I first saw Inglourious Basterds on the closing night of this year’s Fantasia Film Festival. I had biked down in the pouring rain, and I jostled my way into the beyond-sold-out theatre. Star Eli Roth was in attendance; the crowd was nuts; the movie featured heroic Jews and film critics and I walked out energized and thrilled. I loved the movie. At the time, I even thought it was of director Quentin Tarantino’s best, if not the best.

So I approached the DVD a little warily, worried that seeing it at home, in the cold light of winter, would change my opinion of it. Had I just gotten swept up in the hothouse environment of a Fantasia premiere? The answer: no. Inglourious Basterds plays just as well, if not better, on the small screen. It’s hard to credibly describe this movie to people who haven’t seen it and have a fixed idea that it’s some sort of campy bloodfest. Literally 95 per cent of this World War II revenge fantasy is people talking over drinks.

As critic Glenn Kenny pointed out earlier this year, it’s a two-and-a-half-hour movie that takes place over something like 15 seasons—an amazingly low number for a movie even half that length. And, I found, even though I knew how these great, long-form scenes played out, it only made them more tense and exciting (not to mention funnier). It’s an amazingly engrossing and suspenseful film, audacious and hilarious and a real love letter to movies. Watching it a second time, I was transfixed.

Speaking of suspense, the always-great Turner Classic Movies people are at it again, with another Greatest Classic Films four-film box set, this one dedicated to Hitchcock Thrillers. Featured are Suspicion, Strangers on a Train, The Wrong Man and the Quebec-set I Confess. At about $25 or so, this is kind of a no-brainer for Hitch fans (or any cinephile on your holiday shopping list).