Before he arrived in Hollywood to leave his mark with timeless comedies like Trouble in Paradise and The Shop Around the Corner, Ernst Lubitsch created an expansive body of work in Germany that proved to be as varied in its tone as it was sophisticated in its measure of man and woman. This box set collects six recently restored works from the silent phase of Lubitsch's career, and casts new light on the director both as a fully-formed comic master, and as a virtuoso of cinematographic technique. Contains; Ich Mochte Kein Mann Sein (I Wouldn't Like to Be a Man) (1918), Die Puppe (The Doll) (1919), Die Austernprinzessen (The Oyster Princess) (1919), Sumurun (1920), Anna Boleyn (1920) and Die Bergkatze (The Mountain-Lion) (1921). Ich Mochte Kein Mann Sein: One of the first collaborations between Lubitsch and the exuberant Ossi Oswalda, this is a concise sketch of society life in three acts. When Ossi's uncle goes away on a business trip, a new guardian steps in to tame the distractable...

Price: £ 41.49

More info: Lubitsch in Berlin

Capturing Keaton’s first steps in front of a camera this box set charts his early association with ex-Keystone Kop Roscoe ‘Fatty’ Arbuckle through to headlining, starring in, and directing his own box office smash hits. Using Chaplin’s old Hollywood studios in 1920, Keaton’s sophisticated technical inventiveness coupled with his haunted-yet-handsome ‘Stone Face’ persona, created a succession of the most timeless, classic comedy shorts ever realised. Features The Butcher Boy (1917), The Rough House (1917), His Wedding Night (1917), Oh, Doctor! (1917), Coney Island (1917), Out West (1918), The Bell Boy (1918), Moonshine (1918), Good Night Nurse (1918), The Cook (1918), Backstage (1919), The Hayseed (1919), The Garage (1919), The “High Sign” (finished 1920, released 1921), One Week (1920), Convict 13 (1920), The Scarecrow (1920), Neighbors (1920), The Haunted House (1921), Hard Luck (1921), The Goat (1921), The Playhouse (1...

Price: £ 40.99

More info: Buster Keaton: The Complete Short Films 1917–1923 (Masters of Cinema)

Directed by the Maysles brothers, the filmmakers behind Salesman (1968) and The Rolling Stones' Gimme Shelter (1969), Grey Gardens is a spellbinding documentary about two eccentric and reclusive women, aunt and cousin to Jackie Onassis, living in a squalid mansion in New York's affluent East Hampton district. Big Edie and Little Edie's world is a stage upon which their disappointments and pleasures are played out in front of the camera. A cult classic, Grey Gardens has inspired a Broadway show, a centre page fashion spread in both Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar, and a forthcoming Hollywood ‘remake’. It also prompted the intervention of Jackie O. to save the couple from a hazardous health eviction order and any further ‘embarrassment’ for the family.

Price: £ 16.99

More info: Grey Gardens (1975)

With cinematography by Karl Freund, a virtuoso performance by Emil Jannings and innovative direction from F W Murnau, this tale of an eminent doorman whose world crumbles when he is demoted to lavatory attendant is one of the finest artistic triumphs of the silent era. It is a landmark work on a number of fronts. Firstly, it introduced a method of purely visual storytelling in which all intertitles and dialogue were jettisoned, setting the stage for a seamless interaction between film-world and viewer. Secondly, it put to use a panoply of technical innovations that continue to point distinct ways forward for cinematic expression nearly a century later. It guides the silent cinema's melodramatic brio to its lowest abject abyss — before disposing of the tragic arc altogether. The lesson in all this? That a film can be anything it wants to be. Murnau's film depicts the tale of an elderly hotel doorman (played by the inimitable Emil Jannings) whose superiors have come to deem his s...

Price: £ 15.99

More info: The Last Laugh (Der Letzte Mann)

Classic Saturday matinee adventure in which young Prince Valiant travels to Camelot to become a squire for Sir Gawain, one of King Arthur's legendary knights, unaware that the traitor that sold his father King Aguar to the pagan rival King Sligon is already seated at the Round Table. Features thrilling action, romance, courtly intrigue, a rousing score from Franz Waxman, and a magnificent cast of Hollywood greats including James Mason, Janet Leigh, Robert Wagner, Debra Paget, Sterling Hayden and Victor McLaglen.

Price: £ 15.39

More info: Prince Valiant

Between his twin masterpieces All That Heaven Allows and Written on the Wind, Douglas Sirk created this razor-sharp study of male crisis, both a glittering testament to love's labours lost and his most unforgiving vision of suburban conformity. Disregarded and neglected by his family, executive toy manufacturer Clifford Groves (Fred MacMurray) is unexpectedly reunited with his former co-worker Norma Miller (Barbara Stanwyck). As the old friends catch up on lost time, his children's suspicions and hostility to the new relationship threaten to push their father away permanently and throw into disarray the lives of all concerned. With crystalline, noir-tinged cinematography from Russell Metty (Touch of Evil) and heartbreaking performances by Stanwyck and MacMurray, reunited 12 years after Double Indemnity in their final on-screen pairing, There's Always Tomorrow finds one of Hollywood's greatest dramatists at his finest.

Price: £ 15.29

More info: There's Always Tomorrow