A raw bunch of Soviet conscripts are drilled into shape on the training ground and dropped into the thick of it in Afghanistan. A big box office hit in Russia this may, like films about the American invasion of Vietnam, be politically naive, but as a war drama it pulls no punchs and, with the possible exception of a silly, poorly edited final battle scene, delivers the goods in superb fashion. find out more...

Bobby Sands was the IRA member who led the 1981 Long Kesh hunger strike as part of a campaign to achieve the status of political prisoners and not that of criminals. The first section of film deals with daily prison life, the 'dirty' protest and the violence, the second is a long discussion on the meaning of life with a sympathetic priest and the third depicts the last weeks and death of a man voluntarily dying of starvation. find out more...

Back in England, in the early 80s, bullied at school and mourning his father, recently dead in Thatcher's heroic Falklands War, lonely 12-year-old Shaun finds solace with a gang of older youths in the ska influenced skinhead subculture, a culture that was about to be hijacked by a nasty and virulent form of white power nationalism. Largely based round Shane Meadows' own experiences growing up on an impoverished Nottingham housing estate. Strongly recommended. find out more...

Set in an alternative America of the 1980s, at a time when the US and the USSR seemed set for an apocalyptic war, a group of retired Masked Heroes reunite after one of their number is murdered. What they uncover seems to point toward a greater, more sinister plot. find out more...