Top 10 US films

1. Cast Away 2. What Women Want 3. Traffic 4. Miss Congeniality 5. The Family Man 6. The Emperor's New Groove 7. Vertical Limit 8. Dracula 2000 9. Dude, Where's My Car? 10. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

Also maintaining its hold at number two was Mel Gibson's romantic comedy What Women Want, with takings of $15.5m (�10.3m), bringing its total to $�137.8m (�91.7m).

And proving one to watch over the next few weeks is Oscar-tipped drug-war drama Traffic.

The movie, starring Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta Jones, came in at number three with takings of $14.9m (�9.9m) in its first week of general release.

The movement elsewhere in the movie charts showed the holiday season is well and truly over.

Michael Douglas in the hard-hitting Traffic

Jim Carrey's festive hit The Grinch finally fell out of the top 10 movies safe in the knowledge that it was the biggest-grossing film of 2000 with takings of $257.7m (�171m) to date.

The Grinch's departure left room for Miss Congeniality, starring Sandra Bullock as an FBI agent infiltrating a beauty contest, to fall one place to four with takings of $13.8m (�9m).

Festive comedy The Family Man, starring Nicolas Cage, also fell one place to number five with $9.2m (�6m).

Otherwise, the top 10 remained static with all of the other movies - including Ang Lee's acclaimed Mandarin-language martial arts epic Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon - holding on to their last week's positions.

Thirteen Days could mark a successful return for Costner

Howwever, industry observers are predicting that next week could see a clear-out at the top of the charts as a number of blockbuster features go on general release.

They include Thirteen Days, starring Kevin Costner as a Kennedy aide during the Cuban missile crisis, and Finding Forrester with Sir Sean Connery as a reclusive author playing mentor to a teenager.