THE FIVE BEST FILMS

1

The Opposite of Sex (8)

Christina Ricci plays 6-year-old bitch-on-wheels Dedee, shooting from the lip and causing all kinds of havoc when she moves in with her mild-mannered brother (Martin Donovan). Director Don Roos' script bristles with acidulous one-liners. See review, right.

2

The Truman Show (5)

Peter Weir's ingenious and unsettling fantasy is, in the end, an escape movie - in the case of Jim Carrey's Truman Burbank, it's breaking out of the round-the-clock TV docu-soap that is his own life.

3

(5)

Darren Aronofsky's debut, filmed in sooty black-and-white, tells the story of a genius mathematician. This stylish indie movie fearlessly combines Wall Street, Jewish mysticism and nightmarish headaches.

4

Antz (PG)

Computer-animated comedy voiced by a stellar cast stars Woody Allen as a worker ant who becomes an unlikely war hero and opponent of the colony's totalitarian regime. Terrific fun.

5

The Dream Life of Angels (8)

Erick Zonca's remarkable debut draws its strength from the contrasting personalities of Isa (Elodie Bouchez) and Marie (Natacha Regnier), whose friend-ship comes alive amid the drab environs of Lille.

THE FIVE BEST REVIVALS

To Have and Have Not (Curzon Soho, NFT)

The NFT's "Classic Bogart" season continues with Howard Hawks's terrific wartime melodrama. It put Bogart and Bacall together for the first time, and heralded one of the greatest of all Hollywood romances.

2

The Philadelphia Story (Curzon Soho)

As graceful as any romantic comedy ever made, this features Cary Grant and James Stewart playing opposite each other like great jazzmen showing off their chops in a spirit of mutual regard.

3

The Wages of Fear (NFT, Sun 6.0pm)

This great existential thriller concerns the trials of four men driving two trucks of nitroglycerine through the jungle. Henri-Georges Clouzot invests this parable of human fallibility with near-unbearable tension.

4

In a Lonely Place (NFT, Wed 6.0pm)

Bogart is the disillusioned scriptwriter and prime suspect in the murder of a hat-check girl. Gloria Grahame plays the neighbour Bogart falls for, while director Nicholas Ray conjures an atmosphere of morbid intensity.

5

Don't Look Back (NFT, Wed 6.5pm)

DA Pennebaker's film of Bob Dylan's 965 UK tour is one of the greatest rockumentaries ever made; a priceless record of the enigmatic star as he changed from earnest folkie to majestically bored rock god.