The Independent Recommends: The Five Best Films

The Straight Story (U) David Lynch steadies the wheel and dabs on the brakes for this warm, folksy road movie with a difference. Richard Farnsworth is the genial old salt heading Wisconsin way atop his little green tractor.

The Limey (18) Steven Soderbergh's film-jigsaw amounts, at times, to a sort of soulful, art-house Austin Powers. Terence Stamp headlines as the sour Sixties hangover at large in Nineties LA.

The World Is Not Enough (12) Leaping off a dazzling pre-credits sequence comes the best Bond in decades. Pierce Brosnan has his hands full tackling Sophie Marceau's lissom heiress and a shaven-headed Robert Carlyle.

Fight Club (18) David (Seven) Fincher's anarchistic roller-coaster of a movie (right) is flawed but fascinating; almost Ali-like in its loud-mouthed wit and quicksilver cool. Ed Norton and Brad Pitt play their roles at top volume.

Cinema Paradiso (PG)

Ah, Paradiso. Oh, love-song to cinema. Ah, cute nipper, loveable grumpy projectionist, bumbling rustics, sugary sentiment. Oh, just go and see it, why don't you?