Many people know that France's Robert Bresson is one of the greatest of all filmmakers; far fewer know why, because Bresson's artful, elegantly composed dramas are rarely seen today outside repertory programs.

For anyone who has never seen a Bresson film, 1967's "Mouchette" (Criterion Collection) is a perfect place to begin because it's one of his most audience-friendly films. It tells the story, in a lyrical yet naturalistic fashion, of the 14-year-old girl in the title. Growing up poor and angry in Provence with a dying mother and a drunken father, she has no reason to believe her life will ever improve. It's sad, tragic and unbelievably beautiful and affecting, filmed in 50mm black and white.

Given a new and improved subtitled translation, it comes with truly relevant extras, including an acclaimed documentary on the director, an informative essay booklet and the original trailer, itself a work of art; it was cut by Jean-Luc Godard.

CHAINSAW GORE FEST

The recent spate of do-overs of 1970s exploitation films, including "Dawn of the Dead," "The Hills Have Eyes" and "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre," hasn't exactly been pretty, but the films have been surprisingly respectable.

Now, the sequels and prequels to the rebranded titles begin — "The Hills Have Eyes 2" is imminent. But "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning" (New Line) does not portend well for going back to these bloody wells that often. This attempt to explain just how meat packer Thomas Hewitt became the crazed killer Leatherface throws in some Vietnam War arguments to add phony relevance. But it's just more gore and gristle — and even more viscera in the unrated DVD edition.

ALSO ON DVD

Tony Jaa, a martial-arts star from Thailand, made a serious impression on action film fans in his first import, "Ong-Bak: The Thai Warrior." He showed charisma and old-school skills; no wires and sped-up specialeffects trickery for Jaa.

Another adventure from Jaa's Thai backlog catalog, "Tom Yum Goong," was to follow soon. Retitled "The Protector" (Genius/Weinstein) for Western audiences, it sends Jaa to Australia to retrieve a sacred bull and baby elephant stolen by exotic-animal poachers bankrolled by a crime syndicate. There he gets help from a Thai-born cop and a Thai woman the same gang kidnapped to work in a brothel. That, conveniently, is where the film's longest and most exciting action scene takes place.

This 2-disc "Ultimate Edition" is loaded with extras.

TV ON DVD

It's said we're in a new golden age of TV, and if that's so, it's in part because the best continuing series have shorter schedules that give writers more time to craft high-quality scripts. The Brits learned that lesson long ago. Hardly any of their shows have seasons longer than 13 episodes, and the most prestigious of the recent shows have only six.

That's the case with "The Street," a BBC series whose first season, now available on a two-disc set (Koch), has all the social and character complexity of North America's best series, "The Wire," and "Deadwood," but without the abundant violence and profanity. Each episode examines a drama unfolding in one of the homes on Bold Street, in a city in northern England that happens to be occupied by characters played by some of Britain's best actors. In the first episode, Jane Horrocks ("Absolutely Fabulous") plays a housewife having an affair with a neighbor, and the neighbor is involved in a car accident in which her daughter is injured.

Fans of the resurrected, reinvented British hit "Doctor Who" liked Christopher Eccleston in the original 13 episodes BBC America showed last season, but apparently they had no problem accepting David Tennant in the role of the time traveler when he transformed into the character in the first episode of "Doctor Who — the Complete Second Series" (BBC). One major change is more than cosmetic; they escalated the romantic chemistry between Who and department-store clerk Rose (the fetching, funny Billie Piper) in the 15 episodes on this six-disc set.

You don't have to be a rabid Anglophile to appreciate the bawdy, farcical humor of " 'Allo, 'Allo," but it definitely helps. The longtime staple of late-night PBS is enjoying a second life on BBC America now. "The Complete Series Six" (BBC) keeps us up to date on the wartime misadventures of Rene (David Croft), the married but philandering owner of a French cafe Germans frequent. He has a secret life as a member of the Resistance.