FIVE BEST FILMS

Rachel Getting Married, 15
Filmed with a hand-held digital camera, this is a hyper-naturalistic exposé of the mores of Connecticut’s wealthy and dysfunctional, with Anne Hathaway particularly excellent as the neurotic, brittle and just-out-of-rehab young woman spoiling her sister’s wedding party. Nationwide

Milk, 15
Sean Penn gives a magnetic performance as Harvey Milk, the politician and gay-rights activist who was assassinated in San Francisco in 1978. As well as a polished, conventionally well-made biopic, ‘Milk’ is an entertaining social-history lesson, re-creating the excitement and tumult of the times. Nationwide

The Wrestler, 15
Mickey Rourke, sporting an Eighties peroxide hairdo, skin the colour of chicken tikka and a hearing aid, gives a career-best performance as an ageing and battered American pro-wrestler whose glory years are long behind him in this sad, touching and truthful film. Nationwide

Revolutionary Road, 15
Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio star as a dissatisfied, warring couple in this consistently absorbing and occasionally heart-rending adaptation of the Richard Yates novel. Nationwide

Slumdog Millionaire, 15
An antic, and romantic, fable about the joys and nightmares of childhood, about a boy’s search for love, and about a teeming, terrifying city on the rise. Dev Patel stars as Jamal, the 18-year-old recounting his life as a “slumdog” on the streets of Mumbai. Nationwide