The best
1 Boys Don’t Cry. Hilary Swank got an Oscar for her role as a girl going as a boy; shocking, moving, unsentimental and rapturous.
2 American Beauty. Oscar-winning black comedy about the suburban nightmare, with superb central performance from Kevin Spacey.
3 The Limey. Steven Soderbergh’s off-beat modern-day film noir with a wonderfully understated, droll Terence Stamp: a perfect little movie.
4 Fight Club. Bristling with ideas, bursting with anarchic energy, a desperate fable about capitalism and consumerism. And Brad Pitt’s torso.
5 East-West. Fine historical drama set in Stalin’s Russia. Great performances all round.
6 Buena Vista Social Club. Great documentary about old Cuban musicians,
7 American Psycho. Sleek and steamlined adaption of the shocking satire about a sleek and streamlined psycho-killer in Eighties New York.
8 Being John Malkovich. Weirdest movie of the year, and also one of the funniest for those who got it.
9 Final Destination. Best of the teen-slasher flicks, a terrifying rollercoaster ride through a series of ingenious deaths.
10 Romance. “The most important recent intervention in gender debates” (M&G, July 28 to August 3)
The worst
1 Battlefield Earth. John Travolta in hideous wig and creature-feature hands; also in the worst sci-fi movie in memory.
2 I Dreamed of Africa. Interesting real-life story of an Italian widow in Africa destroyed by terrible accents (including Kim Basinger’s) and fashion-shoot visuals. An episodic mess.
3 Space Cowboys. From Clint Eastwood, the director of the great Unforgiven, this clichd macho-old-guy triumphalist adventure-romp is unforgiveable.
4 The Patriot. Mel Gibson saves the American revolution while distorting history into crude propaganda.
5 The Next Best Thing. Madonna and Rupert Everett have a child. This comedy-cum-TV-weepie should have been stifled at birth.
6 Grey Owl. British emigrant lives as Indian brace, becomes eco-warrior. Po-faced, politically correct, dull, dull, dull.
7 Supernova. James Spader and Angela Bassett have enormous muscles, but this appalling space opera has none.
8 Passion of Mind. As a romance it is icky, as a thriller it is limp. Demi Moore is better at predatory than at deep.
9 The Green Mile. Mysteriously Oscar-nominated, this is three hours of gooey hokum in which a death-row prisoner can work miracles. The film-makers can’t.
10 Romance. “A con job … a tremendous waste of time” (M&G, August 4 to 10)
compiled by Shaun de Waal and Neil Sonnekus