But even if you pay attention to the various creatures crawling, buzzing, and hopping around you, you're not likely to get more than a glimpse of the routines that make up their complex daily lives.

That's why Microcosmos (1996, G) is so much fun. The dazzling documentary is a sometimes awesome, sometimes gruesome, and always entertaining close-up view of life as bugs know it. This is no dry nature program--the French filmmakers behind the project find drama under every blade of grass. Whether it's a determined dung beetle trying over and over to push his cargo up the same hill, or two snails joining in a hilariously (but undeniably sensual) slimy embrace, the creepy, crawly beings that trundle across the screen take on real personality. You could accuse the film of anthropomorphism--especially the music, which infuses the scenes with decidedly human emotion--but Microcosmos mostly lets the action speak for itself. And if three ants joining together to move a particularly annoying chunk of rock out of their tunnel look uncannily like three guys hoisting a sofa upstairs, who's to say it's a coincidence?

It's possible no film has ever so completely immersed us in the animal world as Microcosmos, but a few have come close. Jean-Jacques Annaud's nature drama The Bear (1989, PG) tells a convincing adventure story from the viewpoint of a bearcub, with only minimal intrusion by human characters. The cub wanders through mountains in search of its mother, avoiding hunters and having occasional accidents (there's a funny, if far-fetched, sequence involving psychedelic mushrooms). Although the whole thing is fiction, Annaud conveys a real sense of the bear's world.

Less family-friendly is Baxter (1989), a strange French film narrated by a frighteningly beastial bull terrier. The dog lives with a succession of owners, whom he views alternately as his masters and his enemies. The movie, a comedy of sorts, is disturbing in its exploration of the primal drives that guide both Baxter and the humans around him.