This week’s offerings include the latest season of Game of Thrones, the complete Dinotopia TV series, the second half of the Jack Kirby/Gil Kane-designed animated series The Centurions, plus three major Oscar contenders, The Big Short, Brooklyn, and Carol, as well as the R-rated comedy Sisters, starring Tina Fey, and, for horror movie fans, Eli Roth’s long-delayed cannibalism saga The Green Inferno.

TV on DVD

This category’s top release is Game of Thrones: The Complete Fifth Season (HBO, $59.98, BD $79.98), which contains all 10 episodes of the fifth season of the HBO series that won an unprecedented 12 Emmy Awards including “Outstanding Drama Series.”  The fifth season includes narrative elements from A Feast for Crows and A Dance of Dragons, the third and fourth novels in George R.R. Martin’s epic fantasy series A Song of Fire and Ice; from A Storm of Swords, the third volume; and from the yet-to-be published The Winds of Winter.  There are additional incentives to purchase the BD edition, in particular some exclusive bonus content including a brand new feature that takes an in-depth look at the story behind the Targaryen civil war, known as the “Dance of Dragons.”

Also of interest is Doctor Who: The 5th Series, Part 1 (BBC, $19.98), which collects the first half of the fifth series in the revived Doctor Who, Matt Smith’s first season as the time-traveling Doctor, in a very affordable format.

Fantasy fans will also be interested in Dinotopia: The Complete Series (Mill Creek, $14.98), which collects the complete 13 episode 2002 TV series based on the fictional utopia (an isolated island of sentient dinosaurs who live together in peace with shipwrecked humans) created by author and illustrator James Gurney.  This series was put out on DVD in 2004, but has been OP for many years so it is great to see available again.

But Dinotopia is not even the most interesting vintage TV release of the week.  That honor belongs to The Centurions, Part 2 (Warner Bros., 557 min., DVD-R, $29.99), which contains the final 30 half-hour episodes of the science fiction series produced by Ruby-Spears and animated in Japan by Sunrise.  Comic book grandmasters Jack Kirby and Gil Kane contributed to the design (check out the box cover) and concepts for the show, which employed a number of sci-fi and comic book scribes including Michael Reeves, Marc Zicree, Larry DiTillio, and Gerry Conway.

Other vintage offerings include the final season of the 1990s sitcom The Nanny: The Complete 6th and Final Season (Shout Factory, 570 min., $34.99), the highway patrol saga CHiPs: The Complete 4th Season (Warner Bros., $29.98), and the mid-1970s medical drama starring Chad Everett, Medical Center: The Complete 6th Season (Warner Bros., 1,216 min., $53.99).

There are two very good releases from the U.K. this week.  New Tricks: Season 12 (Acorn Media, 615 min., $39.99), the final go-round for UCOS (the Unsolved Crime and Open Cases Squad), a group of retired cops working under the supervision of a middle-aged female police inspector.  The original cast of this series has all gone by the time that Gerry Standing (played by Dennis Waterman, who also sings the show’s title song) takes on the lamb in the first episode of this 12th season, but the replacements do an admirable job of keeping up the quality of this show that mixes comedy and character development with well-written police procedural narratives.  After 12 seasons it may be time for New Tricks to pack it in, but it’s been a good ride, and the show has to rank as one of the most entertaining series in recent years.

A grimmer, but no less compelling sort of murder mystery is available in the miniseries Mayday (Acorn Media, 280 min., $39.99), which takes place in a small English village with a strong pagan tradition that is shaken when the 14-year-old May Queen is abducted right before May Day, and the ensuing search reveals the dark secrets that swirl beneath the complacent façade of village life.  This gritty saga includes some disturbing images and brief nudity, and spends more time examining the psychological effects of suspecting that friends and loved ones are guilty of murder than it does on the police procedural aspects of the story.

Theatrical Releases

This week’s offerings include three of 2015’s top Oscar contenders including The Big Short (Paramount, “R,” 130 min., $29.99, BD $39.99).  Adam McKay’s film, which features an excellent cast that includes Christian Bale, Steve Carell, Brad Pitt, and Ryan Gosling, examines the financial crash of 2008, the worst since 1929, which was precipitated by outrageously dangerous behavior by some of our largest financial institutions who created complex financial instruments like collateralized debt obligations that bundled high risk home loans together and sold them across the globe.  Though McKay can be faulted for some unnecessary shaky camerawork, he does a brilliant job of explaining the abstruse financial instruments that actually incentivized banks to make more risky loans so that they could bundle and sell them off.

Also nominated for “Best Picture” was Brooklyn (Fox, “PG-13,” 105 min., $29.98, BD $39.99), a sensitive and searching period romance directed by John Crowley and adapted by Nick Hornby (About a Boy) from a novel by Colm Toibin.  Set in the early 1950s, Brooklyn follows the story of a young woman, extremely well-played by Saoirse Ronan, who emigrates from Ireland to the U.S. and has to choose between a life in America and one in her “old country.”  The fact that Brooklyn has a 97% positive rating on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes testifies to the quality of this understated but powerful and satisfying drama.

Also set in New York City in the 1950s is Carol (TWC, “R,” $29.98, BD $34.98), an adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s novel The Price of Salt, which tells the story of a love affair between a young photographer played by Rooney Mara and a middle-aged woman going through a bitter divorce played by Cate Blanchett.  Carol, which has a 93% positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes, received six Academy Award nominations.

Genre movie fans can choose between the “R” rated comedy Sisters (Universal, “Unrated,” $29.98, BD $34.98), which stars Tina Fey and Amy Poehler as two sisters who return to their family home and throw a party for their former high school classmates that turns into a heated, but eventually sort of helpful experience; and The Green Inferno (Universal, “R,” 101 min., $22.98, BD $29.98), Eli Roth’s long-delayed cannibalism-themed horror movie about a well-meaning group of students determined to “save the Amazon,” who are captured by a tribe with some culinary peculiarities.

For those who can't resist high-pitched, speeded-up vocals there is Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip (Fox, “PG,” 92 min., $29.99, BD $39.99), which earned $84 million at the box office, making it the second most popular film due on Tuesday, trailing only Sisters ($87 million).

Anime

This week’s most intriguing release is the action-packed harem comedy C3: Cube x Cursed x Curious: Complete Collection (Funimation, 330 min., Subtitles Only, BD/DVD Combo $49.98).  This set includes all 12 episodes of the 2011 series from Silver Link (along with an OVA episode from 2012). The anime is based on a series of light novels by Hazuki Minase that weave together a saga of supernatural conflict with the daily hassles of high school life.

When They Cry: Higurashi no Naku Koro ni Kai: Season 1 (Sentai Filmworks, 300 min., $49.98, BD $69.98) actually contains the first half of the second When They Cry Higurashi series, produced by Studio Deen in 2007.  This storyline is based on the final two original story arcs of the franchise plus a new arc created for the anime.

New on Blu-ray is the Waiting in the Summer: Complete Collection (Sentai Filmworks, 325 min., Subtitles Only, BD $59.98), which includes the 12-episode series previously released only on DVD by Sentai in 2012, plus an OVA episode that wasn’t included with the DVD.