It had been probably at least 10 years since I’d last seen Michael Mann’s 1995 L.A. crime drama Heat when I popped in the new Blu-Ray version last week. What took me so long? The movie is nothing short of brilliant, an epic, character-driven duel between two professionals so good at their jobs the rest of their lives have pretty much disintegrated. Al Pacino plays detective Vincent Hanna, who throughout the film’s nearly three-hour running time tracks serial thief Neil McCauley (Robert DeNiro) as he plans his next, last, heist. The two aren’t vicious enemies—in fact, they’re probably the only two people who really understand each other.

The cast—which includes Val Kilmer, Ashley Judd, Jon Voight, Natalie Portman and even a cameo from Jeremy Piven—is uniformly at their best, and if anything, it’s worth seeing them work together. Tightly controlled and amazingly emotionally sophisticated for an action movie, Heat also boasts some of the best set pieces the genre has to offer (the bank robbery scene will really go down as one of the all-time greatest). The new disc features commentary by Mann and several making-ofs. If you haven’t seen it recently, or at all, now’s the time.

Speaking of bank robberies, Mann’s latest, Public Enemies, is also out on DVD and Blu-Ray this week. This is a truly original and at times brilliant work, starring Johnny Depp as stick-up man John Dillinger and Christian Bale as the G-man on his trail (when Jean Renoir said “A director makes only one movie in his life. Then he breaks it into pieces and makes it again,” he could have been talking about Mann).

Shot, audaciously, on digital video, it has a feel unlike any other period movie, bringing the 1930s to life in a totally unexpected way. Though it doesn’t provide the kind of resolution you might expect from a cops-and-robbers movie, it offers something else, something more mysterious and fascinating.