VLC is a great one, but I pefer Windows Media Player Classic. Very small program and less problems! You can also use subtitles.
VLC Media Player gets my vote and if you think its ugly looking get some skins for it... You can also use Winamp 2 Classic skins aswell
I rarely watch videos .. I use VLC, I find it fast, decent and omni-compatible. Its just around 8 MB and it has most popular codecs
I use GOM player.it can support many type of videos from wmv till 3gps. It is great if u combinde it with k-lite codec.