"Actor: Dustin Hoffman"

• Wag The Dog | DVD | (01/10/1999) from £19.85   |  Saving you £0.14 (0.71%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Wag the Dog (1997) is a rarity: an intelligent, sophisticated and very funny film about American politics. Just before an election the President--in an uncanny anticipation of real life--gets sexually involved with a young woman, leaving spin-doctor Robert De Niro to think of something quick. He enlists Hollywood producer Dustin Hoffman to help him concoct a war against Albania to take the public's mind off the President's peccadilloes. Both stars are in top form, with Hoffman particularly funny as the larger than life producer. Scripted by David Mamet (House of Games, Glengarry Glen Ross) and directed by Barry Levinson, (whose previous comedies include Good Morning, Vietnam with Robin Williams and Tin Men with Danny De Vito) Wag the Dog manages to make you laugh even while you're thinking about how true the insights are, and how politics is getting more like the media every day. On the DVD: The so-called platinum DVD is packed with features. There is a series of production shots, assembled in no particular order, some showing the director watching filming on his monitor. There are interview clips with Hoffman, De Niro, Anne Heche, William H Macy and Barry Levinson talking about the film, plus scrolled filmographies. There's an audio commentary on the whole film by Levinson and Hoffman, occasionally rambling but with some interesting insights. In another feature, Macy talks at some length about David Mamet. There are extensive scroll-down production notes giving useful information (such as the film's budget), and finally a 50-minute documentary in which producer Jane Rosenthal talks about the relationship between the film and real-life politics. Her comments are supplemented by such luminaries as writer Budd Schulberg, director John Frankenheimer, newscaster Tom Brokaw and Dee Dee Myers, former White House press secretary. The Dolby Digital soundtrack is good quality, as is the image in 16:9 ratio. --Ed Buscombe

• Kramer vs Kramer | DVD | (16/04/2007) from £5.70   |  Saving you £0.29 (5.09%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Winner of five Academy Awards including Best Picture, Actor, and Screenplay, Kramer vs. Kramer remains as powerfully moving today as it was when released in 1979, simply because its drama will remain relevant for couples of any generation. Adapted by director Robert Benton from the novel by Avery Corman, this is perhaps the finest, most evenly balanced film ever made about the failure of marriage and the tumultuous shift of parental roles. It begins when Joanna Kramer (Meryl Streep) bluntly informs her husband Ted (Dustin Hoffman) that she's leaving him, just as his advertising career is advancing and demanding most of his waking hours. Self-involvement is just one of the film's underlying themes, along with the search for identity that prompts Joanna to leave Ted with their first-grade son (Justin Henry), who now finds himself living with a workaholic parent he barely knows. Juggling his domestic challenge with professional deadlines, Ted is further pressured when his wife files for custody of their son. This legal battle forms the dramatic spine of the film, but its power is derived from Benton's flawlessly observant script and the superlative performances of his entire cast. Because Benton refuses to assign blame and deals fairly with both sides of a devastating dilemma, the film arrives at equal levels of pain, growth, and integrity under emotionally stressful circumstances. That gives virtually every scene the unmistakable ring of truth--a quality of dramatic honestly that makes Kramer vs. Kramer not merely a classic tearjerker, but one of the finest American dramas of its decade. --Jeff Shannon, Amazon.com

• The Graduate 50th Anniversary Edition | Blu Ray | (14/08/2017) from £7.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  50th ANNIVERSARY EDITION BRAND NEW RESTORATION A complete sensation on its original release in 1967, THE GRADUATE was a one-of-a-kind cinematic portrait of America which captured the mood of disaffected youth seething beneath the laid-back exterior of 1960s California. It earned Mike Nichols a Best Director Oscar, introduced the music of Simon & Garfunkel to a wider audience and featured one of the most famous seductions in movie history and a truly iconic final scene. THE GRADUATE also introduced the world to a young actor named Dustin Hoffman, perfectly cast as the jaw-droppingly naïve Benjamin. Benjamin Braddock (Dustin Hoffman) has just finished college and is already lost in a sea of confusion as he wonders what to do with his life. He returns to his parents' luxurious Beverly Hills home, where he idles away the summer floating in the pool and brooding in silence. He is rescued from the boredom when he is seduced into a clandestine affair with a middle-aged married friend of his parents, Mrs Robinson (Anne Bancroft). That liaison is soon complicated by Benjamin's infatuation with her college-age daughter Elaine (Katharine Ross). Visually imaginative and impeccably acted, with a witty, endlessly quotable script by Calder Willingham and Buck Henry (based on the novel by Charles Webb), with a supporting cast that includes William Daniels, Murray Hamilton, Walter Brooke and Elizabeth Wilson, THE GRADUATE had the kind of cultural impact that comes along only once in a generation.

• Little Fockers | DVD | (18/04/2011) from £5.28   |  Saving you £17.70 (772.93%)   |  RRP £19.99

  The test of wills between Jack Byrnes (Robert De Niro) and Greg Focker (Ben Stiller) reaches new heights in the third instalment of the blockbusting, comedy series.

• Meet the Fockers | DVD | (02/07/2006) from £3.99   |  Saving you £16.00 (401.00%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Dustin Hoffman and Barbra Streisand join Ben Stiller for another disastrous family get-together in the sequel to smash hit "Meet the Parents."

• Mr Magorium's Wonder Emporium | DVD | (12/05/2008) from £5.99   |  Saving you £10.00 (166.95%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Dustin Hoffman and Natalie Portman star in this story about the strangest, most fantastic, most wonderful toy store in the world.

• Sleepers | Blu Ray | (12/04/2011) from £16.99   |  Saving you £3.00 (17.66%)   |  RRP £19.99

  To four boys growing up on the streets in the mid 1960s Hell's Kitchen was a place of innocence ruled by corruption. The infamous New York City neighbourhood that stretched north from 34th to 56th Street and pushed west from the 8th Avenue to the Hudson River was guided by both priest and gangsters. The children who grew up there shared joyful times but subscribed to a sacred social code-crimes against the neighbourhood were not permitted and when they did occur punishment was severe. Four friends made a mistake that changed their lives forever...

• Lenny | DVD | (23/06/2003) from £8.98   |  Saving you £7.00 (116.86%)   |  RRP £12.99

  From his first gig as a nervous Catskills comedian it's obvious that Lenny Bruce (Dustin Hoffman) is a force to be reckoned with. Armed with a shocking routine and a stripper as his muse (Valerie Perrine) Lenny turns comedy and America on its ear with his abrasive and often offensive humour. But life in the smoke-filled bars of the comedy curcuit begins to take its toll. The drugs and arrests for his subject matter wear heavily on this maverick crusader but don't stop him from goi

• Kramer vs Kramer / Lorenzo's Oil / Born Free - A New Adventure | DVD | (06/09/2004) from £19.99   |  Saving you £-5.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £14.99

  Kramer vs. Kramer: Kramer vs Kramer is the box office smash that gathered 5 Oscars including Best Picture Best Actor for Dustin Hoffman and Best Supporting Actress for Meryl Streep. Returning home late from work one night a career-obsessed Ted Kramer is told by his wife that she is leaving him. After a life of being 'somebody's daughter' or 'somebody's wife ' she's going off to find herself - leaving Ted to care for their 6 year-old son. Ted while trying to hold down his job gets to really know his son: cooking his meals taking him to the park understanding every need and fear. For the first time in his life he feels like a fulfilled parent. But then Joanna returns. And she wants her son back... Born Free: A New Adventure: Set in the heart of Africa Elsa the Lioness tranforms the lives of two American teenagers struggling to come to terms with a family move from downtown Chicago. Lorenzo's Oil: A five-year-old boy Lorenzo Odone is diagnosed as having a brain disease known as ALD a condition so rare that no medical body has undertaken to research the ailment and develop a cure. Desperate Lorenzo's parents (Nolte and Sarandon) embark on a desperate search for a cure and must battle the medical establishment when they make astounding progress using humble olive oil...

• Runaway Jury | DVD | (14/06/2004) from £5.50   |  Saving you £10.49 (190.73%)   |  RRP £15.99

  A member of the jury for an explosive trial against a gun manufacturer joins forces with a beautiful woman to manipulate the panel.

• Rain Man | DVD | (17/04/2019) from £3.95   |  Saving you £16.04 (406.08%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Charlie Babbitt (Tom Cruise) expects a vast inheritance after his father dies. But the entire fortune is left to Raymond (Dustin Hoffman) his older brother, an 'autistic Savant' Charlie never even knew existed.

• Meet The Parents/Meet The Fockers | DVD | (07/09/2009) from £8.99   |  Saving you £4.00 (44.49%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Meet The Fockers (2004): And you thought your parents were embarrassing. Domestic disaster looms for male nurse Greg Focker (Stiller) when his straight-laced ex-CIA father-in-law (De Niro) asks to meet his wildly unconventional mom (Streisand) and dad (Hoffman). It's family bonding gone hysterically haywire in this must-see comedy! Meet The Parents - Special Edition (2000): First comes love. Then comes the interrogation! Male nurse Greg Focker (Ben Stiller) is poised to propose to his girlfriend Pam (Teri Polo) during a weekend stay at her parents' home. But here's the catch... he needs to ask her father first. Alas the fur flies as Jack Byrnes Pam's cat-crazy ex-CIA father (Robert De Niro) takes an immediate dislike to her less-than-truthful beau. Greg's quest for approval gets seriously sidetracked as Murphy's Law takes over and a hilarious string of mishaps turn him into a master of disaster and total pariah in the eyes of the entire family... all except for his shell-shocked girlfriend who can't believe she still loves her one-man wreaking crew. 'Meet The Parents' from the director of 'Austin Powers' is an uproarious blockbuster hit that bombards you with one laugh after another as true love tries to conquer all against all the odds!

• The Cobbler | DVD | (04/01/2016) from £7.85   |  Saving you £12.14 (154.65%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Max Simkin (Adam Sandler) repairs shoes in the same New York shop that has been in his family for generations. Disenchanted with the grind of daily life, Max stumbles upon a magical heirloom that allows him to step into the lives of his customers and see the world in a new way. Sometimes walking in another man's shoes is the only way one can discover who they really are.

• Sleepers | DVD | (17/04/2019) from £5.69   |  Saving you £10.30 (181.02%)   |  RRP £15.99

  The first thing you need to know about Sleepers is that it's based on a novel by Lorenzo Carcaterra that was allegedly based on a true story. The movie repeats this bogus claim, which was attacked and determined by a wide majority to be misleading. Knowing this, Sleepers becomes problematic because it's too neat, too clean, too manipulative in terms of legal justice and dramatic impact to be truly convincing. And yet, with its stellar cast directed by Barry Levinson, it succeeds as gripping entertainment, and its tale of complex morality--despite a dubious emphasis on homophobic revenge--is sufficiently provocative. It's about four boys in New York's Hell's Kitchen district who are sent to reform school, where they must endure routine sexual assaults by the sadistic guards. Years after their release, the opportunity for revenge proves irresistible for two of the young men, who must then rely on the other pair of friends (Brad Pitt, Jason Patric), a loyal priest (Robert De Niro), and a shabby lawyer (Dustin Hoffman) to defend them in court. Despite the compelling ambiguities of the story, there's never any doubt about how we're supposed to feel, and the screenplay glosses over the story's most difficult moral dilemmas. At its best, Sleepers grabs your attention and pulls you into its intense story of friendship and the price of loyalty under extreme conditions. The movie's New York settings are vividly authentic, and Minnie Driver makes a strong impression as a long-time friend of the loyal group of guys. --Jeff Shannon, Amazon.com

• Midnight Cowboy | DVD | (01/02/2000) from £7.19   |  Saving you £5.80 (80.67%)   |  RRP £12.99

  The first, and only, X-rated film to win a best picture Academy Award, John Schlesinger's Midnight Cowboy seems a lot less daring today (and has been reclassified as an R), but remains a fascinating time capsule of late-1960s sexual decadence in mainstream American cinema. In a career-making performance, Jon Voight plays Joe Buck, a naive Texas dishwasher who goes to the big city (New York) to make his fortune as a sexual hustler. Although enthusiastic about selling himself to rich ladies for stud services, he quickly finds it hard to make a living and eventually crashes in a seedy dump with a crippled petty thief named Ratzo Rizzo (Dustin Hoffman, doing one of his more effective "stupid acting tricks," with a limp and a high-pitch rasp of a voice). Schlesinger's quick-cut, semi-psychedelic style has dated severely, as has his ruthlessly cynical approach to almost everybody but the lead characters. But at its heart the movie is a sad tale of friendship between a couple of losers lost in the big city, and with an ending no studio would approve today. It's a bit like an urban Of Mice and Men, but where both guys are Lenny. --Jim Emerson

• Rain Man | Blu Ray | (21/02/2011) from £7.99   |  Saving you £8.00 (100.13%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Dustin Hoffman joins Tom Cruise to bring a funny and moving tale of brotherly love to the screen. Heartless Charlie Babbitt expects a vast inheritance after his estranged father dies. But Raymond his institutionalised older brother someone he's been totally unaware of is willed the entire fortune instead. Raymond is an 'autistic Savant' with severely limited mental abilities in some areas but with genius gifts in others. When Charlie kidnaps Raymond the crazy cross-country drive back to Los Angeles teaches them both a few lessons in life. For as they overcome their mutual distrust of each other a deep bond is forged as they painfully share past memories present problems and a possible shining future together.

• Chef | Blu Ray | (03/11/2014) from £6.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  The UV copy is only available in the UK and Ireland. When Chef Carl Casper (Jon Favreau; Iron Man) suddenly quits his job at a prominent Los Angeles restaurant after refusing to compromise his creative integrity for its controlling owner (Dustin Hoffman; Rain Man ), he is left to figure out what's next. Finding himself in Miami, he teams up with his ex-wife (Sofia Vergara; TVs Modern Family), his friend (John Leguizamo; Kick-Ass 2) and his son (Emjay Anthony; It's Complicated) to launch a food truck. Taking to the road, Chef Carl goes back to his roots to reignite his passion for the kitchen - and zest for life and love. Also starring Scarlett Johansson (The Avengers Assemble).

• Sphere | DVD | (23/10/1998) from £2.87   |  Saving you £12.38 (768.94%)   |  RRP £13.99

  From yet another derivative science fiction novel by Michael Crichton comes Sphere, an equally derivative and flaccid movie, in which three top Hollywood stars struggle to squeeze tension and excitement out of material that doesn't match their talents. You're supposed to find awe and mystery in Crichton's story about a team of scientists and scholars who discover a 300-year-old alien spacecraft deep on the ocean floor, but mostly you feel that this is all much ado about nothing. The exploration team consists of a psychologist (Dustin Hoffman), mathematician (Samuel L Jackson), biochemist (Sharon Stone), and an astrophysicist (Live Schreiber), and when they enter the alien ship they discover a mysterious sphere inside. What they don't know is that the sphere has the power to manipulate their thoughts and perceptions, and before long the scientists' undersea habitat is a veritable haunted house of frightening visions and creeping paranoia. Who can be trusted? What is the sphere's purpose, and why is it on the ocean floor? Sphere makes some attempt to answer these questions, but the film is a mess, and it leads to one of the most anticlimactic endings of any science fiction film ever made. There are moments of high intensity and psychological suspense, and the stellar cast works hard to boost the talky screenplay. But it's clear that this was a hurried production (Hoffman and director Barry Levinson made Wag the Dog during an extended production delay), and as a result Sphere looks and feels like a film that wasn't quite ready for the cameras. Though it's by no means a waste of time, it's undeniably disappointing. --Jeff Shannon, Amazon.com

• Joan Of Arc | Blu Ray | (24/08/2020) from £6.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Joan is a child when she has a violent and supernatural prophecy, before discovering her village being destroyed by the English army and her sister attacked and murdered before her very eyes. She is taken in by distant relatives but from then on, religion and prayer are her only solace. Some years later, Charles VII (John Malkovich) receives a request from the young adult Joan (Milla Jovovich) for an army to lead into battle against the occupying English forces, as she believes that God is speaking to her through her visions to bring peace to the land. Her resolve overcomes the initial disbelief of those around her and despite being tormented by The Conscious (Dustin Hoffman) she is successful in forcing the English to retreat and Charles VII becomes the King of France. But when she asks for more reinforcements to take Paris, he refuses and conspires to allow her capture so as not to threaten his new position. Director Luc Besson (Leon, The Fifth Element) offers a bold portrayal of the religious martyrdom of Joan of Arc, now fully restored.

• All The President's Men | DVD | (13/02/2006) from £7.78   |  Saving you £9.21 (118.38%)   |  RRP £16.99

  In the Watergate Building lights go on and four burglars are caught in the act. That night triggered revelations that drove a U.S. President from office. Washington reporters Bob Woodward (Robert Redford) and Carl Bernstein (Dustin Hoffman) grabbed the story and stayed with it through doubts denials and discouragement. The entire President's Men is their story. The film also explores a working newspaper where the mission is to get the story - and to get it right.