Among the duo's credits: Notting Hill, Fargo, Dead Man Walking and Four Weddings and a Funeral.

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It was featured in the British box office smash Four Weddings And A Funeral in the same year.

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Curtis is best known for such films such as Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill and Love Actually.

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FilmFour produced many of Britain's most successful films over the last 20 years, from Trainspotting and the Crying Game to Four Weddings and a Funeral.

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Directed by Four Weddings And A Funeral's Mike Newell, it was adapted from the classic Dickens novel by David Nicholls, the author of hit novel One Day.

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Both runners up were in the BBC TV studio for the announcement on Friday along with Four Weddings and a Funeral stars Charlotte Coleman and Simon Callow.

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"It's a great honour to be invited to be the BFI London Film Festival's closing night film, " said Newell, whose other films include Four Weddings and a Funeral.

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But when Richard Curtis, later to achieve fame as the Four Weddings and a Funeral writer, invited him to replace someone who had dropped out of an Edinburgh Festival revue, Deayton accepted.

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British cinema had a productive decade - nine films received best film nominations in seven years, among them The Full Monty, Four Weddings and a Funeral, Secrets and Lies and The Crying Game.

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The New York Times ridiculed the movie as an "indigestible Christmas pudding from the British whimsy factory responsible for such reasonably palatable confections as Four Weddings And A Funeral, Notting Hill and Bridget Jones's Diary".

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