This is an extremely annoying problem. I came across it in a game as the the Romans, I had won a Space Race victory, and the first thing i see is a screen that says the my movies are not installed properly. This screen is followed by a convenient crash of the entire game, resulting in no score being recorded. You would think that the game would continue to the next screen, just without watching the movie... but.
I know this same movie used to work with the same installation, so I know that "movies not installed properly", is complete BS.
When I open my movies folder SpaceRace.bik is definatly there, so I really don't see the problem.
Can anyone help?

Try turning off movies in game / in the ini file as a workaround.