The Camera Is Ours - Britain's Women Documentary Makers review - four decades of directors rediscovered

★★★ THE CAMERA IS OURS - BRITAIN'S WOMEN DOCUMENTARY MAKERS Four decades of directors rediscovered 

Revelations in British social history from the Thirties to the Sixties through the eyes of women

The Camera Is Ours features films made from 1935-1967 by women like Marion and Ruby Grierson, Evelyn Spice and Margaret Thomson, whose names should be engraved in the history of British film-making.

DVD/Blu-ray: South

★★★★ DVD/BLU-RAY: SOUTH The complete BFI set digs well beyond Hurley's showpiece feature

The complete BFI set digs well beyond Hurley's showpiece feature

There is little denying that the Antarctic continent is no longer possessed of the allure that it once was. By all accounts, particularly those unspoken, Antarctica has been betrayed, usurped, eclipsed.

Beyond the sober walls of research laboratories, or the heady enthusiasm of university corridors, people today have scant interest in the icy land mass, twice the size of Australia, on average the coldest, driest, windiest of continents, home to penguins, seals and tardigrades, that 2016 Animal of the Year, though it may be.

Blu-ray: Ingmar Bergman Vol 2

The timeless work of a cinematic master

In my teens, I was one of the budding cinephiles who ran the Film Club at my boarding school. Once a month, we’d rent an arthouse movie. The films would be projected on the Saturday night.

Blu-ray: Bleak Moments

More than a period curio: Mike Leigh's striking debut returns, remastered

That Bleak Moments exists at all is largely due to Albert Finney; the BFI funded Mike Leigh’s 1971 debut to the tune of £100, as an "experimental film", and Finney’s production company supplied the rest of the £18,000 budget. Shot on location in suburban South London, Bleak Moments looks incredibly assured and confident.

Blu-ray: Out of the Blue

★★★★★ BLU-RAY: OUT OF THE BLUE Beautiful restoration of Dennis Hopper's dark portrait of a family mired in abuse

Beautiful restoration of Dennis Hopper's dark portrait of a family mired in abuse

In an era when toxic masculinity has become a clichéd accusation to throw at any portrait of men behaving macho, it’s fascinating to revisit Dennis Hopper’s 1980 movie Out of the Blue.

Blu-ray: One of Our Aircraft Is Missing

★★★★★ BLU-RAY: ONE OF OUR AIRCRAFT IS MISSING The tense 1942 Powell and Pressburger RAF drama that salutes the Dutch Resistance

The tense 1942 Powell and Pressburger RAF drama that salutes the Dutch Resistance

The fourth feature made by writer-director partners Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, One of Our Aircraft Is Missing is not as celebrated as the six consecutive masterworks with which they followed it. It’s nonetheless a remarkably atmospheric film that outlined the shape of things to come.

Blu-ray: The River

★★★★★ BLU-RAY: THE RIVER When Technicolour really was glorious

When Technicolour really was glorious: Jean Renoir in India

The cinema fan in your life is going to thank you for this one. The BFI’s new two-disc Blu-ray version of Jean Renoir’s 1951 The River, filmed in India, is absolutely packed with extras: no fewer than six other offerings, including a 90-minute "documentary film-fiction hybrid" by Roberto Rossellini, an hour-long documentary, and even some early 20th century footage from India.

Bank Job review - an inspirational look at finance

★★★★★ BANK JOB An inspirational look at finance

How to beat the system and laugh all the way to the bank

A fun film about finance – really? From the very first frame I was hooked on this can-do documentary; it’s that good. A young family – parents, Dan Edelstyn and Hilary Powell, two kids and two dogs – gather at the front door of their Victorian terraced house in Walthamstow and grin sheepishly to camera. “This is what acting is”, Dan tells his daughter Esme, “it’s cold, it’s embarrassing… Hello, we’re the Edelstyn family.”

Blu-ray: Radio On

★★★★★ BLU-RAY: RADIO ON British cinema's finest road movie is anti-British cinema

British cinema's finest road movie is anti-British cinema

Chris Petit's Radio On, his 1979 debut as writer-director, should be regarded as the first British psychogeography film.