"Actor: River Phoenix"

• Stand By Me | DVD | (04/12/2000) from £5.65   |  Saving you £7.34 (129.91%)   |  RRP £12.99

  A sleeper hit when released in 1986, Stand by Me is based on Stephen King's novella "The Body" (from the book Different Seasons); but it's more about the joys and pains of boyhood friendship than a morbid fascination with corpses. It's about four boys ages 12 and 13 (Wil Wheaton, River Phoenix, Corey Feldman, Jerry O'Connell) who take an overnight hike through the woods near their Oregon town to find the body of a boy who's been missing for days. Their journey includes a variety of scary adventures (including a ferocious junkyard dog, a swamp full of leeches and a treacherous leap from a train trestle), but it's also a time for personal revelations, quiet interludes and the raucous comradeship of best friends. Set in the 1950s, the movie indulges an overabundance of anachronistic profanity and a kind of idealistic, golden-toned nostalgia (it's told in flashback as a story written by Wheaton's character as an adult, played by Richard Dreyfuss). But it's delightfully entertaining from start to finish, thanks to the rapport among its young cast members and the timeless, universal themes of friendship, family and the building of character and self-esteem. Kiefer Sutherland makes a memorable teenage villain and look closely for John Cusack in a flashback scene as Wheaton's now-deceased and dearly missed brother. A genuine crowd-pleaser, this heartfelt movie led director Rob Reiner to even greater success with his next film, The Princess Bride. --Jeff Shannon

• Stand By Me | Blu Ray | (08/08/2011) from £7.99   |  Saving you £12.00 (150.19%)   |  RRP £19.99

  A sleeper hit when released in 1986, Stand by Me is based on Stephen King's novella "The Body" (from the book Different Seasons); but it's more about the joys and pains of boyhood friendship than a morbid fascination with corpses. It's about four boys ages 12 and 13 (Wil Wheaton, River Phoenix, Corey Feldman, Jerry O'Connell) who take an overnight hike through the woods near their Oregon town to find the body of a boy who's been missing for days. Their journey includes a variety of scary adventures (including a ferocious junkyard dog, a swamp full of leeches and a treacherous leap from a train trestle), but it's also a time for personal revelations, quiet interludes and the raucous comradeship of best friends. Set in the 1950s, the movie indulges an overabundance of anachronistic profanity and a kind of idealistic, golden-toned nostalgia (it's told in flashback as a story written by Wheaton's character as an adult, played by Richard Dreyfuss). But it's delightfully entertaining from start to finish, thanks to the rapport among its young cast members and the timeless, universal themes of friendship, family and the building of character and self-esteem. Kiefer Sutherland makes a memorable teenage villain and look closely for John Cusack in a flashback scene as Wheaton's now-deceased and dearly missed brother. A genuine crowd-pleaser, this heartfelt movie led director Rob Reiner to even greater success with his next film, The Princess Bride. --Jeff Shannon

• Sneakers | DVD | (17/04/2019) from £14.44   |  Saving you £-4.45 (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  This enjoyable thriller, written and directed by Phil Alden Robinson (the screenwriter of Field of Dreams), follows a raggedy group of corporate security experts who get in over their heads when they accept an assignment poaching some hot hardware for the National Security Agency. Robert Redford plays the group's guru, an ageing techno-anarchist who has been hiding from the feds since the early 1970s; his companionable gang of freaks includes Dan Aykroyd, David Strathairn, Mary McDonnell, the late River Phoenix, and Sidney Poitier, as a veteran CIA operative turned "sneaker." The technological black box that everybody is after, an array of computer chips that can decode any encrypted message, isn't a very plausible invention, but it's a serviceable McGuffin, and the megalomania of the master plotter played by Ben Kingsley has more resonance than most. Modest inferences can be drawn about the very latest high-tech threats to civil liberties. --David Chute, Amazon.com

• The Thing Called Love (Director's Cut) | DVD | (02/10/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Stand By Your Dream In Nashville Tennessee there are 10 000 singer-songwriters chasing success... with one chance in a million of getting it. For Mirand ""no relation to Elvis"" Presley (Samantha Mathis) that's one chance worth taking. Fresh from New York City Miranda befriends three fellow hopefuls: shy Connecticut cowboy Kyle Davidson (Dermot Mulroney); Southern belle Linda Lue Linden (Sandra Bullock); and James Wright (River Phoenix) a cocky Texan with brooding good looks and a honeyed voice. Together they begin a rocky ride down Music City's well-worn highway to what they hope will be stardom. During their odyssey they encounter happiness heartbreak - and The Thing Called Love.

• My Own Private Idaho | DVD | (01/12/2008) from £4.99   |  Saving you £3.00 (60.12%)   |  RRP £7.99

  Wherever whatever have a nice day... River Phoenix and Keanu Reeves star in director Gus Van Sant's haunting tale of two young street hustlers: Mike Waters (Phoenix) a sensitive narcoleptic who dreams of the mother who abandoned him and Scott Favor (Reeves) wayward son of the mayor of Portland and the object of Mike's desire. Navigating a volatile world of junkies thieves and johns Mike takes Scott on a quest from the grungy streets to the open highways to the Pacific Northwest in search of an elusive place called 'home'. Groundbreaking and visually dazzling 'My Own Private Idaho' is a stirring look at unrequited love and life at society's margins.

• Dogfight (Criterion Collection) UK Only | Blu Ray | (06/05/2024) from £22.30   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  An ineffably bittersweet portrait of youth in the 1960s, Nancy Savoca's funny, sensitive tale of love and war etches two vividly alive characters: aspiring San Francisco folk singer Rose (Lili Taylor) and hotheaded, Vietnam-bound marine Eddie (River Phoenix), who meet on the occasion of a cruelly misogynistic party where men compete to bring the most unattractive dates they can find. But what begins as a night to forget unexpectedly develops into something far more meaningful. Featuring music by folk legends Joan Baez, Bob Dylan, and Pete Seeger, Dogfight captures the miracle of human connection while gracefully subverting ideas surrounding machismo, patriotic duty, and the very meaning of America itself. DIRECTOR-APPROVED BLU-RAY SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES New 2K digital restoration, supervised by director Nancy Savoca, with 2.0 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack Audio commentary featuring Savoca and producer Richard Guay New interview with Savoca and actor Lili Taylor conducted by filmmaker Mary Harron New interviews with cinematographer Bobby Bukowski, production designer Lester Cohen, script supervisor Mary Cybulski, music supervisor Jeff Kimball, supervising sound editor Tim Squyres, and editor John Tintori Trailer English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing PLUS: An essay by film critic Christina Newland New cover inspired by an original theatrical poster

• I Love You To Death | DVD | (17/11/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  I Love You to Death is a spotty black comedy from Lawrence Kasdan (The Big Chill)--based on a true story--that stars Kevin Kline as a womanising pizzeria owner whose mousy wife (Tracey Ullman) tries multiple ways of murdering him with the aid of sundry friends and hired hands. The film never picks up the necessary momentum or develops the necessary tone to drive it and one is left picking and choosing which of the performers is at least adequately entertaining. Kline is good but perhaps a bit too theatrical and Joan Plowright is hilarious as his mother-in-law. The funniest joke in the whole thing belongs to William Hurt and Keanu Reeves as deeply stoned, would-be-killers who emerge from a taxi and look as if they can't remember what planet they're on. --Tom Keogh

• Silent Tongue | DVD | (23/07/2007) from £20.00   |  Saving you £-7.01 (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Silent Tongue was the last River Phoenix film to be released - a year after his premature death - and has never been out before on UK DVD. Written and directed by Pulitzer Prize winner Sam Shepard the film is a haunting Western about a plainsman who will do anything to help his son get over the death of his Native American wife and baby in childbirth. Also stars Dermot Mulroney Richard Harris and Alan Bates.

• Stand By Me 4K Ultra HD Steelbook | Blu Ray | (04/03/2024) from £31.98   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  In a small Oregon town, a group of friends, sensitive Gordie (Wil Wheaton),tough-guy Chris (River Phoenix), flamboyant Teddy (Corey Feldman), and scaredy-cat Vern (Jerry O'Connell) are in search of a missing teenagers body. Wanting to be heroes in each others and their hometowns eyes,they set out on an unforgettable two-day trek that turns into an odyssey ofself-discovery. When they encounter the towns knife-wielding bullies whoare also after the body, the boys discover a strength they never knew they had.

• My Own Private Idaho | DVD | (27/06/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £22.99

  Mapping the spaces between fortune and degeneracy, Shakespeare and street cant, Europe and the Pacific Northwest, and gay and straight, My Own Private Idaho is the 1991 masterpiece by director Gus Van Sant. River Phoenix gave the most generous and memory-searing performance of his tragically shortened career as Mike Waters, a narcoleptic street hustler in search of his mother. His best friend, Scott, played by Keanu Reeves, is a son of privilege who fosters plans of rejoining the moneyed world of his father after gallivanting with assorted urchins and ne'er-do-wells. The beautifully symmetrical story that emerges between the two is one of friendship, yearning for lost time, and sexual identity conveyed with a poet's eye for landscape. The camera lingers on abandoned houses in golden fields and time-lapse clouds, providing what T.S. Eliot called "the objective correlative"--external representations of interior emotional states. We're treated to striking iconic sequences like a barn falling from the sky and still-life scenes of carnal entanglement. The supporting cast is a rogues' gallery that includes Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Udo Kier, director William Richert, and a variety of "nonactors" pulled literally off the street to provide documentary veracity to a film that gleefully careens into riffs on Henry IV. It's beautiful. What's also beautiful is the Criterion Collection's treatment of the film's DVD debut. The director-approved transfer successfully conveys the warmth of the film's palette of oranges and browns, and preserves the whimsical atmospherics of the yodeling country music soundtrack. Many members of the original crew contribute their fond memories to the documentary features, which include a conversation between Phoenix's sister Rain and producer Laurie Parker. There are also two lengthy audio-only conversations--one between Van Sant and Velvet Goldmine director Todd Haynes, and another between author J.T. Leroy and filmmaker Jonathan Caouette about their experiences on the street. The deleted scenes mostly suggest alternate endings that Van Sant wisely left on the cutting room floor. A superb example of a beloved film on DVD. --Ryan Boudinot, Amazon.com

• The Mosquito Coast | DVD | (30/01/2013) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £14.99

  Based on the novel by Paul Theroux a brilliant and obsessive inventor fed up with capitalistic and consumeristic modern society picks up and moves his family to an isolated Caribbean island where he puts his ideas into practice. Under his guidance his new home becomes a paradise. However bit by bit both his mind and his world begin to fall apart...

• Running On Empty | DVD | (21/11/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  After antiwar activists Annie and Arthur Pope (Chistine Lahti and Judd Hirsh) blew up a napalm lab in 1971 they became lifelong fugitives. They and their children have stayed just one step ahead of the law running from state to state job to job identity to identity. But now elder son Danny (River Phoenix) wants to stop running from a past not his. And to do so he might never see his on-the-lam family again...

• Four Classic War Movies | DVD | (06/10/2008) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £11.99

  Titles comprise: Running on Empty: After antiwar activists Annie and Arthur Pope (Chistine Lahti and Judd Hirsh) blew up a napalm lab in 1971 they became lifelong fugitives. They and their children have stayed just one step ahead of the law running from state to state job to job identity to identity. But now elder son Danny (River Phoenix) wants to stop running from a past not his. And to do so he might never see his on-the-lam family again... Escape To Victory: This is no ordinary soccer match: this is war! The battlefield: a stadium in occupied Paris. The armies: German all-stars vs. ragtag Allied POWs. The objective: demonstrate another proof of Aryan superiority. Guess who wins? Better yet guess who cleverly uses the match as a means of escape? Sylvester Stallone Michael Caine and Max von Sydow star in this rouser directed by the legendary John Huston. The climatic match is a heart-in-the-throat hat-in-the-air exhibition of brute force and balletic grace featuring soccer legends Pele Bobby Moore Osvaldo Ardiles Co Prins Mike Summerbee and more. Score a splendid entertainment goal for 'Victory'! Gettysburg: Summer 1863. The Confederacy pushes north into Pennsylvania. Union divisions converge to face them. Two great armies will clash at Gettysburg site of a theology school. For three days through such legendary actions as Little Round Top and Pickett's Charge the fate of one nation indivisible hangs in the balance. The bloodiest battle fought on American soil comes to the screen in a powerful production. Tom Berenger Jeff Daniels Martin Sheen Richard Jordan and more play key roles in this magnificent epic based on Michael Shaara's Pulitzer Prize-winning book 'The Killer Angels' filmed at actual battle locations and rigorously authenticated. Memphis Belle: Matthew Modine and Eric Stoltz head the dynamic cast of Memphis Belle an adventure inspired by true World War II heroics. During spring 1943 they took to the war-torn skies for the most dangerous mission in defence of freedom. If the ten-man crew of the bomber Memphis Belle returned they would receive a hero's welcome and renew flagging public morale. But the odds were stacked heavily against them in the true courageous story of the brave fly-boys who each fought mortal fear while fighting the enemy together.

• A Night in the Life of Jimmy Reardon | DVD | (21/03/2016) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Girl-crazy, egocentric and hormonal, Jimmy Reardon (River Phoenix, Stand By Me, Indiana Jones) is a womanising teen living in '60s Chicago. He spends his days hanging out with his wealthy friend Fred (Matthew Perry, Friends) sipping coffee and smooth-talking his way into the arms of women. Jimmy is flummoxed after he graduates from high school. He is faced with a tough decision either go to a business school and please his family, or get a full-time job. Lovestruck and defiant, Jimmy decides on neither. He is intent on making it to Hawaii, where he will win the love of his sweetheart and avoid adult responsibility. The only trouble is, Jimmy's only got one night and he doesn't have a penny to his name Director William Richert's star-studded teenage romp is as charming and chaotic as Jimmy Reardon himself. Also features Ann Magnuson (Panic Room, The Hunger), (Ione Skye (Say Anything) and Johnny Galecki (The Big Bang Theory), plus an awesome soundtrack by Oscar winner Bill Conti (The Right Stuff, Rocky).

• Stand By Me | DVD | (10/12/2013) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  A sleeper hit when released in 1986, Stand by Me is based on Stephen King's novella "The Body" (from the book Different Seasons); but it's more about the joys and pains of boyhood friendship than a morbid fascination with corpses. It's about four boys ages 12 and 13 (Wil Wheaton, River Phoenix, Corey Feldman, Jerry O'Connell) who take an overnight hike through the woods near their Oregon town to find the body of a boy who's been missing for days. Their journey includes a variety of scary adventures (including a ferocious junkyard dog, a swamp full of leeches and a treacherous leap from a train trestle), but it's also a time for personal revelations, quiet interludes and the raucous comradeship of best friends. Set in the 1950s, the movie indulges an overabundance of anachronistic profanity and a kind of idealistic, golden-toned nostalgia (it's told in flashback as a story written by Wheaton's character as an adult, played by Richard Dreyfuss). But it's delightfully entertaining from start to finish, thanks to the rapport among its young cast members and the timeless, universal themes of friendship, family and the building of character and self-esteem. Kiefer Sutherland makes a memorable teenage villain and look closely for John Cusack in a flashback scene as Wheaton's now-deceased and dearly missed brother. A genuine crowd-pleaser, this heartfelt movie led director Rob Reiner to even greater success with his next film, The Princess Bride. --Jeff Shannon

• Little Nikita | DVD | (20/02/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  He went to bed an all-American kid and woke up the son of Russian spies. Roy Parmenter is an FBI agent in San Diego; 20 years ago his partner was killed by a Soviet spy nicknamed Scuba still at large. Scuba is now trying to extort the Soviets; to prove he's serious he's killing their agents one by one including ""sleepers "" agents under deep cover awaiting orders. Roy interviews a high school lad Jeff Grant an applicant to the Air Force Academy. In a routine background ch

• Explorers | DVD | (08/11/2004) from £29.99   |  Saving you £-14.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Ben Crandell (Hawke) is an alien-obsessed teenager whose dreams are being influenced by a group of extra-terrestrials! When he wakes one morning he is able to draw an advanced circuit board designed for space flight. With the assistance of his two friends Wolfgang (Phoenix) and Darren (Presson) Ben constructs a home-made spaceship to meet the aliens. Hilarity ensues as they discover that the creatures are obsessed with American culture! Great special effects by Rob Bottin (The T

• I Love You To Death | DVD | (03/05/2010) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Rosalie Boca the devoted wife of a philandering pizza maker (Kevin Kline). When Rosalie (Tracy Ullman) learns that he's been squeezing more than just tomatoes her homicidal instincts take over. With the help of a New Age busboy (River Phoenix) drug-addled cousins Harlan and Marlon (William Hurt and Keanu Reeves) and her own mother (Joan Plowright) Rosalie attempts to send Joey to that big bed in the sky.

• Feeling Minnesota/The Invisible Circus/My Own Private Idaho | DVD | (24/10/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Feeling Minnesota (Dir. Steven Baigelman, 1996): She met the man of her dreams. Then her husband showed up and ruined everything. Brotherly love takes a beating in this wickedly funny romance starring Keanu Reeves (The Matrix), Vincent D'Onofrio (Men in Black), and Cameron Diaz (There's Something About Mary). Jjaks (Reeves) is a drifter who has come home for his brother's wedding. But when he steals the bride (Diaz), the bonds of brotherhood are cut forever. Now the groom (D'Onofrio)...

• Jimmy Reardon | DVD | (29/07/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £2.99

  Jimmy's about to change his entire life in just one night. It's the eve of high school graduation the beginning of the rest of his life. But for Jimmy Reardon it seems like the end. His girlfriend Lisa is moving to Hawaii. His friends are going Ivy League. And if his father gets his way Jimmy is going to a very dull all male business school. Jimmy however has other plans for himself. In just 24 hours he's going to demolish his relationship with Lisa several friendships and his dad's car. River Phoenix (Stand By Me) stars as the irrepressible Jimmy Reardon in this rambunctious comedy based on a novel written by director William Richert when he was 19.