Everyone loves a good caper, and we start with the year’s best:

The Bank Job **** It would have been easy to dismiss this English caper flick because its star, Jason Statham, has been closely identified with brainless action fare like The Transporter and others. But veteran craftsman Roger Donaldson (No Way Out), no stranger to this type of material, directs from a script by Dick Clement and Ian La Fresnais.

Based on an actual event from the early 1970s, the bank job of the title is a heist on a central London bank that ends up with serpentine plot twists involving blackmail, the royal family, pornography, rising black power, corrupt police, and, of course, a bit of romance.

Statham plays Terry Leather, an owner of a failing used-car lot who learns of a supposedly surefire bank robbery from ex-girlfriend Martine Love (Saffron Burrows). The two assemble a gang from Terry’s low-life acquaintances, not knowing of a mole in their unit. They must dig their way underground into the area of the bank’s safety deposit boxes, where they find a treasure more dangerous than money.

Lionsgate Films

Jason Statham is shown in a scene from the English caper film The Bank Job, based on an actual heist on a bank in central London. The movie is coming to DVD and Blu-ray on Tuesday.

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After the heist, director Donaldson perfectly juggles his myriad plotlines as they intersect, playfully revealing more unseen connections. Fun, tense and filled with suspenseful moments accented by minimal violence.

Rated R, 110 minutes.

Coming Tuesday to DVD and Blue-ray.

The DVD comes in three forms, a single disc, a double-disc set with a standard-definition digital version of the film, and a double-disc Blu-ray copy. All versions include commentary by Donaldson, Burrows and the composer.

Also included are about six minutes of deleted scenes, a 17-minute “making of” featurette with interviews with virtually all the main cast and crew, and “The Baker Street Bank Raid,” a 15-minute look at the real robbery, which includes actual crime scene photos.

*

Fanny ***1/2 In 1960, this romantic tearjerker garnered five Academy Award nominations for Best Picture, Actor, Musical Score and two others. It’s based on a stage play based on Marcel Pagnol’s revered between-the-wars trilogy of French novels. In Marseilles, on the day Fanny (Leslie Caron), the daughter of a fish-monger, turns 18, her life’s love, Marius (Horst Bucholtz), confides that he’s going out to sea the next morning.

Their first and only night of passion follows. He leaves and she later discovers the price of her rare act of spontaneity.

In an act of convenience, she marries the much older Honore (Maurice Chevalier), who eventually helps to raise the son as his own. Legendary stage director Joshua Logan directs as if on stage, as virtually everyone makes broad gestures and mugs unforgivably. But the elaborate human drama guarantees heightened emotion. Also with Charles Boyer.

Not rated, 134 minutes.

The DVD set offers the movie on the first disc and Harold Rome’s lush, melodic Oscar-nominated score on the second disc.

*

Love and Other Disasters ** Bubbly, perky and endlessly nauseating, Brittany Murphy plays Emily “Jacks” Jackson, an Anglo-American living in London who works in a fashion house.

She experiences the typical problems of a single woman, feuding with her on-again, off-again boyfriend while finding comfort and understanding only with her gay roommate. She also has a stable of eccentric friends, courtesy of director Alek Keshishian’s cliche-ridden script.

A series of misunderstandings (he’s gay, no he’s not) ride through the narrative in hopes of higher mirth, which rarely arrives. Santiago Cabrera, from TV’s Lost, plays the hunk who causes confusion for everyone. If nothing else, the movie provides an entertaining travelogue of London.

Rated R, 90 minutes.

The DVD features a 26-minute “making of” featurette in which Keshishian explains the film’s origins and chronology.

*

Sex and Death 101 *** Daniel Waters proves he has lost none of his in-your-face irreverence since he first penned Heathers 20 years ago. He wrote and directed this, what else, black comedy about Roderick Blank (Simon Baker), who receives an e-mail listing, in order, all the women he has ever had sex with or will have sex with.

After setting up such a premise, Waters then takes his film into a fantasy realm, as Blank learns from some nebulous spirits, or angels, or whatever, that a mistake has been made and he must play this gambit through to the end.

This means Blank, and the movie, tracks down various women on the list to have sex with.

A redundancy sets in, no matter how funny or creative Waters makes some of these sequences. In an on-running subplot, Winona Ryder appears as Death Nell, a mysterious serial killer who seduces men with deadly intent. Darkly humorous, overlooked film, ripe with Waters’ mordant wit.

Rated R, 117 minutes.

The DVD offers commentary from Waters, the theatrical trailer and “101 Perversions,” a 17-minute “making of” featurette.

*

’Til Death Do Us Part, The Complete First Season —Always entertaining, John Waters narrates, stars in and is responsible for our week’s top TV-series-to-DVD.

Waters hosts all 13 episodes, on three discs, of the first season of his strange anthology series that has him following newlyweds after the honeymoon phase has died down. Way down.

Every episode reveals a mounting conflict that eventually peaks, providing voyeuristic viewers with a thrill.

Not rated, 286 minutes.

The discs also hold interviews with the show’s creator, including Waters. Plus, Waters also provides a fresh introduction to his sensationalistic reality show.

Also this week: Insanitarium, Meet Bill, Trapped Ashes, Voice.