Last year’s premiere season of Showtime’s Homeland won nine of the twelve Primetime Emmys it was nominated for including Outstanding Drama Series as well as Lead Actor (Damian Lewis) and Actress (Claire Danes) in a Drama Series. Just in time for next week’s Emmys, where it’s been nominated for eleven of the statuettes, you can binge watch all twelve episodes of Homeland: The Complete Second Season, newly released on Blu-ray and standard DVD.

With even more twists and turns, you can thrill to the romance and danger of conflicted heroes, heroines and bad guys as they stumble their way through increasing danger. Danes and Lewis are just as good this season as the bipolar CIA agent and the soldier turned Al Qaeda mole, respectively. The turn of events this season has Lewis’ Brody caught and cornered by the CIA and now working as a double-agent. Equally fine are this year’s three additional Emmy nominees, Mandy Patinkin as Danes’ mentor; Morena Baccarin as Lewis’ long-suffering wife and new to the series Rupert Friend as a CIA “killer of bad guys” working undercover as an analyst.

Others making an impact include Jamey Sheridan as a crafty U.S. Vice President; Talia Balsam as his manipulative wife; David Harewood as a Deputy CIA Director with an agenda of his own; Diego Klattenhoff as Lewis’ friend and his wife’s lover; Morgan Saylor as Lewis’ daughter and Timothée Chalamet as Sheridan’s son. Just when all the season’s problems seem to have been resolved, a shocking occurrence in the last episode sets everything askew anew for season three.

Homeland remains one of TV’s most compulsively watchable shows.

I’ve never had more than a passing interest in Star Trek which started out as a TV series in 1966 and became even more popular in re-runs before spawning a film series beginning in 1979 and several subsequent TV series and films as well. Not being a major fan of the originals, I was not insulted by J.J. Abrams’ re-boot of the film franchise as some diehard fans were. I liked his first film, 2009’s Star Trek, but I can’t say the same thing about his follow-up.

This year’s Star Trek Into Darkness is an insulting bore, a CGI effects laden insult to Nicholas Meyer’s 1982 entry, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Anton Yelchin and others come across as kids playing at grown-up instead of the full-fledged characters they seemed in their first outing together. Even the usually fine Benedict Cumberbatch doesn’t seem up to the task of playing the film’s principal bad guy. The dialogue, especially the supposedly humorous asides, is dreadful.

Star Trek Into Darkness is available two Blu-ray versions, 3D and 2D as well as 2D standard DVD.

Mira Nair is a director who has always been drawn to clash of culture material. Her latest, The Reluctant Fundamentalist, based on a best-selling novel, is a take on 9/11 from a different perspective.

Riz Ahmed stars as a brilliant U.S. educated Pakistani, a fast-rising star at a Wall Street firm, who after 9/11 is treated with the indignities affecting many Muslims in the U.S. He eventually quits his job and returns to Pakistan where he becomes a professor. Falsely suspected of being involved in the kidnapping of an American teacher at his university, he is questioned by a CIA agent masquerading as a reporter. It’s an interesting, if slow-paced film, with a strong lead performance and good support from Kate Hudson as his spoiled American girlfriend; Kiefer Sutherland as his boss and mentor and Live Schreiber as his interrogator.

The Reluctant Fundamentalist is available on Blu-ray and standard DVD.

Films about the Irish troubles have been fodder for films at least since the 1930s. Set in Belfast, but filmed in Dublin, comes James Marsh’s Shadow Dancer. The Oscar winning documentary director (Man on Wire) films the tale of a would-be female IRA terrorist in stark documentary style, but the film’s narrative lacks cohesion. You have to put together the pieces, especially in the film’s final moments when two killings leave you pondering who set them up.

Andrea Riseborough is outstanding as the young woman who is tortured by the memory of a childhood incident in which she delegated her shopping chore to her younger brother who is then killed in an attack while shopping. Caught in an attempted subway bombing incident, she is recruited by British intelligence officer Clive Owen to become a mole in her family’s IRA cell. Acting at cross purposes, however, is Owen’s boss, a cold, nasty Gillian Anderson. The film is highly atmospheric.

Shadow Dancer is available on both Blu-ray and standard DVD.

The romantic comedy is a film genre that has suffered from terminal cuteness for so long that it’s a pleasure to find one that’s even remotely charming. Paul Weitz’s Admission is such a film.

Tina Fey stars as a Princeton admissions officer who is confronted with the prospect that one of high school teacher Paul Rudd’s students might be the illegitimate son she gave up for adoption years earlier. The young man (Nat Wolff) is exceptionally bright and has many of her characteristics, leading her to think that he is indeed her son. The situation leads to complications that ultimately result in her firing and finding true happiness with, yup, Paul Rudd. It’s a surprisingly effective time killer.

Admission is available on both Blu-ray and standard DVD.

Making their long delayed Blu-ray debuts in the U.S. are two of the screen’s best thrillers, 1976’s Marathon Man, directed by John Schlesinger with top-notch performances from Dustin Hoffman and Laurence Olivier, and 1999’s The Talented Mr. Ripley, directed by Anthony Minghella with Matt Damon in one of his best roles, superbly supported by Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Cate Blanchett. Both are worth the upgrade.

This week’s new releases include the made-for-TV Behind the Candelabra and the 65th Anniversary Blu-ray edition of of A Letter to Three Wives.