DOOM
ALL PLATFORMS

The original Doom (from 1993) is often cited as one of the most influential games of all time, defining first-person-shooters for a generation with a simple but effective formula: cutting-edge graphics, sci-fi story (space marine fights demons in space) and a blend of suspense and sheer shock value that owed more to horror movies than contemporary computer games. Doom and its sequels went on to sell more than 10 million copies but there hasn't been one since 2004. This reboot had a difficult gestation: work started in 2008 but by 2011 the project had collapsed, reportedly because it had strayed from its roots as a simple, visceral shooter, into a heavily scripted space opera. Deverlopers id Software had another go, apparently returning to a style of game that feels like the original, just with today's bells and whistles. Fans can expect many of the original weapons and characters; newcomers should find it a lively romp, even if it's no longer the trailblazer it once was. Releases May 13.  AH

Robert Mitchum in Night of the Hunter.

CLASSIC

THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER 
SHOCK, M

"The most seductive one-shot in the history of movies" was the filmmaker Jacques RIvette's description of this extraordinary 1955 Southern Gothic fairy tale – the only film directed by the actor Charles Laughton, based on the novel by Davis Grubb with a script credited to the writer James Agee. Robert Mitchum oozes sly, charming evil as a psychopathic preacher who worms his way into the life of a West Virginia widow (Shelley Winters) and her two young children (Billy Chapin and Sally Anne Bruce). To escape his clutches, the children flee down the Ohio River on a raft, a nocturnal journey filmed by Laughton and cinematographer Stanley Cortex in a faux-naif expressionist manner that evokes silent cinema; help arrives in the form of a saintly foster mother played by silent-era star Lillian Gish, representing a goodness as complex and paradoxical as Mitchum's evil. In a famous touch, the preacher has "LOVE" tattooed on the knuckles of one hand and "HATE" on the other – summing up Laughton's vision of a universe where opposed metaphysical forces are inextricably bound together.  JW

FREE-TO-AIR

HOW TO DIE: SIMON'S CHOICE
APRIL 24, SBS, 8,45pm

You know from the title how this moving British film is going to end - and it opens with protagonist Simon Binner's funeral - but it's a remarkable journey nonetheless. Diagnosed with an aggressive form of motor neurone disease - for which there is no known cure - at just 57 years old, Simon decides early on that rather than dying slowly in palliative care, unable to move or even talk (he lost his speech just weeks after his diagnosis), he's going to Switzerland for an "eccentric, rock and roll" version of one of the clinic's assisted dying procedures. But his wife, Debbie, isn't so sure, and his friends worry that the date he's chosen to "leave" is too soon; Simon and his friends and family find themselves grappling with the moral, emotional and legal dilemmas around assisted dying. As well as exploring the current legal debate on the issue (an assisted dying bill was recently defeated in UK parliament), the bigger questions here - who decides how much is bearable; how soon is too soon; how do you justify the decision with the needs of those you leave behind - are the most moving. Have tissues on hand.  KN

Marion Cotillard and Owen Wilson in Midnight in Paris.

DVD

MIDNIGHT IN PARIS 
FOX, PG

For those of us who still love Woody Allen, the key to his work lies in his faith in escapism, in art's power to conjure up a world more glamorous than anything reality has to offer. This 2011 fantasy dramatises that faith through the story of Gil (Owen Wilson), a modern American who magically steps into celebrity-crammed 1920s Paris, or at least into his dream of what 1920s Paris would have been like. It's a typically whimsical Allen premise, letting him demonstrate his flair for literary parody as well as his taste for stories where a self-absorbed hero oscillates between two attractive women (Rachel McAdams in the present, Marion Cotillard in the past). What lifts the film above his usual dryness is the way all the elements come together, including the Parisian locations, Wilson's cracked vocal rhythms, and a supporting cast that really is the stuff of dreams: Tom Hiddleston as F. Scott Fitzgerald, Kathy Bates as Gertrude Stein, Adrien Brody as Salvador Dali, and – best of all — Corey Stoll as Ernest Hemingway, whose macho artistic creed is viewed with a touching blend of ridicule and respect.  JW

Jonas Nay in Deutschland 83.

DVD

DEUTSCHLAND 83
ROADSHOW, MA15+

High production values and an intriguing plot drive this retro spy thriller series from Germany, which is a major hit in Germany and the UK. In simple terms, the show revolves around a young East German soldier drafted (by force and threat) into becoming a spy for the East Germans through a false identity in West Germany. Jonas Nay, 25, an actor and rock musician, plays the main character Martin Rauch convincingly. He's torn between family in the East and the mission in the West. Rauch is immediately thrown into high-risk tasks and weaves a dangerous path at every turn. His handlers are ruthless, efficient and ever-so demanding. It's a tale of people caught in a political web, grappling with doing the right thing, for themselves and their country. With English subtitles.  JK