It's enlightening to view Tim Burton's Mars Attacks! as his twisted satire of the blockbuster film Independence Day, which was released earlier the same year, although the movies were in production simultaneously. Burton's eye-popping, schlock tribute to 1950s UFO movies actually plays better on video than it did in cinemas. The idea of invading aliens ray-gunning the big-name movie stars in the cast is a cleverly subversive one, and the bulb-headed, funny-sounding animated Martians are pretty nifty, but it all seemed to be spread thin on the big screen. On video, however, the movie's kooky humour seems a bit more concentrated. The Earth actors (most of whom get zapped or kidnapped for alien science experiments) include Jack Nicholson, Glenn Close, Annette Bening, Pierce Brosnan, Danny DeVito, Martin Short, Sarah Jessica Parker, Rod Steiger, Michael J Fox, Lukas Haas, Jim Brown, Tom Jones and Pam Grier. —Jim Emerson

For those who never thought Disney would release a film in which Santa Claus is kidnapped and tortured, well, here it is. The full title is Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas, which should give you an idea of the tone of this stop-action animated musical/fantasy/horror/comedy. It is based on characters created by Burton, the former Disney animator best known as the director of Pee-wee's Big Adventure, Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands and the first two Batman movies. His benignly scary-funny sensibility dominates the story of Halloweentown resident Jack Skellington (voice by Danny Elfman, who also wrote the songs), who stumbles on a bizarre and fascinating alternative universe called ... Christmastown! Directed by Henry Selick (who later made the delightful James and the Giant Peach), this PG-rated picture has a reassuringly light touch. As Roger Ebert noted in his review, "some of the Halloween creatures might be a tad scary for smaller children, but this is the kind of movie older kids will eat up; it has the kind of offbeat, subversive energy that tells them wonderful things are likely to happen." —Jim Emerson

On the DVD:This Special edition is a must for all Burton fans with the biggest gem to be found on a DVD release——"Tim Burtons Early Films" which holds his first two works. Vincent is clear predecessor of Nightmare before Christmas using the same stop-animation style and voiced superbly by Vincent Price himself; and Frankenweenie—a B&W live-action flick—takes you back to early B-movie territory seen through the eyes of a boy. Added to these films is a great special-features menu including a short documentary offering an interview with Burton, which exposes the inspiration for this magical animation and presents the three-year task of making the "Nightmare". On top of this is an in-depth commentary by director Henry Selick and Art director Pete Kozachik and layer upon layer of "character development" offering an insight into the intensity of thought that went into making these animated figures real. You also get a great selection of storyboards along with the sequences they manifest into, deleted storyboards and an animated sequence with a surprise alternative ending. The menu is beautifully animated in keeping with the style of artwork in the film. With a 1.66:1 widescreen format and Dolby digital transfer this charming DVD is perfect for Halloween, Christmas and beyond! —Nikki Disney

James Cameron's Aliens digests all the virtues of Alien and regurgitates them bigger, louder and brasher than before. By the simple expedient of turning the singular beast of the original into a plural, Cameron transforms the franchise's focus from horror to all-out action. Sigourney Weaver's Ripley—one of the strongest roles for a female lead in mainstream cinema—is centre-stage throughout, more than able to hold her own either among the butch Marines and insectoid aliens. Although the director later revealed that there were only ever six alien costumes in any one shot, rapid-fire editing makes it seem like hundreds. Aliens is one of the most dynamic, viscerally exciting movies of the decade and, as a bug-fest, remained unsurpassed until the glorious Starship Troopers in 1997.

On the DVD: The Director's Cut reinstates 17 crucial minutes of footage deleted from the theatrical release. It reveals how the colony on LV-426 encountered the aliens, and more importantly why Ripley's maternal bond with Newt is so strong, which adds an extra dimension to the film's climax. Also included is a short, fairly bland interview with James Cameron, recorded at the time of the cinema release, as well as some background explanation on how specific special effects were created. Unlike the Alien disc, there is no directorial commentary. —Mark Walker

The most successful invigoration of a cinematic franchise since Batman Begins, Casino Royale offers a new Bond identity. Based on the Ian Fleming novel that introduced Agent 007 into a Cold War world, Casino Royale is the most brutal and viscerally exciting James Bond film since Sean Connery left Her Majesty's Secret Service. Meet the new Bond; not the same as the old Bond. Daniel Craig gives a galvanising performance as the freshly minted double-0 agent. Suave, yes, but also a "blunt instrument," reckless and possessed with an ego that compromises his judgment during his first mission to root out the mastermind behind an operation that funds international terrorists. In classic Bond film tradition, his global itinerary takes him to far-flung locales, including Uganda, Madagascar, the Bahamas (that's more like it) and Montenegro, where he is pitted against his nemesis in a poker game, with hundreds of millions in the pot. The stakes get even higher when Bond lets down his armour by falling in love with Vesper (Eva Green), the ravishing banker's representative fronting him the money.

For longtime fans of the franchise, Casino Royale offers some retro kicks. Bond wins his iconic Aston Martin at the gaming table, and when a bartender asks if he wants his martini "shaken or stirred," he disdainfully replies, "Do I look like I give a damn?". There's no Moneypenny or "Q," but Dame Judi Dench is back as the exasperated M who, one senses, admires Bond's "bloody cheek." A Bond film is only as good as its villain, and Mads Mikkelsen as Le Chiffre, who weeps blood, is a sinister dandy. From its punishing violence and virtuoso action sequences to its romance, Casino Royale is a Bond film that, in the words of one character, 'makes you feel it', particularly during an excruciating torture sequence. Double-0s, Bond observes early on, "have a short life expectancy". But with Craig, there is new life in the old franchise yet, as well as genuine anticipation for the next one when, at last, the signature James Bond theme kicks in following the best last line ever in any Bond film. To quote Goldie Hawn in Private Benjamin, "now I know what I've been faking all these years". —Donald Liebenson

The third of a series of four planned Futurama spin-off TV movies, Bender’s Game follows Bender’s Big Score and Beast With A Billion Backs, and comfortably sits alongside them. It’s good, and it’s sometimes very funny, but is unlikely still to be regarded as vintage Futurama.

The plot of Bender’s Game takes the regulars on a mission that soon sees them in a strange land, which bears a striking resemblance to something out of Dungeons and Dragons or Lord of the Rings. This isn’t, as you’d expect, the safest place to be, and thus the scene is set for lots of genre gags that are, at their finest, hard to resist.

On the downside, the pacing is a little off this time round, and it takes Bender’s Game some time to hit its stride. The quest part of the movie doesn’t kick into until well over half the running time is up, and while there’s real ambition in the narrative, it does demand some patience.

But still, even if this isn’t top notch Futurama, it still packs in plenty of belly laughs, and squeezes more entertainment into 84 minutes than many movies get close to in two hours. You still yearn for the tightness of the TV show format, but the quality of the writing just about drags Bender’s Game through, leaving us thirsting for the fourth, and potentially final, movie. —Jon Foster

There were only two ways for "classic Trek" cast members to appear in a movie with the cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation: either Captain Kirk and his contemporaries would have to be very, very old, or there would be some time travel involved in the plot. Since geriatric heroes aren't very exciting (despite a welcomed cameo appearance by the aged Dr McCoy), Star Trek: Generations unites Capt. Kirk (William Shatner) and Capt. Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) in a time-jumping race to stop a madman's quest for heavenly contentment. When a mysterious energy coil called the Nexus nearly destroys the newly christened USS Enterprise-B, the just-retired Kirk is lost and presumed dead. But he's actually been happily trapped in the timeless purgatory of the Nexus—an idyllic state of being described by the mystical Guinan (Whoopi Goldberg) as "pure joy". Picard must convince Kirk to leave this artificial comfort zone and confront Dr Soran (Malcolm McDowell), the madman who will threaten billions of lives to be reunited with the addictive pleasure of the Nexus. With subplots involving the android Data's unpredictable "emotion chip" and the spectacular crash-landing of the starship Enterprise, this crossover movie not only satisfied Trek fans, but it also gave them something they'd never had to confront before: the heroic and truly final death of a beloved Star Trek character. Passing the torch to the Next Generation with dignity and entertaining adventure, the movie isn't going to please everyone with its somewhat hokey plot, but it still ranks as a worthy big-screen launch for Picard and his stalwart crew. —Jeff Shannon, Amazon.com

If you've never seen an aviation movie before in your entire life, you'll be blissfully ignorant of the fact that Memphis Belle shamelessly (and yet gloriously) incorporates just about every cliché in the flight-movie handbook. If you're a big fan of aviation films—especially ones about World War II bomber crews—you—you'll be glad that the genre's clichés have been handled with such professional flair. As it follows the crew of a B-17 bomber on its final and most dangerous mission over Germany, Memphis Belle may be little more than a slick and highly authentic presentation of familiar thrills and characters, but it's a rousing piece of entertainment. Featuring an ensemble cast of fresh faces who've since enjoyed thriving careers (including Billy Zane, Sean Astin, Eric Stoltz, DB Sweeney and Harry Connick Jr.), the movie exists as a fitting tribute to the men who fought and often died in the air over hostile territory. It's the Hollywood version of a 1944 wartime documentary made by legendary director William Wyler (whose daughter served as one of this film's producers), and as such it's a bit contrived and melodramatic. And yet, this exciting movie is almost certain to grab and hold your attention, offering an honourable reminder of the bravery and integrity that were crucial ingredients of any bomber's crew. —Jeff Shannon, Amazon.com

Movie-kinetics genius. Kung Fu Hustle takes the gleeful mayhem of Hong Kong action movies, the deadpan physical humor of silent comedies, and the sheer elasticity of Wile E. Coyote cartoons and fuses them into a spectacle that is simple in its joys and mind-boggling in its orchestration. A run-down slum has been poor but peaceful until a bunch of black-suited gangsters called the Axe Gang show up to cause trouble—and discover that, hidden among the humble poor, are three kung fu masters trying to live an ordinary life. But after these martial artists repulse the gang with their flying fists and feet, the gang leader hires a pair of assassins, whose arrival leads to the unveiling of more secrets, until both the screen and the audience are dizzy with hyperbolic fight artistry (choreographed by Yuen Wo Ping, who also choreographed The Matrix). Weaving through this escalating fury is a loudmouthed loser (writer/director/actor Stephen Chow) who suddenly finds himself having to live up to his bragging. Kung Fu Hustle more than lives up to the promise of Chow's previous film, Shaolin Soccer: it's a movie made by an imagination unfettered by the laws of physics. Hugely entertaining. —Bret Fetzer, Amazon.com

Only Joel and Ethan Coen, masters of quirky and ultra-stylish genre subversion, would dare nick the plotline of Homer's Odyssey for O Brother, Where Art Thou?, their comic picaresque saga about three cons on the run in 1930s Mississippi. Our wandering hero in this case is one Ulysses Everett McGill, a slick-tongued wise guy with a thing for hair pomade (George Clooney, blithely sending up his own dapper image) who talks his chain-gang buddies (Coen-movie regular John Turturro and newcomer Tim Blake Nelson) to light out after some buried loot he claims to know of. En route they come up against a prophetic blind man on a railroad truck, a burly one-eyed baddie (the ever-magnificent John Goodman), a trio of sexy singing ladies, a blues guitarist who's sold his soul to the devil, a brace of crooked politicos on the stump, a manic-depressive bank robber, and—well, you get the idea. Into this, their most relaxed film yet, the Coens have tossed a beguiling ragbag of inconsequential situations, a wealth of looping, left-field dialogue and a whole stash of gags both verbal and visual. O Brother (the title's lifted from Preston Sturges' classic 1941 comedy Sullivan's Travels) is furthermore graced with glowing, burnished photography from Roger Deakins and a masterly soundtrack from T-Bone Burnett that pays loving homage to American 30s folk-styles: blues, gospel, bluegrass, jazz and more. And just to prove that the brothers haven't lost their knack for bad-taste humour, we get a Ku Klux Klan rally choreographed like something between a Nuremberg rally and a Busby Berkeley musical. —Philip Kemp

On the DVD: This two-disc set duplicates the original single-disc release of the film which included a handful of cast and crew interviews, and adds an additional disc with more interviews, two brief behind-the-scenes featurettes about the production design and the post-production digital colouring of the film, a couple of storyboard-to-scene comparisons and a music video of "Man of Constant Sorrow". There's also a 16-minute documentary to promote the companion Down from the Mountain concert. Frankly there's not a lot here to justify spreading it across two discs: a more pleasing not to say generous offering would have been to cram all these extras onto Disc 1 and give us Down from the Mountain as the second disc. —Mark Walker

Like a good dream, Sofia Coppola's Lost in Translation envelopes you with an aura of fantastic light, moody sound, head-turning love, and a feeling of déjà vu, even though you've probably never been to this neon-fused version of Tokyo. Certainly Bob Harris has not. The 50-ish actor has signed-on for big money shooting whiskey ads instead of doing something good for his career or his long-distance family. Jetlagged, helplessly lost with his Japanese-speaking director and out of sync with the metropolis, Harris (Bill Murray, never better) befriends the married but lovelorn 25-year-old Charlotte (played with heaps of poise by 18-year-old Scarlett Johansson). Even before her photographer husband all but abandons her, she is adrift like Harris but in a total entrapment of youth. How Charlotte and Bill discover their soul mates will be cherished for years to come.

Written and directed by Coppola (The Virgin Suicides), the film is far more atmospheric than plot-driven: we whiz through Tokyo parties, karaoke bars and odd nightlife, always ending up in the impossibly posh hotel where the two are staying. The wisps of bittersweet loneliness of Bill and Charlotte are handled smartly and romantically, but unlike modern studio films, this isn't a May to December fling film. Surely and steadily, the film ends on a much-talked-about grace note, which may burn some, yet awards film lovers who "always had Paris" with another cinematic destination of the heart. —Doug Thomas

Hollywood's legendary "woman's director", George Cukor (The Women, The Philadelphia Story), transformed Audrey Hepburn into street-urchin-turned-proper-lady Eliza Doolittle in this film version of the Lerner and Loewe musical. Based on George Bernard Shaw's play Pygmalion, My Fair Lady stars Rex Harrison as linguist Henry Higgins (Harrison also played the role, opposite Julie Andrews, on stage), who draws Eliza into a social experiment that works almost too well. The letterbox edition of this film on video certainly pays tribute to the pageantry of Cukor's set, but it also underscores a certain visual stiffness that can slow viewer enthusiasm just a tad. But it's really star wattage that keeps My Fair Lady exciting—that and such great songs as "On the Street Where You Live" and "I Could Have Danced All Night". Actor Jeremy Brett, who gained a huge following later in life portraying Sherlock Holmes, is quite electric as Eliza's determined suitor. —Tom Keogh