The Jim Jarmusch Collection: Volume 1

Jim Jarmusch is, alongside his friend the Finnish director Aki Kaurismäki, the crowned king of deadpan cinema. Jarmusch's independent films have come to epitomise a low-key brand of spare hilarity, wherein taciturn characters (often played by musicians) are captured in long sequence shots as they make the most of doing very little.

The Jim Jarmusch Collection: Volume 1 is a three-disc edition comprising his first three features: Permanent Vacation (1980), Stranger Than Paradise (1984) and Down By Law (1986). While they were never originally conceived as such, one might reasonably regard these films as an informal trilogy concerned with beautiful losers – for all three feature male characters who are considerably less cool than they themselves imagine (and certainly nowhere near as cool as the films in which they appear). Additionally, the films all share a motif of cultural exchange that in fact runs through all his work.

So put on your meanest threads, take a deep draw on that Chesterfield, sit back, and prepare to be thoroughly out-cooled by America's finest hipster. For the duration of these films, you'll be going nowhere, and yet covering so much ground on the way.