What’s Hot

* Last week’s Top 5 VHS rentals:

1. “Next Friday” (2000). Sequel to the 1995 hit comedy takes Ice Cube’s slacker hero from South-Central L.A. to a multicultural suburban enclave. Much raunchier and far less funny than the last “Friday.” Written and produced by Cube. (Gene Seymour, reviewed Jan. 12) R for strong language, drug use and sexual content.

2. “Girl, Interrupted” (1999). Susanna Kaysen’s exceptional memoir of two years spent in a mental institution is graced by exceptional leading performances by Winona Ryder and Academy Award winner Angelina Jolie but held back by a plot that verges on the manufactured. (Kenneth Turan, Dec. 21) R for strong language and content relating to drugs, sexuality and suicide.

3. “Sleepy Hollow” (1999). An exquisitely mounted (if ghoulish) retelling of the Washington Irving short story (with Johnny Depp as Ichabod Crane and Christina Ricci as Katrina Van Tassel) created to the exact specifications of bizarre-meister Tim Burton. How pleased others will be depends on their tolerance for the grotesque. (Turan, Nov. 19) R for graphic horror violence and gore, and for a scene of sexuality.

4. “American Beauty” (1999). This examination of the hollow space behind the American Dream through the life of one dysfunctional family is a strange, brooding, accomplished film that offers fury, warmth and hope and never goes quite where you think it will. (Turan, Sept. 15) R for strong sexuality, language, violence and drug content.

5. “Man on the Moon” (1999). Jim Carrey does a brilliant, almost terrifying job impersonating edgy comic Andy Kaufman, but even director Milos Forman can’t make this film’s hostile, manipulative subject into someone we care about. Courtney Love co-stars. (Turan, Dec. 22) R for language and brief sexuality/nudity.

* Last week’s Top 5 DVD rentals:

1. “Girl, Interrupted”

2. “Next Friday”

3. “Fight Club” (1999). A witless mishmash of whiny, infantile philosophizing and bone-crunching violence that posits that what all men secretly want to do is bash each other into bloody pulps. So vacuous it’s more depressing than provocative. Brad Pitt and Edward Norton star. (Turan, Oct. 15) R for disturbing and graphic depiction of violent antisocial behavior, sexuality and language.

4. “Sleepy Hollow”

5. “Man on the Moon”

* Last week’s Top 5 VHS sellers

1. “American Pie” (special edition) (1999). An unexpected hybrid of “South Park” and Andy Hardy that uses its surface crudeness as sucker bait to entice teenagers into the tent to see a high school movie that is sweet and sincere at heart. With a cast of likable young people. (Turan, July 9) R for strong sexuality, crude sexual dialogue, language and drinking, all involving teens.

2. “Stuart Little” (1999). The shy and pleasant mouse of E.B. White’s famous children’s book has been turned into a rodent whose ready line of patter would make him at home on the “Tonight Show.” The computer animation is excellent, but though the film won’t harm tiny viewers, there’s nothing very involving about it either. Stuart is voiced by Michael J. Fox. (Turan, Dec. 17) PG for brief language.

3. “The World Is Not Enough” (1999). James Bond is back for the 19th time, with Pierce Brosnan effortlessly reprising his splendid take on Agent 007. Not so effortless for the viewer is trying to keep track of a murky plot. (Kevin Thomas, Nov. 19) PG-13 for intense sequences of violence, some sexuality and innuendo.

4. “Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace” (1999). Though this prequel to the original “Star Wars” trilogy is certainly serviceable, it’s noticeably lacking in warmth and humor. Its visual strengths are considerable. (Turan, May 18, 1999) PG for sci-fi action/violence.

5. “Life” (1999). A very funny and surprisingly poignant story of two unjustly imprisoned convicts and their life on a Mississippi work camp. Classy teamwork by Eddie Murphy and Martin Lawrence. (John Anderson, April 16, 1999) R for strong language and a shooting.

* Last week’s Top 5 DVD sellers

1. “Fight Club”

2. “Next Friday”

3. “Girl, Interrupted”

4. “Sleepy Hollow”

5. “The World Is Not Enough”

What’s New

In stores this week:

“Anna and the King” (1999). The love that dared not speak its name between an English schoolteacher (Jodie Foster) and the king of Siam (Chow Yun-Fat) is done without songs this time around. The handsomely mounted re-creation of 1862 Bangkok is more involving than the story. (Turan, Dec. 17) FoxVideo: no list price; (CC). PG-13 for some intense violent sequences.

“Coming Soon” (2000). Despite a veneer of New York sophistication, this is a standard coming-of-age film centering on three prep school seniors ostensibly concerned with getting into Ivy League colleges but totally absorbed in the quality of their sex lives. (Thomas, June 16) A-pix: no list price; (CC). R for strong sexuality involving teens, and for substance abuse and language.

“Deuce Bigalow Male Gigolo” (1999). “Saturday Night Live’s” Rob Schneider plays a softhearted, softheaded fish-tank cleaner forced to become what some would call a “professional escort.” The movie is about what you’d expect. (Seymour, Dec. 10) Buena Vista/Touchstone: no list price; DVD, $32.99; (CC). R for sexual content, language and crude humor.

“Gun Shy” (2000) Maybe tranquilizers would’ve made this film settle down enough to build empathy for Liam Neeson’s drug agent on the brink of a breakdown. The movie rarely follows through on the comic situations it sets up. Sandra Bullock co-stars. (Eric Harrison, Feb. 4) Buena Vista/Hollywood: no list price; DVD, $29.99; (CC). R for violence, language and some brief nudity.

“Liar’s Moon” (1981). Modest 1981 release about a poor Texas youth (Matt Dillon) on the brink of manhood in a story of young love that unfortunately lapses into antique melodrama. Rhino Video: $9.95; DVD, $19.95; (CC). PG.

* “Liberty Heights” (1999). See story, Page 16. T Warner: no list price; DVD, $24.98; (CC). R for crude language and sex-related material.

“Steam: The Turkish Bath” (1998). Alessandro Gassmann stars in this graceful, sensual film as a young, successful Roman who goes to Istanbul and embarks on a journey of self-discovery. (Thomas, Nov. 25, 1998) Strand: $79.95; DVD, $29.95; (CC). Unrated: mature themes.

“Sweet and Lowdown” (1999). Woody Allen’s latest is a droll and amusing look at Emmet Ray (wonderfully played by Sean Penn), a made up-but-treated-as-real 1930s jazz guitarist who combines personal amorality with great artistic gifts. (Turan, Dec. 10) Columbia: no list price; DVD, $29.95; (CC). PG-13 for sexual content and some substance abuse.

“Topsy-Turvy” (1999). British writer-director Mike Leigh brings his peerless sense of character and concern for emotional authenticity to the real-life story of operetta kings Gilbert and Sullivan. (Turan, Dec. 15) USA: no list price; DVD, $24.95; (CC). R for a scene of risque nudity.

What’s Coming

Tuesday: “The Talented Mr. Ripley” and “Hanging Up.”

July 4: “Scream 3.”

July 11: “All About My Mother,” “The Hurricane,” “Mansfield Park,” “My Dog Skip,” “Onegin,” “Boiler Room” and “Down to You.”

Commentary by Times critics.

Rental video charts provided by VSDA

VidTrac, sales charts by VideoScan Inc.