The Independent Recommends: The Five Best Films

Get Carter (18)

Mike Hodges's gangland picture (right) retains a seedy allure, thanks to bleak locations, spare dialogue, and a performance of near-heroic unpleasantness from Michael Caine.

A Simple Plan (15)

Cult horror director Sam Raimi makes a dramatic entry into the mainstream with this chilling, snow-bound thriller about a $4m windfall that brings nothing but ill. Bill Paxton and Billy Bob Thornton star.

Orphans (18)

Peter Mullan's darkly comic tale of four siblings and a funeral movingly captures the emotional stresses of bereavement over the course of a storm-tossed Glaswegian night.

Cruel Intentions (15)

This sly take on Les Liaisons Dangereuses is set in high-society Manhattan, where Sarah Michelle Gellar and Ryan Phillippe plan their seduction with all the cruelty of the original aristocrats.

Celebrity (18)

Woody Allen's latest film, shot in black and white, is a satire on sexual ambition as much as celebrity, and despite Kenneth Branagh's awful performance, it's Allen's most enjoyable work in a while.