DVD: Hunger, Retail & Rental, (Pathé)

The Turner-winning artist Steve McQueen turns Bafta-winning writer/director with this mesmeric film about Bobby Sands’ hunger strike. Unstintingly brutal, yet often fabulous to look at, it rejects the structure of a traditional chronological biopic.

Sands (Michael Fassbender) doesn’t even appear for the first half-hour, and the IRA history lesson you might expect is confined to one 20-minute conversation, shot in a single unbroken take. One of last year’s essential films.