Jamie Foxx as new quarterback sensation Willie Beamen.

Oliver Stone is a film-maker with epic ambitions. Never content simply to create characters or tell stories, Stone has always been one to push the cinematic envelope, turning his films into state-of-the-nation canvases. Thus the Vietnam War (Platoon, Born on the Fourth of July), turning points in 20th-century American political history (JFK, Nixon) and even rock music (The Doors) become prisms through which the modern world in general, and modern America in particular, can be viewed.

Diaz

Stone on set with Diaz and Ann-Margret

Any Given Sunday is no exception. Ostensibly a story about the career crises and professional jealousies engulfing the coach, players, owners and hangers-on of the Miami Sharks, a once triumphant but now flagging (American) football team, Stone’s new film lifts the lid on American values, family relationships and the crisis of human identity at the turn of the millennium.

Boasting an all-star cast led by Al Pacino as Coach D’Amato, Dennis Quaid as the legendary but ailing quarterback Jack ‘Cap’ Rooney and Cameron Diaz as the Sharks’ take-no-hostages owner Christina Pagniacci, Any Given Sunday fills its canvas with major-league emotions and a galaxy of stars.