While no one can doubt Terry Gilliam's overwhelming talent for capturing his wild imagination on celluloid, his critics are quick to point out that his movies suffer structurally. But even the harshest naysayers have to admit, Gilliam didn't put a foot wrong with the '40s-futuristic, red-tape-nightmare dark comedy Brazil, in which a simple clerical error causes unambitious clerk Sam Lowry (Jonathan Pryce) to try to escape his oppressive reality. It's rich in irony, steeped in surrealism and touched with genius, especially in Gilliam's pipe-constricted visualisation of a 1984-like society where bureaucracy dictates. Easily one of the greatest movies of the '80s yet, bizarrely, it remains an overlooked masterpiece.

DVD Extras:

Time for a little compare-and-contrast. The Region One Criterion edition of Brazil: three discs, two versions of the film, two commentaries, two documentaries, several interviews, storyboards, FX studies... This Region Two DVD: one 30-minute documentary and a trailer. Fair enough, the doc is a decent on-set delve-around, revealing cut scenes (see right) and stuffing in plenty of interviews (including a never-serious Michael Palin). But if ever there was a case to go multi-region and start importing, this is it.