The UK chart saw two strong openings over the weekend but neither could challenge computer-animated holdover Monsters, Inc. for the top spot.

Michael Mann's Ali, distributed by Entertainment, launched on a limited release of 17 sites to land twelfth position with $179,904 (£125,573). No doubt boosted by its two acting Academy Award nominations last week and sporting an impressive screen average of $10,583, the opening figures for the Will Smith starrer bode well for its wide release next weekend.

The only wide opener of the week was Steven Soderbergh's all-star Ocean's Eleven. The comedy-heist picture, which features George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Andy Garcia and Julia Roberts, was dealt an opening hand of $7.3m (£5.1m) - including $1.2m in previews. Playing at 433 sites the film played its cards right for a massive screen average of $16,858.

The success of Ocean's Eleven heavily effected the market for other films aimed at a similar audience demographic, with large percentage drops recorded for major titles. Warner's own Training Day (63%), Columbia TriStar's Black Hawk Down (63%), UIP's Vanilla Sky (55%) and 20th Century Fox's From Hell (39%) were among the casualties.

Holding the top stop for the second week running was Buena Vista International's Monsters, Inc. The Pixar-produced title dropped off just 11% from its previous weekend, taking a further $8.2m (£5.8m). This brings the films total gross to $29.7m (£20.7m) after just 10 days and already places it seventh in the chart of top grossing films in the UK over the last 12 months.

Also in the top five were The Lord Of The Rings at three, dropping just 17% to take $1.4m in its ninth week and now showing a total gross of $82.2m, Gosford Park at four with $1.1m (total gross $5.8m), and Shallow Hal at five with $970,835 (total gross $6.3m)