Although no film could be expected to compete against the might of Warner Bros' Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone, which demolished all UK box office records with its $13.6m (£9.6m) three-day opening gross (not including previews), there were several films that successfully staked their own claims on other audience segments.

Leading the handful of brave titles prepared to open against the behemoth was Icon Film Distribution's Ghost World which opened on just 40 screens, the highest of any non-Potter opener this week, and claimed ninth place in the chart with $188,385 (£133,188). Scoring a healthy screen average of $4,710 the comedy-drama, which is the first film directed by Terry Zwigoff since his 1995 Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Prize winner Crumb, found a solid audience. It played particularly well in London's West End where it recorded figures of $70,136 (£49,586) from just 9 sites - an average of $7,793. Ghost World stars American Beauty's Thora Birch, seen earlier this year in The Hole, and Scarlett Johansson, who also appears in the Coen Bros' The Man Who Wasn't There - currently number 12 in the chart.

Amongst the hold-overs, Momentum Pictures' Amelie fared best - dropping off just 9% from its previous weekend to take $200,775 (£141,948) and eighth place, just ahead of Ghost World. The French film has already grossed $5.2m after seven weeks on release in the UK and looks likely to continue for some time to come. Now the second-highest grossing foreign language film in the UK, Amelie still has a long way to go to match Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

Also playing well were second and third placed The Others, in its third week from BVI, and Legally Blonde, fourth week from 20th Century Fox. The drop off for both films was only 22%, with weekend figures showing $1.9m for The Others and $730,994 for Legally Blonde.

Also opening strongly, albeit on just one screen, was ICA's Iranian-French title Kandahar which took $10,891 but did not make the chart. The top five was rounded out by American Pie 2 ($595,876) and last week's top opener Kiss Of The Dragon ($419,901).