Morgan Freeman and Cate Blanchett may be the ones at home shining their golden statues, turning down scripts and jacking up their respective asking prices, but it's Clive Owen who gave the most Oscar-worthy supporting performance last year. In Mike Nichols' Closer, an unsympathetic look at two intertwined cheating couples, Owen not only makes amends for King Arthur, he outshines all of his A-list co-stars. His depiction of a pathetic perv who cons his ex (Julia Roberts) into giving him a sympathy fuck is nothing short of brilliant. And when he's grovelling for sex from a pink-haired peeler (Natalie Portman), you can almost smell the 80 proof and self-loathing sweating out of his pores. This scene alone is worth the price of renting Closer, which will be released on DVD March 29.

Having milked every last theatre dollar, two other Academy-nominated films are out on video this week: Finding Neverland starring Johnny Depp as the Peter Pan playwright J.M. Barrie; and Mike Leigh's Vera Drake, a sobering drama set in the '50s about a sweet maternal dumpling who, instead of chairing PTA meetings, performs illegal abortions. » Sarah Rowland