The Best 25 DVDs of the Year

#11: PRESTON STURGES COLLECTION
Sturges, the rich, charming, recklessly comic Hollywood outsider of the 1940s, made movies that are now curiously unknown to audiences born after Star Wars. This invaluable seven-disc package will help catch you up on the pleasures of Sullivan's Travels, The Lady Eve, The Palm Beach Story, Hail the Conquering Hero, The Great McGinty, Christmas in July and The Great Moment. Get cracking.
HOT BONUS None needed. These classic movies are gift enough.
KILLER SCENE Watching Henry Fonda try to fix the strap on Barbara Stanwyck's sexy sling-backs in The Lady Eve is a major turn-on.

#12: SUPERMAN RETURNS
Director Bryan Singer's conception of Superman, played by Brandon Routh, as a Christ figure trying to save the world from its own worst instincts intrigued audiences without blowing them away. But the film's thoughtfulness justifies another look on this two-disc edition.
HOT BONUS "Requiem for Krypton," a three-hour (you heard me) doc on the making of the film.
KILLER SCENE Superman's rescue of a crashing space shuttle.

#13: SAW II
The Saw franchise continues to buzz, because it?s the real bloody deal, not the punk-ass PG-13 slop now passing for horror. Tobin Bell makes Jigsaw, the clue-dropping killer, a classic. And this two-disc uncut edition caresses every moment of hardcore sadism as Jigsaw traps eight new victims.
HOT BONUS Behind the scenes of Jigsaw?s cruelest setups: the head trap, the needle pit, the hand trap and the furnace. Yum.
KILLER SCENE The opener, with the guy who has to gouge out his own eye to find the key Jigsaw has implanted behind his peeper. A head trap will crush his skull unless he finds the key in time. Double yum.

#14: THANK YOU FOR SMOKING
A scathing satire from Christopher Buckley's book. Aaron Eckhart scores as the tobacco lobbyist who puts a pro-smoking spin on Washington, Hollywood and his own son. The spiffy widescreen transfer lights up the DVD to enhance your viewing pleasure.
HOT BONUS "America: Living in Spin" is a superior extra in which the actors and filmmakers discuss what it takes to make Americans so willing to kid themselves.
KILLER SCENE Eckhart comparing notes with two other merchants of death: Maria Bello, who hustles alcohol, and David Koechner, who lobbies for guns.

#15: A SCANNER DARKLY
Shooting with live actors and then computer-painting over them, director Richard Linklater turns Philip K. Dick's futuristic novel about undercover drug cop Bob Arctor (Keanu Reeves) into a striking visual dreamscape that transfers beautifully to DVD.
HOT BONUS A look into the animation process, called interpolated rotoscoping. It takes 500 hours to create a mere minute of footage.
KILLER SCENE The first glimpse of Bob in the scramble suit that turns him into a walking hologram, making it impossible for anyone to get a fix on his identity.