Ten Great Films You Probably Haven't Seen

Pruitt Taylor Vince is magnificent as a lonely and overweight young man who falls in love with a beautiful young girl who arrives in town shortly after his mother dies, and becomes a waitress in his local diner. Liv Tyler plays this part with real understanding, and Deborah Harry - of Blondie fame - puts in a strong performance as an aging waitress threatened by the younger, prettier and much more polite Tyler. Heavy is the kind of film that's becoming a real rarity in Hollywood - an understated drama with real heart, and minimal emotional manipulation. It has a real air of melancholy about it, and Mangold does a wonderful job of illustrating how difficult, even painful it can be for those of a sensitive disposition to find love and contentment in the modern world. This whisper of a movie packs more emotional punch than a hundred Titanics.

From Pulitzer prize winning playwright David Mamet, here making a bit of a splash with his directorial debut. This is a tightly plotted, clever puzzle of a film about a female psychiatrist drawn into the underground world of scams and con-artistry. What would become Mamet's usual troup is here - William H. Macy, Ricky Jay et al, headed by a dazzling performance from the always reliable Joe Mantegna, who can play smooth to mean and back again in a heartbeat. It's a lot of fun following the trail of who's conning whom, and who will end up on top, and while there are a couple of credibility issues here and there nothing can stop the satisfaction of watching a good yarn well told, and it's always a pleasure to watch top-notch actors working with a top-drawer script.

Superb police drama from Hong Kong. If you're looking to introduce a friend to foreign films then this is a great place to start. It's a tale of an undercover cop who's infiltrated the local mob boss's gang. Meanwhile, one of the cops is in the pay of the same crime lord, and they're each trying to find the identity of the other. If all that sounds very familiar it's because Martin Scorsese got a hold of it and remade it as The Departed, featuring Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon and Jack Nicholson, and although some would say it's good it's not a patch on the original as far as I'm concerned. This is gripping stuff, and always intriguing. Andy Lau, Anthony Wong, and Eric Tsang are all excellent, and Tony Leung is especially good.

This is a wonderful feel-good movie, which everyone who watches it just can't seem to resist. It's whimsical and engaging in a way that so few films these days are. In short it's a lot of fun. There are more cameos than you can shake a stick at (Kurt Russell, Michael J. Fox etc.), and just when you think you've got it all figured out, it turns a strange little corner and keeps you guessing for just a little bit longer. Being quite off-the-wall, but not an outright comedy, but too weird to be a serious drama this film kind of fell through the cracks when it came to promoting it, which is why so few people have heard of it, but I don't know anyone whom I've introduced to this film that didn't like it. Now how many films can you say that about?

Tim Roth stars as a man who has never in his life stepped foot on dry land. He's a virtuoso pianist and has spent his whole life entertaining the guests onboard a cruise liner which is now scheduled to be decommissioned and destroyed. The story is told in a series of long flashbacks, as recalled by Pruitt Taylor Vince, a one time horn player who accompanied Roth as a fellow musician on some of the ship's voyages. While pawning his trumpet he happens upon a rare recording of the great piano playing from his enigmatic friend, and sets about trying to track him down. This is by turns funny, moving, and fascinating in it's oddness, and Guiseppe Tornatore sprinkles the production with the same magic that made his Cinema Paradiso so beloved.

Fact-based drama about Dan Mahowny, a bank manager from Toronto wrestling with his growing gambling problem. When the main character has such an all-consuming gambling habit, and is surrounded by such a large amount of money in his workplace you just know it's not going to take long for things to spin out of control, and indeed they do. The speed with which his debts mount and the sheer scale of them beggars belief, but if you were to ask Dan about the whole thing he'd only admit to having 'a few financial problems'. Philip Seymour Hoffman in the title role gives a performance of such mesmerising intensity that you just can't take your eyes off him wherever he's in the frame and whatever he's doing. There are surprisingly few films that deal directly with the psychology of gamblers and their fascinating addiction , and this is one of the very best.

First - and so far only feature film from mathematician turned director Shane Carruth. It's obvious there wasn't a lot of money thrown at this project, but the idea is a good one: A bunch of regular guys discover the key to time travel and a couple of them build a primitive machine to transport them through time. The reason it's so good is the realistic way Carruth approches the paradoxes that would arise if someone were actually able to travel through time. It's a subtle and very low-key film with naturalistic performances, and the whole time travel thing really sneaks up on you. In fact you might wonder what's going on if you're not paying close attention. Once you get on to the right wavelength, this film is very compelling, and thoroughly thought-provoking. In fact it's on of the very few films I was anxious to rewatch immediately after seeing it.

Two minor characters (Gary Oldman and Tim Roth) wander through the setting of Shakespeare's Hamlet, oblivious to their doomed roles in the play's plot. Featuring wonderfully witty dialogue and some priceless verbal gymnastics, Tom Stoppard directs this adaptation of his own play with a competent hand and a liberal dash of frivolity. Roth and Oldman as the eponymous heroes are both superb, as is Richard Dreyfuss as a travelling thespian. This is a film not afraid to be intelligent and most of the jokes revolve around clever wordplay or rely on a certain level of general knowledge, so it's aimed at educated adults - a demographic generally ignored by filmmakers these days. If the brilliant opening ten minutes don't hook you then there's no hope for you.

Max Pomeranc stars as the young chess prodigy Josh Waitzkin (who is a grandmaster in real life today). We follow his chess career from learning the game to besting his father, enetering tournaments and finally winning the US junior championships. Joe Mantegna shines as Josh's father, and Ben Kingsley and Laurence Fishburne both excel as Josh's two very different chess coaches. While some of the incidents are obviously doctored for dramatic effect, it doesn't harm the film as a whole, and the result is a very enjoyable experience, especially for chess fans. This is a high quality movie on all fronts, with lovely photography from veteran Conrad Hall. Notable also for being one of a small band of films featuring child actors who aren't annoying.