Notting Hill (1999)

The Four Weddings and A Funeral (1994) team produced another smash with this charming tale about charming, bumbling bookshop owner William Thacker (Hugh Grant) who falls for the “most famous actress in the world”, Anna Scott (Julia Roberts).

Inevitably, the course of true love is a bumpy road, with friends, family and layabout flatmate Spike (played by Rhys Ifans in a career-making performance) getting in the way, but that’s the cue for a series of screamingly funny scenarios.

Saturated with wit and well-directed by Roger Michell, the film was bashed by sceptics for its fluffiness and lack of realism (for a racially mixed area of London, there’s not a black face to be seen), but if you can accept the context as 100 per cent white middle class, with a light-hearted commentary on the nature of celebrity, it’s an intensely enjoyable experience.

Anna Scott
Julia Roberts
William Thacker
Hugh Grant
Bernie
Hugh Bonneville
Honey
Emma Chambers
Martin
James Dreyfus
Spike
Rhys Ifans
Max
Tim McInnerny
Bella
Gina McKee
Tony
Richard McCabe
Rufus the thief
Dylan Moran

Director
Roger Michell

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