The Independent Recommends: Film

WHAT HAS made Elizabeth (left) such a hit? Could it be Shekhar Kapur's showy direction, or the eccentric casting (costume stalwarts John Gielgud and David Attenborough rub shoulders with the likes of Angus Deayton and Eric Cantona)? Or, perhaps, it's simply down to Cate Blanchett's peerless lead turn; morphing down the years from a waifish hippy chick to a forbidding powder-caked goth.

On general release

Jean-Pierre Melville's Le Samourai is a film of louche, chill surfaces, its existential plotline played out in a sleek Sixties Paris. Alain Delon's impassive hitman - ice-chip eyes below a wide-brimmed fedora - became an instant icon of gangster cool

Cine Lumiere, London SW7 (0171-838 2144) 8.15pm