1995 box-office charts

TOP 10 OF THE YEAR: UK

1 Batman Forever .(pounds 20,015,001) US

2 Casper (pounds 15,965,083) US

3 Braveheart (pounds 11,022,738) US

4 Apollo 13 (pounds 10,516,077) US

5 Interview with the Vampire (pounds 10,515,385) US

6 Die Hard with a Vengeance (pounds 10,181,784) US

7 Stargate (pounds 9,781,482) US

8 Pocahontas (pounds 9,719,990) US

9 Dumb and Dumber (pounds 9,511,120) US

10 Waterworld (pounds 8,359,793) US

TOP 10 OF THE YEAR: US

1 Batman Forever ($184.0m) US

2 Apollo 13 ($172.1m) US

3 Pocahontas ($141.2m) US

4 Dumb and Dumber ($127.2m) US

5 Casper ($100.1m) US

6 Die Hard with a Vengeance ($100.0m) US

7 Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls ($93.9m) US

8 Crimson Tide ($91.4m) US

9 Waterworld ($88.2m) US

10 Seven ($86.0m) US

Chart supplied by Screen International

You can't keep a good franchise down. Batman Forever (above) steamed to the top of both the UK and US charts by a considerable margin. In a coincidence of such impeccable timing that Russell Grant probably had a hand in it somewhere, the film hit the video shelves last week.

By another remarkable coincidence, Jim Carrey appeared in two of the UK's highest grossing films, and three of the US's: Batman Forever, Dumb and Dumber and Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls. Another horrible surprise: Kevin Costner's obese Waterworld stayed afloat after all. (Luckily he's seen sense and is now working with his old Bull Durham director Ron Shelton again.)

Generally, though, there isn't much disparity between the two charts. Aside from Ace Ventura (which opens here on Boxing Day), only the stark serial-killer movie Seven, starring Morgan Freeman and Brad Pitt, has yet to reach us. It arrives on 5 January, one of the sure-fire best films of 1996.

(UK figures: box-office from 1 Dec 1994 - 26 Nov 1995 inc; US figures: box-office from 2 Dec 1994 - 1 Dec 1995 inc)