One of the best romantic comedies of the 1990s, My Best Friend's Wedding not only gave Julia Roberts a delightful vehicle for her crowd-pleasing comeback, but it further distinguished itself by avoiding the conventional plotting of the genre. Julia plays a prominent Chicago restaurant critic whose best friend (Dermot Mulroney) is a former lover from her college days with whom she'd made a binding pact: if neither of them were married by the age of 28, they'd marry each other. Just when they're about to reach the deadline of their agreement, Mulroney arrives in Chicago to introduce Roberts to his seemingly perfect fiancée (Cameron Diaz) and announce their wedding in just three days. That leaves the shocked Julia with just three short days to sabotage the wedding and marry the man she now realises she's loved all along. With potential heartbreak waiting in the wings, she'll either get what she wants or pay the price for her selfish behaviour, and Ronald Bass's cleverly constructed screenplay keeps us guessing to the very end. Rupert Everett scored rave reviews for his scene-stealing performance as Robert's gay friend who goes along with her scheming (but only so far), and even as she makes her character's needy desperation disarmingly appealing, Roberts wisely allows Diaz to capitalise on her charming time in the spotlight. As the romantic outcome remains uncertain, the viewer is held in a state of giddy suspense, and director PJ Hogan pulls off some hilarious scenes (like a restaurant full of people singing the Dionne Warwick hit "I Say a Little Prayer") that could easily have fallen flat in the hands of a less talented filmmaker. It's no surprise that this was one of the box-office smashes of 1997. -Jeff Shannon One of the best romantic comedies of the 1990s, My Best Friend's Wedding not only gave Julia Roberts a delightful vehicle for her crowd-pleasing comeback, but it further distinguished itself by avoiding the conventional plotting of the genre. She plays a prominent Chicago restaurant critic whose best friend (Dermot Mulroney) is a former lover from her college days with whom she'd made a binding pact: if neither of them were married by the age of 28, they'd marry each other. [+]

An undemanding slice of Irish whimsy, The Closer You Get may not hit the crowd-pleasing heights of Waking Ned, but ultimately settles in to a comfortable, enticing groove inhabited by the likes of TV's Ballykissangel. The debut feature of Aileen Ritchie and set in a desolate coastal town of Kilvara in County Donegal, the story concerns the lovelorn male townsfolk who advertise for Gaelic-loving women in a Florida newspaper. This action stirs the jealousies of Kilvara's women, who respond by inviting a group of Spaniards to the local dance. A battle of the sexes ensues ultimately resulting in the Guinness-swilling eejits realising that they shouldn't squander what they've got. Simple moral, simple clichés, simple humour, but executed with a considerable charm that makes it an undeniably enjoyable and light-hearted film. Ian Hart is particularly likable as local butcher Kieran (bizarrely dyeing his hair bright blonde to impress the ladies) while he and his boredom-numbed mates are more than matched by the feisty likes of Niamh Cusack and Cathleen Bradley as Kilvara's ignored beauties. Add in some beautiful locations and what you have is an inoffensive little charmer that will suit any lazy afternoon's viewing-and what's wrong with that? -Danny Graydon.

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One of the better romantic comedies of the 1990s, this quirky love story stars Kevin Costner as washed-up golf pro, Roy "Tin Cup" McAvoy, who has the singular misfortune of falling in love with the girlfriend (Rene Russo) of his arch rival (Don Johnson). Although he is inspired to re-ignite his golf career, challenge his opponent in the US Open, and win the affection of the woman of his dreams, McAvoy has just one flaw: he's a show off when he should just focus on playing the game. Reunited with his Bull Durham writer-director Ron Shelton, Costner fits into his Tin Cup role like a favourite pair of shoes and costar Cheech Marin scores a memorable scene-stealing comeback as McAvoy's best buddy, Romeo Posar. Mixing his love of sports with his flair for fresh, comedic dialogue, Shelton takes this enjoyable movie down unexpected detours (although some may find it a bit too long), and his characters are delightfully unpredictable. -Jeff Shannon.

Woman on Top pretends to be your standard fish-out-of-water romantic comedy laced with touches of magic realism. However, when you break it down and look at its elements, it turns out to be slightly different. Hot Spanish star Penélope Cruz (All About My Mother) plays Isabella Oliveira, a Brazilian chef who falls madly in love with, and marries, a dashing waiter (Murilo Benício). Throughout her life she's been a victim of motion sickness, and the only way she can overcome it is by being in control, whether it's driving or being on top during sex. Her husband starts to feel that as a threat to his Latin masculinity, and when he steps out on her, she catches him. She decides to leave Brazil and stop loving him, ending up in San Francisco with an old friend (Harold Perrineau Jr), now a drag queen. There she meets a nice guy-television producer (Mark Feuerstein), who sets her up with her own cooking show. Normally in this kind of movie his character would be the perfect antidote for her heartbreak, but he ends up more seduced by the success of her cooking show than by her. When her husband shows up, she becomes trapped in a love triangle where both men are deeply flawed. Can she forgive her husband's infidelity and fall back in love with him? Forget the answer. [+]

Ben Stiller's directorial debut was this sporadically successful twentysomething comedy that tries too hard to codify the generational experience of its young adult characters. Winona Ryder plays a still-unformed woman struggling with career and relationship issues, Janeane Garofalo portrays her best friend, and Ethan Hawke and Stiller play the two lovers pursuing her. The story is as also about generation-X confusion over how to get by in a hand-me-down world with not much to get excited about, a world filled with a pop culture currency of bad music and poetry slams. The film's chief strength is its appealing cast, which is bolstered by appearances from David Spade, Renee Zellweger, Kevin Pollak, Jeanne Triplehorn, and Stiller's mother, Anne Meara. -Tom Keogh.

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Andrew Bergman's tongue-in-cheek comedy The Freshman keeps the spoofing low key, underplaying the outrageous situations even as he piles them higher. Young Clark Kellog (Matthew Broderick) had no idea film school would drop him into the hands of a real-life Godfather, but after a street punk robs him during his first day in New York City, that's just where the road leads. Marlon Brando lets everyone know he's in on the joke with his hammy, good-humoured performance as the bulldog-jowled Mafioso Carmine Sabatini, the man Clark's prissy, self-important professor swears was the real-life inspiration for Don Corleone. Carmine has a modest proposal for the naive kid from Vermont involving Carmine's gorgeous daughter Tina (Penelope Ann Miller) and the illegal importing of an endangered lizard. And if the sight of a six-foot-long lizard scattering shoppers as it runs wild through a New York City mall doesn't do it for you, there's always Bert Parks' rousing rendition of Bob Dylan's "Maggie's Farm". -Sean Axmaker, Amazon. com.