The Journey

Attorney-turned-filmmaker Ligy Pullappally tackles the taboo subject of lesbianism in India with her debut film, The Journey (Sancharram). While crafting love letters on behalf of a besotten boy, Kiran (Suhasini V. Nair) falls in love with her vivacious best friend Delilah (Shrruiti Menon). The theme of a forbidden lesbian relationship in a repressive society is hardly a new one -- viewers may be familiar with the 1996 film Fire -- but The Journey differs most significantly in its setting within a tiny rural village in the south Indian state of Kerala. In this rarely explored environment, every move is under scrutiny and neighbors can co-exist peacefully only as long as tradition is observed. The locale also allows for stunning visual imagery that complements the slow, deliberate pacing of the storyline. In Malayalam with English subtitles. Bonus features: Audio commentary by Pullappally. -- Sarika Chawla

Making Love

Besides proving there's a lucrative market for quality gay-themed films, let's give props to Brokeback Mountain for generating interest in older LGBT titles on DVD like 1982's truly groundbreaking Making Love -- the first coming out film released by a major studio. After eight years of marriage to TV producer Claire (Kate Jackson), Zack (Michael Ontkean), a successful physician, becomes sexually attracted to a gay writer named Bart (Harry Hamlin) -- with his swanky WeHo digs, expendable income, and freewheeling lifestyle, who wouldn't be? While the film wasn't a box office hit, it's certainly better than its reputation would have you believe. Maybe mainstream 1982 audiences weren't ready for rough-and-tumble sex between two men and perhaps the direction by Arthur Hiller, best known for the hetero weepy Love Story, is too sensitive, but out writer Barry Sandler's screenplay is earnest and filled with knowing moments like the awkwardness at the end of a one night stand, and a gay man's love of classic filmlore permeates throughout -- Bart watches Raintree County and quotes Tea and Sympathy. The cast is attractive (the stunning Hamlin could lure the most committed husband to stray) and capable, and Roberta Flack's theme song is wistful as heard over the end credits after the touching finale. Plus it's a kick to see how familiar West Hollywood hot spots like the Gold Coast, Rage, and Spike looked back in the day. Bonus features: None. An audio commentary by Sandler would have been nice. -- Jeremy Kinser

Proof

Gwyneth Paltrow reunited with her Shakespeare in Love director John Madden to film their West End stage hit Proof. Paltrow delivers one of her most stirring performances as Catherine, a devoted daughter struggling with the legacy of her late mentally ill father Robert (Anthony Hopkins), a mathematic genius. Brokeback's It boy Jake Gyllenhaal co-stars as Paltrow's love interest. Bonus features: The doc "From Stage to Screen: The Making of Proof," deleted scenes, and an audio commentary by Madden. -- Jeremy Kinser

Ryan's Daughter

After the tremendous box office success and rapturous critical reception that greeted his two Ô60s epics Lawrence of Arabia and Dr. Zhivago, director David Lean was given carte blanche to make his next film. After a failed attempt to adapt Madame Bovary, Lean and screenwriter Robert Bolt collaborated on Ryan's Daughter (debuting on DVD in a two-disc special edition). Originally planned as an intimate romance set against the 1916 Irish Rebellion and involving a headstrong lass (Sarah Miles, in her Academy Award-nominated performance) who cuckholds her reserved schoolteacher husband (Robert Mitchum, successfully playing against type) with a handsome soldier (Christopher Jones, who went M.I.A. after this tumultuous shoot), the film grew to epic proportions when Lean decided to film the story along Ireland's expansive beaches, craggy cliffs, and heathered hills. While not on par with Lean's best work, the film has its charms -- notably Maurice Jarre's haunting score and Freddie Young's Oscar-winning cinematography (among the most luscious ever). Bonus features: "The Making of Ryan's Daughter: A three-part 35th anniversary documentary (which notes that the film's savage critical reception in 1970 sent Lean into a 14-year-long retirement), two vintage documentaries, and an audio commentary by the cast, crew, biographers, as well as members of Lean's and Mitchum's families. -- Jeremy Kinser

The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Another romantic triangle is at the center of director Philip Kaufman's erotic 1988 film of Milan Kundera's best-selling novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being (also available in a new two-disc special edition DVD). Daniel Day-Lewis followed his star-making performance as a gay punk in My Beautiful Laundrette with another superb turn as a young doctor in Prague, circa 1968, involved with two vastly different women, played by Lena Olin and Juliette Binoche, with shattering results. Bonus features: Audio commentary by Kaufman, and the doc "Emotional History: The Making of The Unbearable Lightness of Being." -- Jeremy Kinser