Another memorable yakuza thriller from the Takeshi Miike production line, this gets off to a cracking start with a hilarious dog gag, then swerves into Lynchian weirdville with the introduction of a soothsayer, a transvestite or two, a lactating innkeeper and a minotaur. Just when the movie begins to sink into a surrealist stupor, Miike lets loose with a climax outrageous even by his own prodigious standards.

Joe Dante's modern-day werewolf pulp, knowingly scripted by John Sayles. Traumatised TV reporter Dee Wallace takes refuge at a remote retreat only to discover it's a werewolf den. A treasure for horror aficionados, with memorable transformation scenes and a host of sly cameos. Scarier, smarter, sexier and funnier than the same year's An American Werewolf In London.

William H Macy and Oscar-nominated Alec Baldwin are exceptional in this downbeat Vegas-set drama from first-time writer-director Wayne Kramer. Hardly anyone does pent-up malice better than Baldwin, and he's particularly combustible here as an old-school casino boss under pressure to modernise his operation, who turns somewhat unreasonable when Macy tries to walk out on him.

This deeply schizophrenic teen vampire movie classic from Joel Schumacher has dark ambitions, not least in its child-murder subtext and blood-red lighting hues from Raging Bull cinematographer Michael Chapman. But too often it's railroaded by Schumacher's baser window-dresser's instincts, and ends up like a goth Goonies on acid.

Charlize Theron earns her Oscar as confused Florida serial killer Aileen Wuornos, not just for looking less attractive but because, after 20 minutes, you forget she's even a woman. So macho is her white-trash lesbian aggressor that you believe Christina Ricci is 'her' arm candy. Both excel as fuck-ups, and Patty Jenkins' script and direction are grim and gristly. Superb.

Like Seinfeld and The Larry Sanders Show before it, the hilarious, misanthropic mayhem of Larry David's CYE has been lamentably treated by UK TV schedulers, clearly unused to programming such unfettered genius. All the more reason to recommend this five-hour festival of mordant mirth, in whose presence humbled awe is the only appropriate response.

IN 1981, IN MILPITAS, California, a 16-year-old boy raped and murdered his girlfriend. Over the next few days, he took friends on trips to see her corpse, left lying by the riverbank.

Highly entertaining Stephen King adaptation, stylishly directed by David Koepp, with a mesmerising Johnny Depp as a best-selling mystery writer in the throes of a messy divorce who's accused of plagiarism—and threatened with unpleasant retribution—by sinister hillbilly John Turturro. Cue havoc on all fronts, and bodies piling up very quickly indeed. Splendid.

112 minutes of Robert Altman's floaty, wispy ambient eavesdropping in the company of Chicago's Joffrey Ballet, with producer/star Neve Campbell drifting into dance numbers, performing a few grands jetes, drifting out again, snogging non-dancing co-star James Franco, then it's back to the real troupe, dancing, rehearsing, then dancing again. A test for even the most ardent Altman fan.

While the US administration portray. Iran as hostile to culture and dissent, Samira Makhmalbaf's films suggest otherwise. Her 1997 debut, made when she was 17, tells the story of the Naderi family (played by themselves), whose daughters were kept unwashed and imprisoned until they were 12. Simple, painterly, weirdly engaging, it subtly reveals that excessive faith and the repression of women are outmoded concepts even in that 'axis-of-evil' capital Tehran.