The Independent Recommends: The Five Best Films

Election (15) Fired by a stinging script and forceful playing (from Reece Witherspoon and Matthew Broderick), Election paints a blackly amusing portrait of student politics, Nebraska-style. It gets our vote.

Buena Vista Social Club (U)

Wim Wenders's affectionate salute to the Cuba-son musicians of old Havana. The men are gnarled, snow-haired octogenarians; their music is as active and buoyant as a three-year-old.

All About My Mother (15) Almodovar at his quirky, curious best. All About My Mother (right) offers a soaring salute to mums everywhere, not to mention a nostalgic sayonara to the good old days of transvestite junkie prostitution.

Analyze This (15) Robert De Niro's angst-ridden mafioso enlivens this lightweight movie sitcom from director Harold Ramis. File it alongside TV's The Sopranos in its spry mix of mobsterism and psychiatry.

Drop Dead Gorgeous (15) America's beauty pageant circuit goes under the gun in this ill-disciplined but energetic black comedy. Denise Richards and Kirsten Dunst play chalk- and-cheese rivals for the tinselly crown.