NBA 2K16, PS4, XBox One

The last installment of this venerable basketball series brought it up to spec for the current-gen consoles; this year, the biggest innovation is deploying filmmaker (and rabid basketball fan) Spike Lee to write and direct the opening hours of the "career" mode. And while the result is, as you'd expect, much more movie-like than previous (entertaining but clunky) generations, critics haven't known what to make of it, ranging from calling it "a cliché-ridden, shallow, ridiculous mess" to "leaps and bounds ahead of what's been used in the past". We're somewhere in the middle, reluctant to nitpick the storyline (in the context of other videogames, it's cohesive enough), but a bit frustrated by how on rails the experience is compared to previous years - it only leaves you entirely to your own devices after you've played/watched your way through your entire rookie season. That aside, the gameplay somehow looks sharper than the last generation, despite using the same hardware (in our case, PS4), there are numerous fine-tuned tweaks to the gameplay that aficionadoes will either enjoy or moan about, and it's generally a bit harder to play well. AH

SLIVER , Paramount (R)

They don't make glossy erotic thrillers any more – at least, not like this uneven but very watchable 1994 Sharon Stone vehicle, a rare example of a film about voyeurism where a woman does some of the looking. Hot off the success of Basic Instinct, Stone plays a recently divorced book editor who moves into an ultra-modern apartment complex where she's courted by two equally dubious men: a macho middle-aged novelist (Tom Berenger) and a wealthy young tech whiz (the moist-eyed, smirking William Baldwin), who secretly uses surveillance cameras to monitor his neighbours. Working from a typically absurd screenplay by Basic Instinct writer Joe Eszterhas, the Australian director Phillip Noyce doesn't get quite the value from this premise that Brian de Palma might have; but Noyce has the advantage of collaborating with a great star at her peak. While Stone may be styled like a cool blonde in a Hitchcock film, her poise is anything but chilly: in frequent wordless close-ups, she conveys an ever-shifting blend of arousal, amusement, curiosity, fear and obsession, never wholly letting us know what makes her character tick. JW

FREE-TO-AIR

How safe are my drugs, October 13, SBS, 8,30pm

Much of the thinking around the 'war on drugs' has turned to education rather than criminalisation, but now there's a new concern around, ironically, the legal highs that have grown in popularity in the 'war's wake. In the UK particularly, legal highs are astonishingly popular, and, despite popular belief, often much worse than illegal drugs. The UK's Radio One DJ Brianna Price, who DJs around the world and witnesses recreational drug-taking every weekend, investigates the particularly dodgy - and unregulated - market of legal highs as well as dodgy dealers of illegal drugs who cut their product with who-knows-what. Price, who has used drugs herself - and tries out a new product from Dr Zee, the man who invented legal highs and says he only makes goods with 'all the fun but none of the risk' - posits the theory that it's time for a new, educational approach to drugs. The most powerful - and worrying - part of this fascinating, judgement-free doco is the fact that it seems it's the legal - most easily accessible - drugs that are doing the most damage. KN

DVD

THINGS TO COME , Criterion Not rated

This visionary 1936 British science fiction epic starts with the outbreak of the Second World War   – predicted with impressive accuracy – and goes on to show the collapse of civilisation, followed by a technological renaissance brought about by a global "freemasonry" of scientists and engineers. One of the dreamers of this dream was the eminent writer H.G. Wells, though his original screenplay was much altered in the final cut; the other was the visually brilliant director William Cameron Menzies, better known for his work as a production designer, notably on Gone  with the Wind. With an ample budget at his disposal, Menzies combines lavish full-size sets and intricate miniatures, shooting from low angles with innovative use of deep focus – a style that looks back to the classics of Soviet silent cinema and forward to Citizen Kane. As the spokesman for a "rational" point of view, the gaunt, forbidding Raymond Massey is a streamlined design element in his own right; in retrospect, the conclusion where he urges humanity to press on with conquering the universe registers even more ambivalently than Wells and Menzies may have intended. JW

DVD

A MOST VIOLENT YEAR, Roadshow  (MA15+)

The dynamic trio of director J.C. Chandor and actors Oscar Isaac and Jessica Chastain have combined to make a compelling drama about survival. Set in New York City in the winter of 1981, Abel Morales (Isaac) and his wife Anna (Chastain) operate a heating oil distribution company that's gaining ground in a competitive market. In the eastern US, heating oil is delivered directly to homes where it powers household heating systems. The couple's business, which Abel runs on honesty and hard work while Anna keeps a close eye on the financial records, is under stress.  The Morales' company is on the verge of buying a larger warehouse to expand the business, but is hampered by a pesky assistant district attorney (David Oyelowo), who is after the company for corruption, and unknown hijackers who have been assaulting Morales' drivers and stealing their trucks of oil. As the stakes get higher, Morales has to keep his cool (mysterious company attorney Albert Brooks, ageing gracefully, helps hold the lid on trouble, too). The toughest part for Morales is dealing with his wife, who is full of street smarts and sass. Together, they make a formidable couple. Despite the name of the film, it's not a blood-and-guts thriller. There are threats and menace but not blood on the streets. A pleasant surprise – a thinking person's movie. JK