Top-flight muscleman entertainment that is not afraid to have a brain or two in its head.

At first, it's hard to sort out who knows who and where the stories connect, but it eventually comes together, combining the gripping power of a soap opera with the skewed, unusual perspectives of Carver and Altman.

Smith's script simply crackles with an endless succession of humorous gags and on-the-ball observations while Anderson's brilliant performance as the shop assistant from hell is worthy of a film 100 times as expensive.

The joy comes not from the will-they-won't-they romance between the two leads, but from the sharply written humour from the pen of writer Nora Ephron.

It's an hilarious, touching reminder that, sometimes, ordinary folk have the world's most interesting lives.

This arty approach may dismay hard-core horror fans, but it captures the dark grace of the original with wit and style.

Hunter is superb as the alcoholic mom trying to keep her life from falling apart, and Wood and Reed are scarily convincing as delinquents.

A return to the Western in its pure, cinematic form.

The exuberance of the package, coupled with a sexual frankness seldom seen in English language cinema, makes this the most fun foreign film since "Y Tu Mamá También."

It is the last great Western ever made, and it will always remain so.

An ambitious and quite beautifully conceived fairy tale for the 90s.

Considering the ignominy of its path to British cinemas, it’s hard not to approach the film with caution, but after a few minutes in the company of an unusually low-key but typically world-weary Al Pacino, it begins to win you over, dragging you deeper into the sleazy political underworld it describes.

It’s soppy and sentimental, and it’s no longer possible to take the famous pottery sequence seriously, but some neat special effects and a healthy dose of humour prevent it from becoming mawkish.

A finely-acted, sensitively-written tale.

Of sentiment there is too much and the final sequence when the white men inevitably rear their heads and raise their rifles so fraught with tears and peril as to be exhaustingly melodramatic.

The allusions and illusions are just a treat until about two-thirds of the way in, when a genuinely shocking development takes the film off into psycho-horror that is almost as baffling as it is unsatisfying.

Jack Nicholson as The Joker helpfully provides all the colour.

Despite some gags which use the benefit of hindsight too much for their own good, this is a smart piece of filmmaking which suggests Linklater is already one of the more formidable talents of the 90s.

If your anti-Apartheid musical knowledge only goes as far as The Specials’ Free Nelson Mandela, this is a toe-tapping, thought-provoking education.

Has something for everyone.

No-one can walk out of this and say they didn't see the whole hundred mil up there on the screen in exploding vehicles, wrecked buildings, monster effects and sheer sweaty action.

Louis Sachar's compelling children's classic is about as Disney as Freddy Krueger. It's got murder, racism, facial disfigurement and killer lizards.

William H. Macy is a scream as the composite radio announcer whose hyperbolic racetrack reports are not only hilarious, but illustrate the impact of radio in creating a mass culture and how it was instrumental in making sporting events a nationwide obsession.

Improv comedy at its best: subtle, hilarious, excruciating and affecting in equal measure.

A script with a streak of clever cynicism and poignancy, a soundtrack of tunes you thought had long since departed to the vinyl graveyard and one of the most adorable screen pairings in ages in Sandler and Barrymore and the result is a film which, while hardly high art, is simply irresistible.

The feel-good hit of the year thus far. Be warned, though: if you think a little Jack Black goes a long way, then this isn’t for you.

Ultimately this is a film about feelings, moments and things not said. Like "Lost In Translation," it’s about what happens when people living in their own little worlds collide.

Two things make Eastwood's task easier for him: a superb cast and a cracking source novel. Dennis Lehane's book is one of the very best thrillers of recent years, richer in Boston detail and closer in character study than anything Eastwood manages to bring to the screen.