THERE’S a moment in Clint Eastwood’s Invictus when South African President Nelson Mandela asks the country’s rugby captain, Francois Pienaar, if he has recovered from a recent injury.

SUPERB crime drama A Prophet grips like an offer you can’t refuse as it follows the title character’s bloody rise through the ranks of an all-too-real criminal underworld.

MOVIE heroes come and movie heroes go. But there can be few movie heroes more unlikely than the hero of Neill Blomkamp’s superb sci-fi picture, District 9.

QUENTIN Tarantino is the kind of guy who probably wouldn’t have a fire extinguisher around the house.

DANISH film-maker Lars von Trier is often called “controversial” – in fact, he seems to court controversy.

REVERED and expert US film-maker Michael Mann (The Last Of The Mohicans, Heat, Miami Vice) paints images on a large scale and delivers major set-pieces without losing sight of the very human dramas at the centre of his stories.

IL DIVO, written and directed by Italy’s award-winning Paolo Sorrentino (The Consequences Of Love, The Family Friend), is an elegant, eloquent and intelligent movie, one of the year’s very best.

HAVE you heard the one about the guy who goes into the doctor’s surgery with a frog on his head and the doctor says: “How did it get there?” and the frog says: “It started as a boil on my behind?”

LET The Right One In is a vampire movie – a simple and obvious statement of fact, which needs to be said up front.

YOU might have thought it was a sequel to Monsters Inc.

ICON. Hero. Legend.

IN THE hierarchy of movie heroes, a new generation is championing Bourne over Bond. So where does the even newer-generation Bolt fit in?

THERE is a moment in Milk, Gus Van Sant’s passionate and timely biopic, when the title character spells it out.

CHOOSING the film of the year is always a tricky task. This year you may as well toss a coin. And call it.