The Player

From its masterly eight-minute opening crane shot to the final blockbuster pastiche, this swingeing satire is easily the best movie about Tinseltown since Sunset Blvd. With relish, director Robert Altman turns the spotlight on the industry hands that feed him and scores a bullseye on each target in Michael Tolkin's deft script. The temptation is to play spot the star, but don't let the galaxy of cameos from such celebrities as Bruce Willis, Julia Roberts and Cher distract from the gloriously cynical plot and a towering turn from a marvellously oily Tim Robbins. He merited at least an Oscar nomination for his performance as Griffin Mill, the high-flying studio executive who is troubled by poison-pen postcards from a discarded scriptwriter, the ambitions of wunderkind Peter Gallagher and the snooping of cop Whoopi Goldberg, who suspects him of murder. This is Hollywood at its worst told by Hollywood at its best.