The Independent Recommends: The Five Best Films

The Truman Show (15)

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

Out of Sight (15)

This tale of love on opposite sides of the law from director Steven Soderbergh knocks spots off every previous Elmore Leonard adaptation, and boasts in George Clooney and Jennifer Lopez (right) the most romantic pairing of the cinematic year.

The Dream Life of Angels (18)

Erick Zonca's fine debut draws its strength from the personalities of Isa (Elodie Bouchez) and Marie (Natacha Regnier), whose close friendship comes alive amid the drab environs of Lille.

Antz (PG)

Computer-animated comedy voiced by a stellar cast and starring Woody Allen as a worker ant who becomes an opponent of the colony's totalitarian regime. Allen's best work in a while.

My Name is Joe (15)

All that one would expect from a Ken Loach film - humour, indignation, emotional sympathy - driven by Peter Mullan's scary, intense performance as a recovering alcoholic.