One of the cleverest films on the subject of making movies, David Mamet's 2000 State And Main gave us something we didn't know we had been waiting for: Hoffman as the leading man.

While William H Macy played the director and Alec Baldwin the star, Hoffman played Joseph Turner White, the incredulous author who has been roped in to write the film's screenplay.

Even as Hollywood bastardises his script, hijacking it mercilessly to replace plot points with cleavage, White meanders around, as if in a surreal dream, taking the time to discover a side of himself he never knew, facing up to some impossible decisions, and falling in love.

A ruthless, funny film.