What will be the must-see movies of 2002

A.� There are a host of much-anticipated blockbusters due out over the next 12 months - including�a British film which looks set to match the success of Notting Hill and Bridget Jones's Diary (starring, of course, Hugh Grant).

Films which hope to pick up Academy Awards in the Spring are always released early in the year in the hope of an Oscar nomination. This year, they include Knockout Ali, which sees Will Smith playing the legendary boxer Muhammed Ali. Smith admits it's literally a huge role and said he took on a rigourous training schedule for the part.
Russell Crowe, of Gladiator, plays the role of John Nash -�a mathematical genius who battled schizophrenia for decades before eventually receiving the Nobel Prize -�in A Beautiful Mind.
Both films�will be�released in February, and�will battle it out with The Shipping News for an Oscar. The latter�is an adaptation of the E. Annie Proulx best-seller, starring Kevin Spacey as a man haunted by dark secrets, who is hauled off by his tough aunt, Dame Judi Dench, to a remote life in Canada's Newfoundland.

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Q.� What about the summer

A, The long-awaited Spiderman movie opens in cinemas in the UK on May 10. The film has been dogged by legal wrangles and rumours for years, and director Sam Raimi - best known for the Evil Dead series - says he has faithfully followed the original tale. Tobey Maguire plays superhero Peter Parker, who is bitten by a radioactive spider and gains arachnid abilities.

But just six days after Spiderman comes Star Wars Episode II: Attack of The Clones. Devotees of the George Lucas series have already been whipped into a frenzy with a series of trailers.

The other big summer movie will be Minority Report, in which Hollywood's leading director Steven Spielberg directs Tinseltown's favourite actor, Tom Cruise. The action is set in�a dark future where crimes are detected before they have even been committed and the police make arrests before criminal acts have happened.

In August, the Men In Black 2 movie opens, starring Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones.

Later in the year, the Boy Wizard looks set to wield his magic again with Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. This will be followed by the second instalment of The Lord of the Rings trilogy in December.

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Q.� What about British films

A.� The comedy Ali G in da House, starring Sacha Baron Cohen's alter ego, is expected to attract huge audiences. About A Boy -�the big-screen adaptation of Nick Hornby's best-seller, starring Hugh Grant -�is out in May, and is being tipped as the Brit hit of the year.

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by Katharine MacColl

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