A video gift guide for dads

T

here’s no better way to spend Father’s Day than watching a movie or TV series with your dad. This year there’s plenty of new releases to choose from, including testosterone-fueled series like “Game of Thrones” and “Gunsmoke,” as well as vintage actioners such as “The Seven-Ups” and “Gun Crazy.”

Here’s a look at 10 of the best new releases guaranteed to make your dad a happy man on Father’s Day: Escape Plan (2014, Lionsgate,

R, $23): Now on 4K, this good, old-fashioned prison-break picture stars Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone as convicts determined to escape an ultrasecret, high-tech lock-up called “the Tomb.” There’s a convoluted backstory which doesn’t quite work, but essentially this is all about the grizzled vets matching wits with a young whippersnapper of a warden (Jim Caviezel). After all these years, Schwarzenegger and Stallone are still fun to watch in an actioner that delivers one crazy jolt after another. Gun Crazy (1950, Warner

Archive, unrated, $20): A precursor to “Bonnie and Clyde,” this incendiary crime thriller, now on Blu-ray, is still mesmerizing decades after its initial release. John Dall stars as a gun-obsessed veteran who makes the mistake of falling in love with a sharp-shooting bad girl (Peggy Cummins), who lures him into a life of crime. Not only does director Joseph H. Lewis put you in the driver’s seat, right alongside the doomed outlaws, but he connects the dots between violence and lust in a way that feels astonishingly modern. Dall and Cummins rank as one of the most provocative couples in cinema: they make you believe they belong together like a gun and ammunition. The Seven-Ups (1973, Twilight

Time, PG, $30): Something of an unofficial sequel to “The French Connection,” this gritty cop thriller stars Roy Scheider as a detective overseeing a secret task force that busts culprits whose offenses guarantee seven years or more in prison. Dispensing with legalities like warrants, Scheider and company run all kinds of shady sting operations, at least until one of their own takes a bullet from a mobster. Scheider once again proves he’s one of the most underrated leading men of the ‘70s and ‘80s, but it’s an astonishing, eye-popping car chase through the mean streets of Manhattan which really distinguishes this hard-boiled suspenser.

COURTESY PHOTO