The Independent Recommends: The Five Best Films

Ratcatcher (15) Set in the rubbish-strewn wilds of Seventies Govan, Lynne Ramsay's debut (right) paints a haunting portrait of everyday childhood madness. Quite simply the best British film we've seen all year.

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

Fight Club (18) David Fincher's anarchistic roller-coaster of a movie is flawed but fantastic; Ed Norton and Brad Pitt both play their roles at top volume.

Scrooge (U) A timely re-release for this antique Yuletide fave from 1951, fired by a fine Alastair Sim performance as the curmudgeonly old miser visited by a quartet of ghosts on a chill Christmas Eve.

Taxi (15)

Luc Besson produced and penned the script for this crime caper about two odd-couple tearaways hunting a band of bank robbers. It fairly reeks of burnt rubber.

Xan Brooks