Top Ten Films You've Never Seen

Max Pomeranc stars as the young chess prodigy Josh Waitzkin. We follow his chess career from learning the game to winning the US junior championships. Mantegna shines as Josh's father, and Ben Kingsley and Laurence Fishburne both excel as Josh's two chess coaches. While some of the incidents are obviously doctored for dramatic effect, it doesn't harm the film and the result is a wholly enjoyable experience, especially for chess fans.

First feature 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 to be able to travel through time. Once you get into it, this film is very compelling.

Pruitt Taylor Vince is magnificent as a lonely and overweight young man who falls in love with a beautiful young girl - played with real understanding by a young Liv Tyler - who arrives in town shortly after his mother dies, and becomes a waitress in his local diner. This is a quiet but immensely powerful film about love and loss featuring some really believable performances. Deborah Harry - of Blondie fame - puts in a strong performance as an aging waitress threatened by the younger, prettier and much more polite Tyler. This is the kind of film that's becoming a real rarity in Hollywood.

Third filmed monologue from the incomparable Spalding Gray. This time out, he relates his experiences after finding out he has a rare eye disorder. With an interesting premise and the foreknowledge of Gray's tendency toward neurosis, this monologue is even funnier and more engaging than both Swimming To Cambodia and Monster In A Box. And to those of you who think watching a guy talk for an hour and a half about incidents from his life sounds about as exciting as watching your nails grow, trust me - it's more entertaining than most films doing the rounds.

Tim Roth stars as a man who has never in his life stepped foot on dry land. He is 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, who accompanied Roth as a fellow musician on some of the ship's voyages. It's a magical tale which is genuinely moving, and fascinating in it's oddness.

Again great writing; this time from Pulitzer prize winning playwright Mamet, here making a stunning 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. The usual Mamet troup is here - William H. Macy, Ricky Jay et al, headed by a dazzling performance from the always reliable 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 it's always a pleasure to watch top-notch actors working with a top-drawer script.

Superb police drama from Hong Kong. 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. This is gripping stuff, and always intriguing. Andy Lau, Anthony Wong, and Eric Tsang are all excellent, and Tony Leung is especially good. 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 it's good it's not a patch on the original.

Ken Ogata plays a psychopath who murders his way through the film, with absolutely no remorse. The killer's backstory is shown in a series of flashbacks illustrating the life of deprivation he experienced, leading up to his murderous behaviour. Murder has never seemed so dangerous yet mundane as in this film. Ogata is outstanding in what is a genuinely disturbing movie directed to perfection by Japanese maverick Shohei Imamura.

This is a wonderful feel-good movie. It's whimsical and engaging and 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.