Everyone growing up in the ’80s knew there was no one cooler than Matthew Broderick’s unapologetically truant Ferris Bueller, especially if you happened to be an impressionable 10-year-old boy in 1986, when Ferris Bueller’s Day Off was released. The New Year sees a deluxe DVD package of the film, called the Bueller... Bueller... Edition after the much-beloved classroom roll-call scene that featured former Nixon speechwriter Ben Stein as the nasally, unnamed economics teacher. He’s also the subject of “The World According to Ben Stein,” one of the DVD’s many extras, which include a cast reunion and a making- of doc.

The other, weirder side of the ’80s can be found in one of the most popular cult films of all time, David Lynch’s Eraserhead. For all its status as a fetus-squashing, mutant baby favourite, the movie has long been wrapped up in the complicated video rights issues that seem to dog most of Lynch’s films. Until now, fans had to order Eraserhead directly from Lynch’s own Web site, at a cost of $45 (U.S.). But now a cleaned-up edition of the film is finally available, along with a crop of special features. —Mark Slutsky