The Independent Recommends: The Five Best Films

Rushmore (15)

The high-school comedy hits its giddy peak with this oddbod masterpiece about a gal (Olivia Williams), a guy (Bill Murray's jaded tycoon) and the monstrous schoolboy (Jason Schwartzman) who gets between them. A genuine one-off.

Strangers on a Train (PG)

Robert Walker and Farley Granger swap murders for an accelerating fairground-ride thriller. Perhaps the most quintessentially Hichcockian of all his outings.

Another Day in Paradise (18)

More white-trash junkie madness from low-life chronicler Larry (Kids) Clark. Hint: that misleading title comes lathered in irony.

The Third Man (PG)

Carol Reed's perfect Viennese waltz (right); dancing arm-in-arm with Orson Welles to the busy sounds of Anton Karas's zither.

Late August, Early September (Fin Aout, debut Septembre) (15)

Tangy Parisian soap-operatics, rubbed on with the minimum of fuss by talented writer-director Olivier Assayas.