T&A film critic David Behrens picks the hits and misses among the movies of the last 12 months.

IT WAS THE year when small was big - and when the Internet re-wrote the rules on how hits are manufactured.

Word of mouth transformed The Blair Witch Project, a modest movie made for not much more than the price of a return ticket from Bradford to Baildon, into one of the success stories of the decade.

The word was spread not by a few people in the foyer of their local Odeon, as is traditional, but by cyber-surfers, glued to their mice in the darkness of their bedrooms.

It was much more carefully orchestrated than it appeared. A myth was invented surrounding rumours that people had been so frightened watching it that they'd been physically sick. Within weeks, it had acquired the fascination of a cinematic white-knuckle ride. It wasn't a bad film, but neither was it as home-made as the publicity suggested.

Meanwhile, Waking Ned, another modestly-budgeted feature, became a surprise hit by embodying the more conventional virtues of originality and class. That, happily, is something which even as we enter the 21st century, computers have not learned to replace.

Here, then, is my (highly subjective) Top Ten for 1999.

WAKING NED

The single most enjoyable film of the year: a charming Irish comedy concerning lottery fever breaking out in a small village. Warm-hearted but not sentimental; a rare little gem.

THE SIXTH SENSE

An outstanding psychological thriller and a radical departure for Bruce Willis, displaying real depth for perhaps the first time. The celebrated twist in the tail is one I wouldn't hint at, even for money.

SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE

An energetic, irreverent and witty romp through 1590s London, in which we found the young playwright William Shakespeare (Joseph Fiennes) suffering a bout of writer's block until falling for the ennobled Viola De Lesseps (Gwyneth Paltrow) .

SOUTH PARK: BIGGER, LONGER AND UNCUT

A foul-mouthed and patchily hilarious version of the cult TV cartoon, in which the kids sneaked into an 18 certificate Canadian movie and went home parroting all its profanities.

PAYBACK

A tight little thriller, very dark, very violent and very Mel Gibson. He played a villain out for revenge after his wife and ex-partner took his money and left him for dead.

ROGUE TRADER

A flatly handled but nonetheless compelling account of how Barings Bank was wiped out by a plasterer's son from Watford. The ubiquitous Ewan McGregor was the real-life loadsamoney Nick Leeson.

EYES WIDE SHUT

Stanley Kubrick's final film was an inconsequential story made monumental by its director's masterly cinema technique. Doctor Tom Cruise, ticked off with wife Nicole Kidman, went on a 48-hour odyssey through the fleshpots of New York.

NOTTING HILL

A reunion for the talents involved in Four Weddings and a Funeral wasn't in quite that class, but it was delightful and intelligent nonetheless, especially compared with the equivalent Hollywood product.

AUSTIN POWERS: THE SPY WHO SHAGGED ME

Episode two of Mike Myers' glorious James Bond spoof found our hero back in the swinging Sixties, searching for his stolen 'mojo'. Not quite as good as the original, but a hoot nonetheless.

THE THOMAS CROWN AFFAIR

A stylish and sexy remake of the 1968 heist caper, with Pierce Brosnan, pictured above, as the millionaire art thief and Rene Russo as the insurance investigator on his tail. The sexual chemistry between them positively oozed from the screen.

Now, here are a few we'll be burying along with the old year.

VIRTUAL SEXUALITY

This British teen comedy, concerning an unhappy virgin transformed into a boy by a wayward computer, was so self-consciously hip it was painful. About as convincing as an old episode of The Double Deckers.

DEEP BLUE SEA

Ludicrously plotted frightener in which scientists genetically mutated the brains of captive sharks to extract a serum that could be used to treat illness in humans. So much gore that Jaws II looked like Flipper in comparison.

FORCES OF NATURE

Grossly overlong and annoyingly tedious comedy in which Ben Affleck travelled from New York to Georgia to get married, and encountered en route the free-spirited Sandra Bullock.

MAD COWS

The worst of the worst: a dreadful first (and possibly last) feature from director Sara Sugarman, transforming Kathy Lette's novel about a wild young Australian at large in London into a misshapen, unfunny embarrassment.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.