The top ten English films!

There may be more official, more comprehensive and more exhaustive polls, but we at

In no particular order, we kicked off with The Full Monty. It may have been grossly over-exposed and spawned a horrific stage musical, but this tale of unemployed Sheffield steel workers who turned to stripping in order to make ends meet was truly heartwarming. Combining comedy with sentimentality and avoiding mawkishness is a difficult trick to pull off, but the Monty lads achieved it.

Anthony Minghella's The English Patient also features in our top ten. Not many laughs in this film, but as a stunningly magical piece of cinema, it stands on its own — with wonderful performances from its leads too. Four Weddings and a Funeral is a timeless romcom, with exquisitely judged comic timing and eccentric, yet loveable characters. Just don't get us started on the later Richard Curtis aberrations of Notting Hill and Love Actually...

Guy Ritchie made an auspicious big-screen debut with the flash Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. Proving that the English could do snappy, hi-octane gangster flicks, it was infused with an infectious energy and definite London tone. Stylish and sexy, it was everything Swept Away wasn't. Better luck next time, Guy...

Moving a bit further back in time is the classic Ealing comedy Kind Hearts and Coronets. The deliciously black tale of a man who tries to bump off all the members of his estranged aristocratic family in order to come into an inheritance, features the late Alec Guinness playing eight different characters. It's a total delight.

Michael Caine was Alfie in the 1966 movie that shot him to international stardom - and we can't wait to see what Jude Law will make of the updated version of the original lad-about-town when its released in November this year.

Mike Leigh specialises in slice-of-life films about real people and their real, unglamorous existences. Secrets and Lies was the culmination of excellent improvisational work by its actors - including Brenda Blethyn and Timothy Spall - and took you on a rollercoaster journey through a dysfunctional family that is forced to welcome a new, unexpected member.

Alec Guinness makes another appearance on our list in the fantastic Bridge on the River Kwai, which explores English stoicism like no other. Monty Python's Life of Brian has also stood the test of time as perhaps the greatest Biblical film ever made. Stick that in your pipe and smoke it, Mel...

Students all over the country have endlessly quoted Richard E. Grant in his breakthrough part in Withnail and I, and Bend it like Beckham showed that a film about a West London Asian girl playing football could appeal to a worldwide audience and make stars of its leads, Keira Knightley and Parminder Nagra. Sean Connery kicked off an illustrious career and the statr of the Bond genre in 1962's fabulous Dr No. So - let's hope that English cinema continues to produce these gems well in the future...