DVD Gift Guide: What to get that cinephile in your life

Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation & Spy

(For those with James Bond fatigue)

The 007 series felt a bit tired with latest instalment Spectre, but it looks dead on its feet when compared to these two espionage offshoots. In the latest Mission: Impossible movie, Tom Cruise elevates the stunt to the kind of death-defying art form that Buster Keaton used to specialise in, but we also get Hitchcockian suspense (a dizzying assassination attempt at the Vienna Opera), a heart-in-mouth motorbike chase and a female love interest more badass than our hero. Similarly, Spy suggests that Moneypenny might be the match for Bond as Melissa McCarthy plays a CIA desk jockey thrown into a deadly field assignment. And anyone disappointed with Christoph Waltz’s limp baddie in Spectre should get a kick out of Rose Byrne as a catty Bulgarian super-villain with an Amy Winehouse barnet and a bag full of bitchy putdowns.

Released on DVD and Blu-ray by Universal Pictures and 20th Century Fox respectively

The Shôhei Imamura Masterpiece Collection

(For lovers of debauched cinema)

Shôhei Imamura is Japan's greatest post-war director but his films are too seldom seen. This eight-film box set is a perfect introduction. Far removed from the serenity of Ozu and Mizoguchi, Imamura’s films are rambunctious and dazzling, concerned with sex, violence and the lives of Japan’s underclass of hookers and hustlers. Imamura summarised his career more succinctly: "I am interested in the relationship of the lower part of the human body and the lower part of the social structure."

Released on DVD and Blu-ray by Eureka Entertainment

The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension & Zardoz

(For cultists)

What is a cult movie? Judging from rep cinema screenings and Netflix’s search function, just about anything that’s off-beat from the mainstream. True cult movies, however, aren't just left-field, they’re playing a whole different ballgame on a patch of dirt two fields over. In Buckaroo Banzai, as the title suggests, we follow a sci-fi polymath (speed racer, physicist, brain surgeon, jazz-funk star) across another dimension, while Zardoz (the crazy passion project John Boorman was allowed to make after the success of Deliverance) sees Sean Connery’s Zed, a barbarian in a proto-mankini, upend a society of immortals. The joy of both films is immersing yourself in the myth and lore of the batshit-crazy worlds in which they take place.

Both released on DVD and Blu-ray by Arrow Films

Mad Max: Fury Road & John Wick

(For old-school action fans)

Seeing real people fight or fly through the air is more rousing than watching pixels do the same. But experiencing a modern-day action film (say a Marvel movie or enduring Peter Jackson’s Hobbit series) feels less like cinema and more like looking over the shoulder of someone else playing a video game. The genre got a shot in the arm in 2015, however, with these two action movie masterworks. In Fury Road, George Miller seamlessly and thrillingly marries 21st century digital filmmaking with the stunt work he mastered on Mad Max and The Road Warrior. Assassin revenge yarn John Wick, meanwhile, is a gorgeous martial arts ballet that doesn’t hide its choreography with cut-up editing.

Both released on DVD and Blu-ray by Warner Home Video

La Grande Bouffe

(For those looking for the true Christmas spirit)

Forget It’s a Wonderful Life – Marco Ferreri’s debauched black comedy is the ultimate Christmas movie. Think about it: four men hole themselves up in a Parisian villa and gorge themselves to death on gourmet delights. Its consumerist excess has more in common with Christmas than Jimmy Stewart’s humble altruism. Turn it on after you’ve polished off your tenth mince pie and enjoy two hours of the kind of gluttony that would have Dionysus reaching for the Alka-Seltzer.

Released on DVD and Blu-ray by Arrow Films

The DUFF & Dope

(For fans of coming-of-age films with bite)

Two fresh and joyous teen movies came and went at UK cinemas with little fanfare this year, but both deserve an audience on DVD. The DUFF seems to hit every teen movie cliche before subverting each with wit and verve, while Dope chronicles a geeky, middle-class black teen's attempt to reinvent himself as a gangster when he comes into the possession of a bag of narcotics. What makes both films sing is their knockout casts. Arrested Development’s Mae Whitman exudes charm and screwball smarts in the former while the performances by the ensemble of newcomers in the latter are as colourful as their characters' 90s hip-hop-fetishising apparel.

Released on DVD and Blu-ray by E1 Ent and Sony Pictures Home Ent respectively