plays Glass as a passive-aggressive manipulator, and Peter Sarsgaard as his editor Chuck Lane.

George Lucas' debut is a dystopian 1984-style fantasy of a loveless society, starring Robert Duvall. The studio hated it, hacking five minutes out of it (here restored) for its initial 1970 release, but even though bleak and predictable, it's visually breath-taking. Speculate on where Lucas might have gone from here if only he hadn't been waylaid by Wookies.

Kaufman and Gondry's complex romantic comedy dazzles

Coppola's love-in-Las Vegas musical fantasy is ripe for reappraisal

One of the most original debuts of the past 20 years, Richard Kelly's mesmerising head trip from '2001 gets an extra 20 minutes and some soundtrack tweaks. The extra scenes slow the narrative momentum, but Jake Gyllenhaal's breakthrough role as disturbed teenager Donnie still captivates, while Kelly's astute meditations on life, death and mental illness in '80s small-town America demand your attention.

Enjoy the guilty pleasure of witnessing a hugely successful rock band tear itself apart

Return of the serious Brit crime flick