Dario Argento's 2001 feature Sleepless didn't receive a cinematic release in the UK, and it's not hard to see why. The movie often feels like Argento on auto-pilot, rehashing images and ideas and camera angles from his more inspired films like Suspiria or Tenebrae. The dialogue is leaden, the plot is a plodding whodunnit (and most of the time it's hard to care who) and the acting, with the exception of the veteran Max von Sydow, is mostly atrocious and crudely dubbed. But then again, no one ever came to an Argento movie for the plot or the dialogue, and least of all for the acting. The key to his mastery has always been the atmosphere of a nightmare that he conjures up, with all its jagged imagery and complete absence of narrative logic. The less sense it makes, the scarier it gets.

Sleepless never attains anywhere near a level of nightmarish intensity, but it has its moments--especially the least rational ones. Although the plot involves no elements of the supernatural, and everything is finally (if cumbersomely) explained, it's episodes like the first killing (where the murderer traps his victim on a speeding train he couldn't possibly have boarded) that strike most effectively home. The action involves a retired police inspector (von Sydow) lured back to investigate a series of killings in Turin that replicate murders he was assigned to 17 years earlier. As always with Argento, knives figure prominently, as do prowling steadicam tracking shots, old dark houses and females butchered in any number of gory and far-fetched ways. The film looks unfailingly good, courtesy of its rich dark palate of colours, Ronnie Taylor's sinuous camera, and Argento's favourite group Goblin contribute an edgy, insidious score.

On the DVD: Sleepless on DVD comes with a clear, sharp transfer that's a pleasure to watch, with no loss of detail even in the many underlit scenes. Picture is matched for clarity by the terrific 5.1 Dolby Digital sound. This, unlike the truncated US and German DVD releases, is the full 117-minute original, shown in 1.85:1 widescreen. The two-disc set includes a generous helping of extras: stills gallery, the theatrical trailer (in Italian only, though), a 15-minute "making of" featurette, plus an informative one-hour documentary, Dario Argento--An Eye for Horror, narrated by Mark Kermode and previously shown on Channel Four at Christmas 2001.--Philip Kemp

The director and stars of 1998's You've Got Mail scored a breakthrough hit with this hugely popular romantic comedy from 1993, about a recently engaged woman (Meg Ryan) who hears the sad story of a grieving widower (Tom Hanks) on the radio and believes that they are destined to be together. She's single in New York, he lives in Seattle with a young son, but the cross-country attraction proves irresistible and pretty soon Meg's on a westbound flight. What happens from there is... well, you must have been living in a cave to have let this sweet-hearted comedy slip below your pop-cultural radar. There's little complexity or depth to writer-director Nora Ephron's cheesy tale of a romantic fait accompli, and more than a little contrivance to the subplots that threaten to keep Hanks and Ryan from actually meeting. But the purity of star chemistry here is hard to deny, and this may be the first film to indicate the more serious and sympathetic side of Hanks that is revealed in later roles. With its clever jokes about "chick movies" and repeated homage to the classic weeper An Affair to Remember, this may not be everybody's brand of amorous entertainment, but it's got an old-Hollywood charm that appeals to many a movie fan. --Jeff Shannon, Amazon.com

The secret to "getting" Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow is appreciating that it's the film he's wanted to make his whole life. After the intimately expressive Edward Scissorhands, this is his most personal venture. Burton's Gothic style--apparent through all his work--stems from a childhood misspent watching the horror movies of Roger Corman, Hammer studios, and anything featuring his idol Vincent Price. For Sleepy Hollow Burton surrounded himself with his usual collaborators and friends; the production was almost entirely shot on location outside London to reunite him with key members of the crew he'd used a decade earlier in Batman, and also to capture the atmosphere of Hammer horror on its own turf.

Johnny Depp's Constable Ichabod Crane warmly emulates the mannerisms and enunciation of Peter Cushing. In a prologue scene Burton plays out a long-held fantasy by pitting Depp against Christopher Lee. And it is fantasy that categorises the film throughout, from the mythical fireside telling of the Hessian Horseman's origin (a mesmerising Christopher Walken), to the bright spots of colour saturating Crane's childhood dreams (featuring Burton's real-life love Lisa Marie). These moments literally shine out amid a meticulously crafted look for the film, which underwent a bleaching process to tone things down to an almost monochrome hue. The Scooby Doo-like whodunnit plot, concerning family lineage and petty vengeance, is naturally secondary to what Burton is aiming to achieve through photography and performance, which includes expressive cameos from Michael Gambon, Michael Gough, Jeffrey Jones, and Iain McDiarmid. Yet despite all these subtleties, it's also his best action movie: the swordplay betters anything from his earlier work, while the windmill escape and subsequent coach chase is truly breathtaking in choreography and execution. If you find a cheesy grin on your face for most of the film, you've "got" it. If not, see Hammer's Dracula at once! --Paul Tonks