Directed with consummate skill by Terence Young, the second James Bond spy thriller is considered by many fans to be the best of them all. Certainly Sean Connery was never better as the dashing Agent 007, whose latest mission takes him to Istanbul to retrieve a top-secret Russian decoding machine. His efforts are thwarted when he gets romantically distracted by a sexy Russian double agent (Daniela Bianchi), and is tracked by a lovely assassin (Lotte Lenya) with switchblade shoes, and by a crazed killer (Robert Shaw), who clashes with Bond during the film's dazzling climax aboard the Orient Express. From Russia with Love is classic James Bond, before the gadgets, pyrotechnics and Roger Moore steered the movies away from the more realistic tone of the books by Ian Fleming. -Jeff Shannon Directed with consummate skill by Terence Young, From Russia With Love, the second James Bond spy thriller, is considered by many fans to be the best of them all. Certainly Sean Connery was never better as the dashing Agent 007, whose mission takes him to Istanbul to retrieve a top-secret Russian decoding machine. His efforts are thwarted when he gets romantically distracted by a sexy Russian double agent (Daniela Bianchi), and is tracked by an assassin (Lotte Lenya) with switchblade shoes, and by a crazed killer (Robert Shaw), who clashes with Bond during the film's dazzling climax aboard the Orient Express. From Russia with Love is classic James Bond, before the gadgets, pyrotechnics and Roger Moore steered the movies away from the more realistic tone of the books by Ian Fleming. -Jeff ShannonOn the DVD: The "making of" documentary details the many problems that beset this production: actor Pedro Armendariz (Kerim Bey) was diagnosed with terminal cancer halfway through shooting so all his scenes had to be done before he became too ill to work (he died shortly afterwards); a helicopter carrying the director and designer crashed into a lake, but despite being narrowly rescued from drowning Young was shooting half an hour later; and Italian actress-model Daniela Bianchi's car crashed en route to location. Key scenes had to be reshot after the production had wrapped, and because of script problems and rewrites, much of the film's structure was assembled in the editing room. [+]

Rancid Aluminium's unlikely hero, leery Liam Gallagher-look-a-like Pete (Rhys Ifans), is wholly unprepared for promotion to head of the family business after his father dies unexpectedly. To make matters worse, no matter how hard he tries he can't impregnate his wife Sarah (Sadie Frost), and believes he's shooting blanks. Unable to handle responsibility, Pete turns to scheming Irish accountant Deeny (Joseph Fiennes) for help, who recommends that the company seek foreign investment to pay off its debts. What Pete doesn't know is that Deeny is trying to do him out of the business and has arranged a "loan" from a Russian Mafia warlord, Mr Kant (Steven Berkoff), whose raven-haired daughter Masha (Tara Fitzgerald) is set on seducing Pete. Given its all-star British cast (which also includes Dani Behr, Keith Allen and Nick Moran) and bestseller source material, Rancid Aluminium must have looked like a sure-fire comedy hit. But first-time director Ed Thomas (better known as a playwright and theatre director) can't seem to keep a handle on the convoluted plot and the laughs are entirely incidental. Ifans's irritating mockney voiceover doesn't help, nor the fact that Tara Fitzgerald's accent keeps slipping between Stalingrad and Sloane Square. Fans of the James Hawes original may get a thrill from seeing his characters come to life, but it's unlikely anyone else will. -Chris Campion.

The inspired pairing of Jackie Chan and British comedian Lee Evans (Funny Bones) gives The Medallion some extra oomph. Hong Kong agent Eddie Yang (Chan) flies to Ireland to track down a very bad guy named Snakehead (Julian Sands, Warlock, exuding his dependable oily menace) who has kidnapped a young boy with the power of life and death. When Eddie dies protecting the boy, the boy resurrects him with a magical medallion-and when Eddie comes back, he's got supernatural powers, much to the befuddlement of his former partner, Arthur (Evans). Along for the ride is Eddie's old flame, Nicole (Claire Forlani, i>Mystery MenThe Medallion is far more entertaining than you might expect. -Bret Fetzer.

When Inspector Morse first appeared on television in 1987, nobody could have predicted that it would run into the next century, maintaining throughout a quality of scripts and story lines that raised the genre of the detective series to a new level. Much of its success can be attributed to John Thaw's total immersion in the role. Morse is a prickly character and not obviously easy to like. As a detective in Oxford with unfulfilled academic propensities, he is permanently excluded from a world of which he would dearly love to be a part. He is at odds with that world-and with his colleagues in the police force-most of the time. Passionate about opera and "proper beer", he is a cultural snob for whom vulgarity causes almost physical pain. As a result, he lives from one disillusionment to another. And he is scarred-more deeply than he would ever admit-by past relationships. But he also has a naïve streak and, deep-down sensitivity, which makes him a fascinating challenge for women. At the heart of Morse's professional life is his awkward partnership with Detective Sergeant Lewis, the resolutely ordinary, worldly sidekick who manages to keep his boss in an almost permanent state of exasperation while retaining his grudging respect. [+]

Some diehard Batfans have been slow to warm to the animated series Batman Beyond even though it was created by the same team responsible for the excellent Batman cartoon of the early 1990s. The Dark Knight should be a brooding avenger in a noir-nightmare Gotham City, the purists argue, not some smart-aleck teen four decades in the future, with jet packs, invisibility shields, and other sci-fi gizmos loaned him by an elderly Bruce Wayne (voiced, excellently as always, by Kevin Conroy, his stony bass given a raspy hint of old age), now confined to hobbling about on a cane and monitoring his protégé's activities from the Batcave. Between its respectful re-examination of the "tortured hero" mythos and its sleek, animé-inspired look, this feature-length movie should go a long way toward quieting their complaints. Of course, it doesn't hurt that they've brought back the most legendary figure in the Rogues Gallery (voiced by Mark Hamill, deliciously deranged), but exactly how and why the Joker has managed to turn up 40 years after his last meeting with Batman still as youthful and diabolical as ever is explained not only logically but terrifyingly as well. The secret behind his arrival is perhaps the saddest, grimmest twist any purported "kids' show" has dared to attempt. (Parents may well want to preview this tape before screening it for the very young. ) Once again, Warner Brothers' cartoon Batman has outshone all the live-action films, never allowing the thrilling action set pieces or flashes of wry humour to drown out the drama, even tragedy, of the all-too-human superheroes. -Bruce Reid, Amazon. com.

Even though there's an increasing number of horror movies right now, not least ones with characters left open in unfamiliar surroundings (Wolf Creek, Hostel, Vacancy-and plenty more besides), it's worth making some time in your life for Gone. It's a small British film, shot in Australia, with a lot more bite than you'd expect it to have. Here, the lead characters in question are a pair of in-love backpackers, who, while rambling across Australian desert, meet a stranger on their travels. Things, without giving too much away, escalate from there, but thanks to the wise restraint of first-time director Ringan Ledwidge, events in Gone are kept very taut and extremely tense. Eschewing gimmicks and gore, instead the film is very focused, perhaps a little unambitious, but nonetheless highly effective. Ledwidge's cast serve him very well, too. Shaun Evans and Amelia Warner are effective as the backpackers, but it's Scott Mechlowicz stranger you'll be talking about once Gone's credits roll. That, and the superb photography, that delivers some wonderful frames from the terrific Australian scenery. Some may find the relatively slow pace a little troubling, and there isn't much in the way of surprise in Gone's locker. But as a small, quietly effective little horror, you won't feel cheated by it at all. [+]

James Bond's fourth adventure takes him to the Bahamas, where a NATO warplane with a nuclear payload has disappeared into the sea. Bond (Sean Connery) travels from a tony health spa (where he tangles with a mechanised masseuse run amuck) to the casinos of Nassau and soon picks up the trail of SPECTRE's number-two man, Emilio Largo (Adolfo Celi) and his beautiful mistress, Domino (Claudine Auger), whom Bond soon seduces to his side. Equipped with more gadgets than ever, courtesy of the resourceful "Q" (Desmond Llewelyn), agent 007 escapes an ambush with a personal-size jet pack and takes to the water as he searches for the undersea plane, battles Largo's pet sharks, and finally leads the battle against Largo's scuba-equipped henchmen in a spectacular underwater climax. This thrilling Bond entry became Connery's most successful outing in the series and was remade in 1983 as Never Say Never Again, with Connery returning to the role after a 12-year hiatus. Tom Jones belts out the bold theme song to another classic Maurice Binder title sequence. -Sean Axmaker.

Painted in mile-wide strokes of black satirical comedy, The Last Supper turns intolerance into a parlour trick, then repeats it ad nauseam in case we missed the joke. Still, redundancy can be fun when applied to the pre-meditated murder of right-wing extremists by self-righteous left-wing zealots. Director Stacy Title is an equal-opportunity offender, never taking sides. The grisly high jinks commence when a truck-driving, child-molesting, Hitler-loving ex-Marine (Bill Paxton, acing the role) is accidentally killed while dining with a clutch of snobby liberal grad students, played with uniform excellence by Cameron Diaz (showing early promise), Ron Eldard, Courtney B. Vance, Annabeth Gish, and co-producer Jonathan Penner. Having acquired a taste for blood, the wine-poisoning liberals stage "last suppers" with hand-picked targets (Charles Durning, Mark Harmon, Jason Alexander, and ultimately Ron Perlman), eventually attracting a suspicious sheriff (fine work by SNL alumnus Nora Dunn). It's got all the subtlety of a pile-driver, but The Last Supper craftily defends free speech by exposing its most vicious violations. -Jeff Shannon.

Demi Moore and Patrick Swayze are the passionate lovers whose romance is undone when the latter is murdered during a bungled hit arranged by a rival. The clever concept by screenwriter Bruce Joel Rubin extends into comedy (Swayze's character communicates through a sassy medium played by Whoopi Goldberg, who won an Oscar for this role), horror (the afterlife is populated by hell-bound demons and the like) and romantic complications (a handsome suitor, played by Tony Goldwyn, comes on to Moore while Swayze's spirit is still hanging around). Directed by Jerry Zucker, previously best known for co-directing Airplane! and similar broad comedies, Ghost is a careful balancing act of strong commercial elements, but at heart it is a timeless Hollywood tearjerker that easily gets under one's skin. -Tom Keogh, Amazon. com.

The lunatics are running the asylum in The Ninth Configuration-but are they really lunatics? Is Colonel Kane (Stacy Keach) really a noted psychiatrist assigned to supervise patients in an experimental government clinic or is he really "Killer" Kane, a decorated US Marine who committed atrocities in Vietnam before going insane? These are just some of the puzzles that will eventually be solved in this giddy and often brilliant drama created by William Peter Blatty, who wrote The Exorcist before going on to direct this adaptation of his own novel, Twinkle, Twinkle, Killer Kane. A satirical study of war's traumatic aftermath, the film uses battle psychosis as the springboard for a delirious and scathingly intelligent human tragedy, laced with some of the wittiest dialogue you're ever likely to hear. The film boasts a veritable menagerie of crazy characters, all brought vividly to life by a stellar supporting cast. One patient is preparing a production of Shakespeare with an all-dog cast. Another is convinced he's Superman and the resident doctor can't seem to find his trousers. But there's a method to this madness and it takes a barroom brawl-one of the most memorable in film history-to provide the harsh slap of reality to Blatty's elaborate group therapy scheme. When the true purpose of The Ninth Configuration is revealed, the film (and particularly the fine performances of Keach and Wilson) offers a depth of compassionate sanity that may well take you completely by surprise. -Jeff Shannon, Amazon. com.

A stylish piece of neo-noir, D. O. A. was directed by Rocky Morton and Annabel Jankel during their glory days as creators of Max Headroom. Sometimes mocked at the time for its extravagant visual imagery, this is a film which has aged better than might have been expected. Vastly reworked from the 40s original, D. O. A. stars Dennis Quaid as the burned-out campus novelist who discovers he has been fatally poisoned and sets out to find his killer in the short time left to him, along the way rediscovering his love for the life he is going to lose. Quaid is good enough both at chain-smoking cynicism and angry zest that this becomes emotionally credible; a worryingly young Meg Ryan is excellent as the hero-worshipping sophomore he co-opts into his search. [+]