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Your support makes all the difference.The Five Best Films
Out of Sight (15)
This tale of love on opposite sides of the law from director Steven Soderbergh manages to knock spots off every previous Elmore Leonard adaptation, and boasts in George Clooney (right) and Jennifer Lopez the most romantic pairing of the cinematic year.
Antz (PG)
Computer-animated comedy voiced by a stellar cast stars Woody Allen as a worker ant who becomes an unlikely opponent of the colony's totalitarian regime. Allen's best work in a while.
My Name is Joe (15)
All that one would expect from a Ken Loach film - humour, indignation, emotional sympathy - driven by Peter Mullan's scary, intense performance as a recovering alcoholic.
Ronin (15)
John Frankenheimer's action thriller is buttressed by a fine international cast (Robert De Niro, Jean Reno, Stellan Skarsgard), moody French locations and a clutch of supercharged car chases.
The Fountainhead (PG; Curzon Soho)
Gary Cooper plays a visionary architect who refuses to buckle under mob pressure in King Vidor's astonishing adaptation of the Ayn Rand novel. Patricia Neal smoulders opposite him.
Anthony Quinn
The Five Best Plays
Love Upon the Throne Comedy Theatre
The Charles and Diana story (well, up to the divorce) presented by the National Theatre of Brent. Hilarious and oddly touching. To 31 Jan
Angela Carter Cinderella Lyric, Hammersmith
A feast of inspired silliness and visual magic, this has lashings of drag and double entendres, plus the best mice on a West End stage. To 9 Jan
Martin Guerre West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds
Gifted young Irish director Conall Morrison stages a second reworking of the troubled Boubil/ Schonberg musical. Will it be third time lucky? To 13 Feb
The Boy Who Fell Into a Book Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough
Typically witty and ingenious concept from Alan Ayckbourn (right) - here wearing his children's dramatist hat. To 9 Jan
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford
Anthony Ward's splendid sets and Aslan are the stars of the RSC's Christmas spectacular. To 27 Feb
Paul Taylor
The Five Best Shows
Aubrey Beardsley Victoria & Albert Museum
Displaying the short, glittering life of the aesthete and illustrator, with his sinuous and florid line. Drawings, prints and posters. To 10 Jan
Rosemarie Trockel Whitechapel Gallery
Influential German artist; includes a sculpture of a seal called No one under the sun is more miserable than the man who has a fetish for a lady's shoe and must make do with the whole woman. To 7 Feb
Chris Ofili Whitworth Gallery, Manchester
This 1998 Turner Prize-winner is an upbeat original, his surfaces dense and decorative, with swirls of dots, eyes, Afros and black icons, and incorporating mutant balls of elephant dung. To 24 Jan
Goya: The Disparates Maidstone Museum & Art Gallery
Goya was deaf, ill and in his seventies when he produced his last series of etchings. Mysterious in intention, it is a void world: life is folly, men fly off on wings into darkness. To 23 Jan
Edward Burne-Jones Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery
Centenary exhibition (above) gathers together many favourites illustrating Burne-Jones's romantic and medievalist nether world. To 17 Jan
Tom Lubbock
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