All nine seasons of the groundbreaking series are offered in deluxe, limited edition fashion, packaged with the X-Files movie and a wealth of cool extras, including a comic book, classic art cards, and the theatrical poster. For fans of classic TV and geeks alike, this is the mother lode. True, hardcore fans already have the individual sets like I do with the extras those include. But what completist can ever resist sets like these… one big box full of everything from your favorite show ever. It’s mostly essential for fans of smart TV who don’t already have any X-Files sets or may only have the themed alien story sets or a single season or two.

—Sarah Zupko

Oddly enough, this Italian icon never wanted to be the savior of the American oater. He simply wanted to make a commercially successful film, and the rising interest in the spaghetti style western seemed like a good avenue to explore. The result stands as the revamped genre’s greatest hits. Collecting together A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More, The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly, and the criminally overlooked Duck, You Sucker, we literally witness the birth of an entire motion picture mannerism. The long pauses, the extreme close-ups, the heat scorched sanctimony – it’s all here to be enjoyed over and over again.

—Bill Gibron

Everyman Michael Moore is well known for his at times comically, at times painfully blunt approach to the gawdawful truth of life as it is in the US for the average person.  Indeed, Moore is among our most astute cultural/political critics, in the non-academic sense, of course. The fat cats who keep the rest of us underfoot are no match for the Big Man and his team in this TV series—when he can corner them.  He gets a lot closer to them than the average Joe, even makes them squirm, at times, and that’s damned cathartic to watch.  The Emmy nominated show, captured here in the Entire Series and Best of DVDs, make an ideal gift for anybody you know who feels their tax money is misdirected, and their lives and the lives of others, undervalued.

—Karen Zarker

The History Channel offers a fascinating look at the literal building of empire through architecture. Covering thousands of years of human development and civilization building, empires are perhaps the obvious prism to frame an analysis of societal growth because, if nothing else, they are fairly comprehensively documented. Architecture has always been viewed by the powerful as a primary means to convey their power and values and so it is quite fitting the means to talk about the empire here. From Ancient Greece and Egypt through to the British Empire, this series is enlightening and thought-provoking and of interest to anyone interested in where we came from.

—Sarah Zupko

If you loved Casino Royal and thought this hard-edged yet flippant character—without the tongue-in-cheek that usually accompanies a 007 film—is exactly what the spy genre needs, go back to the beginning. Before Sean Connery became James Bond in 1962, Patrick McGoohan was finding danger as John Drake as early as 1960. No, he wasn’t the first in the spy genre, nor did he popularize it, but he was one of the coolest to covertly defend the free world this side of Golgo 13. Danger Man, better known as the “Secret Agent” to US viewers, had his own show from 1960 to 1966 and every episode can be found on the Complete Collection from A&E home video, further cementing the channel’s love affair with classic British programming. In each adventure, Drake must use his wits to find a way to route out his enemies. Sometimes this is nothing more than overpowering a strongman or wrestling a gun from a sharpshooter, but more often than not it means going deep undercover as a swinging disc jockey, a savvy technician, or an unassuming salesman. The series doesn’t have the same ‘60s vibe of Mission: Impossible, but it does capture the optimism of the era after the Red Scare of the ‘50s and before the gritty reality of the Vietnam War set in.

—Kevin Garcia

The History Channel Presents Modern Marvels - Architectural Wonders [$35.99]

For the curious-minded who wonder how things work and how things get made in the first place, these History Channel collections are splendid gifts. The technology set covers a nice range of topics, from the geek-friendly investigation of James Bond’s gadgets to the method of making candy. It goes from a basic fundamental like the science of sugar all the way to technology’s most menacing developmental extreme, the nuclear bombs created out of the work of the Manhattan Project. Science plays a great role, too, in the architectural side of the series. Covering a wide swath of human history, this set spans the most spectacular creations of the ancient world in the Eygytian pyramids and the Great Wall of China up to the 20th century and the construction of the Empire State Building and the Golden Gate Bridge. These are wonderful and affordable collections for the science nut and the intellectually curious alike.

—Sarah Zupko