By RICHARD ASHTON

(CNS) – When Julia Roberts set about sabotaging the wedding of her friend Dylan McDermott to Cameron Diaz in the hit comedy "My Best Friend’s Wedding," her screwball antics proved once again that weddings, with their heightened sense of emotion and drama, are the perfect fodder for the movies.

Steve Martin and Kimberly Williams n "Father of the Bride." Photo By Matthew Rolson/Touchstone Pictures

Get yourself in the marriage mood by renting some of these wedding-theme favorites. And just like with the real thing, expect a good cry.

Steve Martin stepped into Spencer Tracy’s shoes in the remake of "Father of the Bride," another nutty comedy in which Martin discovers not only that he’s losing his daughter, but that he’s getting old. Of course, planning the wedding itself is the source for many of the film’s best moments, not least when you’re dealing with the insane party planner, Martin Short.

However, the Spencer Tracy original, with Elizabeth Taylor playing his daughter, is a more refined affair altogether and remains a classic.

Robert Altman, director of classics such as "M*A*S*H" and "The Player," discovered that weddings can be both hilarious and dark. In his documentarylike film, "A Wedding," he lets the camera follow one couple as their big day unravels. Mia Farrow plays the bride-to-be with something of a dark secret.

Playwright Neil Simon knows how to squeeze every laugh out of life’s dramas. In "Plaza Suite," he allows us to watch poor Walter Matthau become totally demented when his daughter, the bride-to-be, locks herself in the bathroom and refuses to come out.

Weddings themselves are also a wonderful source of romance for those attending. One of the biggest hits ever to come out of Britain was the wonderful "Four Weddings and a Funeral." This romantic comedy has Hugh Grant falling in love with the elegant Andie MacDowell over the course of a series of weddings. They fall in love, but can the bumbling Grant win her over?

Making sure that the bride gets to marry the right man proved to be the source of mayhem in the MGM musical "High Society" (itself a remake of "The Philadelphia Story").

Beautiful Grace Kelly is about to get married, but her former husband, Bing Crosby, realizes too late that he’s still in love with her. Aided and abetted by Frank Sinatra, who plays a reporter for Spy magazine, he sets about wooing her back. But it’s down to the wire at the altar before we know who Kelly will marry.

Watching Kelly’s face light up at the film’s climax is to fall in love with a movie star. (In the original, James Stewart, Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn are caught up in the nuptial confusion.)

But weddings have also been used as a backdrop for something much more sinister. One of the greatest wedding scenes committed to celluloid were those that opened two of the best American films: "The Godfather" and "The Deer Hunter."

In "The Godfather," it is at an Italian-American wedding that we get to meet the Corleone family. On the wedding day of his daughter, Don Corleone (Marlon Brando) must grant the wishes of his guests.

Meanwhile, Sonny (James Caan) takes advantage of the day to have a brief affair with a bridesmaid. But, most chilling, we meet Michael (Al Pacino), who tells his fiancee (Diane Keaton) the true nature of his family.

The wedding in "The Deer Hunter" is a mesmerizing scene. We get to partake in the Roman Catholic wedding of a group of steelworkers from Pittsburgh. As the celebration unfolds, we see the suppressed emotions of attendees Meryl Streep, Christopher Walken and Robert De Niro, as they watch John Savage get married.

The men are about to be shipped off to Vietnam, and the symbolic drinking of the wine for the bride and groom takes on enormous importance.

But worse was in store for another man’s wedding. The most unlikely of bridegrooms was Agent 007, James Bond. In the 1969 classic, "On Her Majesty’s Secret Service," the womanizing spy falls in love with Diana Rigg and proposes to her while they are escaping nemesis Blofeld. We get to be witnesses at the wedding of Mr. and Mrs. James Bond.

Miss Moneypenney cries her eyes out as Bond throws her his hat for one last time, and when Q asks is there anything he needs, Bond replies, "This time I have all the gadgets." But from the pen of Ian Fleming, the wedding day does not have a happy ending.

When Peter Sellers married Lynn Frederick, he desperately wanted to provide her with the pomp and ceremony of a royal wedding. And he made that dream come true when he made the comedy "The Prisoner of Zenda," in which, playing the king, Sellers married Frederick in all the glory Hollywood can muster.

And on a happy note, Drew Barrymore’s Cinderella story "Ever After" had her falling in love with a handsome Prince (Dougray Scott) and marrying him with all the pageantry of a fairy tale come true.