CriticsTop10

2006 marked one of the closest races in recent memory.  Only 11 lists separated The Departed from The Qeen, making it Scorsese’s most acclaimed movie since 1990 Goodfellas.

40. The Prestige (28 lists, 2 top spots)

It may sound cocky to say that people who didn’t think much of The Prestige didn’t really “see” it, but given how elliptical director Christopher Nolan and his screenwriter brother Jonathan make their adaptation of Christopher Priest’s highbrow pulp novel, it’s hard to believe that anyone could really pick up everything that’s going on in just one viewing—especially since the Nolans make one of their big twists obvious on purpose, in order to throw the audience off the trail of the bigger ones to come. That a movie this purely entertaining could keep so many secrets—and be so ruthless in its examination of obsessive rivalry—is a kind of magic. – The Onion

39. Miami Vice (28 lists, 3 top spots)

Before you start lobbing oodles of hate mail my way, remember, I did say the word this year is reinvention. Clearly, there was no need for Michael Mann to play chicken with his slick ‘80s foray into primetime. But figuring that the time was right to reinterpret detectives Sonny Crockett (played by Colin Farrell) and Ricardo Tubbs (played by Jamie Foxx), Mann ends up clocking one of the year’s most ambitious action flicks. Sprawled across several cities, the film’s multi-faceted story updates the series’ sharp-suited evildoers with a host of gum-cracking baddies and a killer shoot ‘em up scene that rivals “Heat’s.” – Mark Danielle, JAM! Movies

 

37. The Last King of Scotland (29 lists, 1 top spot)

This is not hyperbole. This is how good Forest Whitaker is: He actually makes you feel sorry for Idi Amin. Under the direction of documentarian Kevin Macdonald, making his feature debut, Whitaker gets plenty of room to demonstrate the vastly contradictory facets of the larger-than-life Ugandan dictator. You feel as if you are there and can see how easy it might have been to be seduced by this charismatic character who also happened to be a cold-blooded killer. – Christy Lemire, Associated Press

36. Stranger Than Fiction (29 lists, 1 top spot)

Zach Helm’s screenplay “Stranger than Fiction” received mixed reaction from critics and audiences alike toward the end of 2006. Some circles found it a creatively muted experience, while others offered praise for its ingenuity, fit with comparisons to the work of Charlie Kaufman. Others still saw parallels to the films of Frank Capra. Regardless, the film quickly became one of the most meaningful cinematic exercises of the year for this viewer – an achievement as profound in its broad gestures as it is in its more intimate commentaries. Directed with a thoughtful hand by filmmaker Marc Forster, “Stranger than Fiction” can be about a number of things to a number of people. Some might see modest Christian symbolism. Others might sense the story of a man’s refusal to live his life by the numbers any longer. But whatever it might be to you or me or the next guy, that a film this commercial leaves interpretation up in the air in this manner is an achievement unto itself. A great comedic ensemble finds high marks in performances by Emma Thompson and Ferrell, in a career-topping portrayal. – Kristopher Tapley, In Contention

36. The Science of Sleep (29 lists, 2 top spots)

Michel Gondry uses whimsy and fantasy to get at prickly emotions, uncomfortable feelings and the sometimes painful divide between our dreams and our lives in his bittersweet tale of an aspiring illustrator (Gael García Bernal) more comfortable in his head than in the world. Gondry’s scruffy, unkempt narrative has a messy authenticity that matches Bernal’s cardboard and cellophane fantasy world.

35. The Fountain (30 lists, 4 top spots)

I kinda can’t believe that this isn’t in my top 5. This film is a transcendent joy. For me, it’s such a brutal and lovely filmic poem to the power of wasted moments of misdirected love. It makes you want to make every moment count, take every walk in the snow, go to everything, be everything and love every moment you have love. The score is brilliant, the photography gorgeous. If there’s a reason it’s this low on the list, I’d have to say it is how much it takes out of me while watching. It’s a film that just works me over emotionally, leaving me exhausted, yet thrilled by cinema at Aronofsky’s hands. A brilliant film. Absolutely love it. – Harry Knowles, Aintitcoolnews.com

34. Marie Antoinette (33 lists, 2 top spots)

Despite mining the same territory as she has in the past (dreamy young girl lost in hermetically sealed world) Sofia Coppola keeps on surprising with the flexibility and depth of feeling within what might be dismissed as a shallow worldview. With Marie Antoinette this young writer/director has delivered her third straight winner. If Scorsese can endlessly riff on violent men to great acclaim why can’t she do the same with dreamy girls? Her new film continually makes brave inspired choices true to its point of view (Marie’s in point of fact) rather than our moviegoing expectations or traditional narrative demands: Note if you will how major plot points like the death of the king are over as soon as they’ve begun while girlish moods conjured or Marie’s pregnancy worries get strung out for several scenes. Even the much derided ending is note perfect — this is the true ending of Marie Antoinette’s world. Who needs a head in the basket? We’ve been in her head all the while. A recent second viewing only strengthened my respect for the movie. I could scarcely believe my eyes while watching it. This was the movie people thought a major disappointment — an outright dud? Ah well, more cake for me. – The Film Experience

33. Apocalypto (33 lists, 3 top spots)

There’s an Old Testament Jeremiad embedded in Mel Gibson’s dazzling adventure-chase movie, but sheer kinetic filmmaking trumps sermonizing about similarities between past and present civilizations given to wasting the earth, bloody invasions, maximum decadence. “Apocalypto”’s every face shines with exotic beauty, strength, viciousness (cast is mostly non-professionals) and the central, pell-mell race for survival grabs you up and never lets go. – Kathleen Murphy, MSN

32. Climates (33 lists, 4 top spots)

Documenting wounds inflicted in the name of love and lust, “Climates” maps Antonioni-like abysses of loneliness and alienation between lovers even as bodies strain to become one. Director Nuri Bilge Ceylan stars as a womanizer cold to the bone, while his wife (Ebru Ceylan) offers her incredibly expressive face to the camera’s lingering gaze, her shifting emotions as visible as clouds moving in the sky. – Kathleen Murphy, MSN

31. Tristram Shandy: A Cock & Bull Story (37 lists, 2 top spots)

When asked why he decided to adapt Laurence Sterne’s 18th century novel – a novel that many consider unfilmable – to the big screen, Steve Coogan replies that the film was ranked number eight on an all-time list. The reporter, in response, informs Coogan that the books on that list are in chronological order.
Easy mistake. In fact, if I had made this list in chronological order, “Tristram Shandy” (which opened way back in January) would appear to be the best movie of the year– and those who have seen it would likely believe it. That’s because “Shandy” is a gem of a story. It’s part “Adaptation,” part “Spinal Tap” and completely hilarious. This is the most under-seen and underappreciated film of the year. – Criticstop10

30. Inside Man (39 lists, 1 top spot)

Loving Spike Lee out loud can be a trial. (“What exactly did you find to like in ‘She Hate Me’?”) So between this film and Lee’s Katrina documentary “When the Levees Broke,” it was exciting to watch the rest of America catch up 20 years and 18 movies after “She’s Gotta Have It. ” That “Inside Man” was a genre exercise — detective Denzel Washington unravels a Manhattan bank heist — may have required Lee to obey Russell Gewirtz’s tricky script. But there’s a lot to be said for coloring within the lines, especially when you’re as a good with crayons as Lee. From the zingy political asides to the glee of its cast (stars and ethnically panoramic bit players alike), every second of this movie entertains. And for the first time in his tremendous career, Lee doesn’t see the crime in that. – Wesley Morris, Boston Globe

29. Deliver Us From Evil (40 lists, 1 top spot)

You may think you know all that you want to know about the child-sex-abuse scandals of the Roman Catholic Church, but Amy Berg’s brilliant and psychologically transfixing documentary is a cathartic exposé. It brings us searingly close to the victims and their families, to the damage that was done, presenting ”Father Ollie” O’Grady, a former priest who preyed on their trust, as a study in delusional candor: The more he owns up to what he did, the more he seems blind to why it was wrong. The movie is most devastating when it takes on how, and why, the Nixonian church authorities covered up for a man like O’Grady. They were looking out for their careers, but they also believed that even the deepest sins could be confessed away. That’s the film’s terrifying paradox: It’s a portrait of how dogma became crime. – Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly-

28. A Scanner Darkly (40 lists, 3 top spots)

Richard Linklater finally cracks Philip K. Dick’s code with this supremely challenging ode to drug-fueled paranoia. A weak year for animation makes his rotoscoping technique stand out all the more, while brilliant, addled performances from Woody Harrelson and Robert Downey Jr. suggest that this particular future may be a lot closer than we think. -Rob Vaux, Flipside Movie Emporium-

27. Notes on a Scandal (44 lists, 2 top spots)

Judi Dench finally gets a role worthy of her acid in this UK drama about a bitter old history teacher who befriends an attractive young colleague (Cate Blanchett) only to discover she’s having sex with a 15-year-old student. Richard Eyre (Iris) directed an urgently plotted script by Patrick Marber (Closer), and Dench goes to town with a knowing, literate voiceover. J.R. Jones, Chicago Reader

26. Brick (44 lists, 4 top spots)

Directed by Rian Johnson. Take one part Raymond Chandler mystery and one part high school teen-angst and the result is one of the freshest and most interesting films of the year. I love noir thrillers and this one is so great on so many levels. From the performances to the direction to the dialog, this film delivers. First-time feature writer/director Johnson makes the most out of his script, locations and actors — especially Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Nora Zehetner and the completely re-invented Lukas Haas as “The Pin.” As someone who’s made his share of mediocre low-budget movies my highest compliment to Brick is to say” damn, I wish I’d made that.” Watch out for more from Johnson and thank goodness for independent filmmakers like him. It gives me some hope for the future of filmmaking. – Chris Ullrich, Cinematical

25. An Inconvenient Truth (45 lists, 2 top spots)

Directed by Davis Guggenheim. Yes, I know it’s a documentary but it’s as compelling as any fictional drama this year — only it’s all true. Say what you will about Al Gore the Vice President but Al Gore the environmental activist and star of this film kicks butt. The message of this film is simple and is delivered with skill, style, care and attention to a level of detail making this not only a good documentary but a damn good movie too. See it. Think about it. Learn from it. – Chris Ullrich, Cinematical

24. Three Times (47 lists, 11 top spots)

Another of Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s hypnotic ruminations on the symbiotic union between the past and the present, the personal and the political, Three Times finds the Taiwanese director revisiting and expanding upon his favorite milieus and themes via a triptych of love stories told in different eras with the same lead actors. A self-reflexive tour-de-force whose point of reference is Hou’s own canon, the film sumptuously segues from a vibrantly erotic 1966 affair, to a 1911 relationship between a courtesan and a revolutionary newspaperman, to a modern portrait of cold, chaotic passion. Tonally dissimilar but all interested in the powerful influence of yesteryear on the here and now, the three stories combine to form a comprehensive study of emotional expression and inhibition, their varying modes of formalism—the opening segment’s airy lyricism, the middle section’s self-conscious rigidity, the finale’s frazzled electricity—deftly mirroring Hou’s commentary on the inextricable links tethering Taiwan’s citizens to both their individual and national histories. – Nick Schager, Slant Magazine

23. Thank You For Smoking (49 lists, 2 top spots)

Adapted at long last from Christopher Buckley’s fine satiric novel, this lampoon of the tobacco lobby was Hollywood’s best indie comedy. Jason Reitman, making his feature debut, drew an inspired performance from Aaron Eckhart as a cheerfully amoral shill for the cigarette industry and great character turns from Sam Elliott, Robert Duvall, Rob Lowe, William H. Macy, J.K. Simmons, and Maria Bello. – J.R. Jones, Chicago Reader

22. Inland Empire (50 lists, 11 top spots)

Inland Empire is now out of its cage and critics are beginning to struggle with it. Or not. Avant-garde chickenshits have already tossed up their weapons, leaving Lynch’s meta-monster and its fucking-brutal clicking parts to please no one except for fans of the director’s previous freak-outs. Their loss is our gain. But how do you describe the indescribable to those wanting in? For one thing, you don’t. Lynch, pace Björk, leaves logic and reason to the arms of unconsciousness, but he never abandons compassion, because every corridor of this serpentine hall of mirrors is alive with a bug-eyed exaltation for the in-too-deep thesping that obsesses Laura Dern’s actress as she pushes and bleeds her way through a grungy view-askew of the Dream Factory. J. Hoberman, comparing the film to Meshes of the Afternoon, has said that the film “has no logic apart from its movie-ness.” A friend likens it to an STD, only one that’s worth getting—which is to say, it’s not easily forgotten. Sweet. – Ed Gonzalez, Slant Magazine

21. Old Joy (53 lists, 1 top spot)

Like a walk in the woods itself, Kelly Reichardt’s alert, alive, and quietly profound little study in the mutations of male friendship follows a path dappled with unexpected marvels. On the surface a simple chronicle of a relatively uneventful weekend camping trip for a couple of old pals, the movie is most nuanced and alive in moments when conversation dwindles and the unspoken sadness that inevitably comes with change is palpable – that’s when the movie is as deep and coolly refreshing as the spring in which the two men soak. Old Joy is a small, delicate thing, and a huge achievement in honestly independed filmmaking. – Lisa Schwarzbam, Entertainment Weekly-

20. The Proposition (54 lists, 1 top spot)

Aussie musician Nick Cave scripted and scored this John Hillcoat-helmed Western about an outlaw who must find and turn in one brother in order to save another. Outstanding performances by Guy Pearce and Ray Winstone anchor the film, but Cave’s seamlessly integrated score is almost a character in and of itself. This is a Western even filmgoers who aren’t fans of the genre overall can enjoy. – Kim Vonyar, Cinematical

19. Army of Shadows (58 lists, 22 top spots)

Mr. Melville, Mr. Melville could afford to express his pessimism through an austere mise-en-scène in which Resistance fighters carry the shame of a nation on their squared shoulders, and a man’s fallen hat rocks on a cobblestone street, an allusion to the head that will soon roll. – Manohla Dargis, New York Times

18. Casino Royale (65 lists, 1 top spot)

It’s admittedly a little jarring: Could the best movie of the year actually be the most entertaining movie of the year? Scandalous! How old-fashioned and obvious and déclassé! The beauty of Casino Royale is that it does more than just restore the lustrous excitement of the James Bond series. By reimagining 007 as a volatile human being who confronts every new pleasure and danger – high-flying chases and high-stakes card games; dry-ice flirtation and deadly torture; hell, even ordering a martini – as if it were happening to him for the first time, the film reconnected audiences to the very soul of movie escapism, reviving the primal enjoyment of what action, suspense, and romance feel like when there is something at stake. As 007, Daniel Craig floods the screen with personality the way the old stars did, using his saturnine sexiness, his implosive intelligence, and the silent lone-wolf hunger at his core to turn James Bond into a superagent for our time, a man who’s still discovering what his license can win him. Many have asked: Is Casino Royale the greatest Bond film ever? Let’s just put it this way: It will never be quite as quintessential as, say, Dr. No, the first and (to me) still the finest moment of Bond’s Connery/Cold War/Playboy heyday. Yet, if Casino Royale isn’t a greater Bond film than that, it’s a greater movie, period. – Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly-

17. Dreamgirls (66 lists, 5 top spots)

What makes a movie a transcendent and overwhelming experience? Is it when you find yourself clapping and cheering throughout it? Or is it spectacular moments such as when Eddie Murphy spins from a quiet backstage piano solo to the soulful intensity of “Fake Your Way to the Top”? Or is it Beyoncé Knowles twirling around the lit stars of The Dreams debut? Can it all be summed up in Jennifer Hudson’s star-making performance that can break even the coldest heart? This movie is one dream that I, thankfully, still can’t get out of my head. – Greg Ellwood, MSN

16. A Prairie Home Companion (70 lists, 5 top spots)

Is it an accident that Robert Altman’s most optimistic film was also his last? Did the man know something? Probably not – except, that is, for the accumulated wisdom of a half-century of filmmaking, all poured with a smile and a wink into this sweetly elegiac look at how time passes and fads come and go, but creativity and passion always win out. – Chris Kaltenbach, Baltimore Sun

15. Flags of Our Fathers (75 lists, 8 top spots)

It’s not just that, with “United 93″ and “World Trade Center,” the movie business finally got around to dealing with the events of Sept. 11, 2001. It’s that some of the best films of the year were informed by the growing national sense of anguished frustration about the war in Iraq. Though that conflict was likely not high on anyone’s mind when Clint Eastwood’s Flags of Our Fathers was conceptualized, its echoes inescapably run through the narrative of the before and after of the celebrated 1945 flag raising on Iwo Jima. – Kenneth Turan, L.A. Times

14. L’Enfant (83 lists, 7 top spots)

 

The Dardenne Brothers, two of a slight fistful of the greatest filmmakers in the world today, did it again. Are their portraits of spiritual, cultural, and, yes, financial crisis, becoming repetitive? Does it matter when the result is so morally resonant and shatteringly humane? The narrative is as propulsive as any action movie this year, with a catharsis to rival “The Bicycle Thief. – Michael Koresky, indieWIRE

13. The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (88 lists, 18 top spots)

 

A journey not through the nine circles of hell, but rather deep into the purgatory that is the modern health-care system, as the eponymous old man navigates overcrowded emergency rooms where all patients, regardless of what ails them, are uniformly bandaged up in red tape. For all its bilious critiques of a society insufficiently equipped to care for its people, Cristi Puiu’s extraordinary sophomore film is ultimately an absurdly funny and unbearably tragic human comedy — maybe the human comedy — about the indignity of old age, and how we are so often alone in this life but for the kindness of strangers. – Scott Foundas, L.A. Weekly

12. Little Children (89 lists, 5 top spots)

Little Children is the best film of 2006 because it gets to heart of what all the best movies are after, with its clean, simple, challenging script. Who are we? Who do we hope to be? What is the truth of how we see ourselves and how others see us? And in the end, we hope that we can grow up, even if that might lead to a future we can’t control with answers we don’t want. But that is the hard reality of being a grown up. You deal with it. You honor those you love. You try your best to do what’s right. And life keeps rolling along. – David Poland, The Hot Button

11. Babel (90 lists, 9 top spots)

Alejandro González Iñárritu’s devastating contemplation of what it means to be a citizen of the world in the first decade of this century hopscotches from Morocco to Japan to Mexico (by way of Southern California). Each of its three loosely interconnected stories is steeped in dread and fraught with the confusion of people struggling (and often failing) to communicate across cultural barriers. The movie’s vision of human fate is surreally heightened, and its visceral sense of people as flesh-and-blood creatures has a palpitating force. – Stephen Holden, New York Times

10. Half Nelson (105 lists, 6 top spots)

Hey, if there’s a poster child this year for the continued vibrancy of indie film, this is it. The hype is deserved: Ryan Gosling’s agonized performance as a well-intentioned white teacher in a Brooklyn, N.Y., junior high — OK, so he smokes a little crack in the bathroom after hours! — is some of the noblest acting you’ll see in any movie, big or small. At virtually every step, director Ryan Fleck and co-writer Anna Boden evade cliché for complexity. – Andrew O’Hehir, Salon.com

9. Volver (106 lists, 6 top spots)

 

There’s just something magical about the pairing of Pedro Almodovar and Penelope Cruz. The Spanish master provides her with the most complex role of her career, and she gracefully anchors one of his most emotionally engaging works yet. As a middle-class wife and mom, Cruz deals with everything from murder to the return of her deceased mother to making an impromptu lunch for 30 people. She’s sexy, fiery, funny, earthy, wise and ultimately empowered. A great film about strong women from a man who loves and appreciates them. – Christy Lemire, AP

8. Children of Men (118 lists, 22 top spots)

With a vigorous, headlong visual style and an eagerness to dispense with explication, Alfonso Cuarón’s canny present-tense futurism, a thriller set in the London of twenty years from now, is also about the present moment, dispenses with superficial science-fiction trappings to weave an enthralling fable about the issues of immigration presently facing both First and Third World nations. – Ray Pride, Movie City News

7. Letters From Iwo Jima (129 lists, 22 top spots)

Clint Eastwood announced from the start that he intended to tell the story of the terrible Battle of Iwo Jima twice, first from the American point of view and then from the Japanese. It was impossible to do justice to so big and complicated a story otherwise, he said. And so he made Flags of Our Fathers, which was a good, if earthbound, portrait of GI bravery overtaken by wartime hype — an earnest think piece about image and reality in the service of patriotism. Then he made Letters From Iwo Jima, which is an austere, radiant stunner — a soaring achievement, as Eastern in its appreciation of group discipline as Flags is Western in its contemplation of individual responsibility. In this year of disastrous war when American soldiers are again fighting a culture so confounding to our own, the elemental gravity and dignity of Letters — spoken almost entirely in Japanese, played out by Japanese actors all but one of whom are virtually unknown to a Stateside audience — is all the more resonant and meaningful. With calm control and utmost respect, a quintessentially American director has made a war picture that honors every soldier (and soldier’s mother) everywhere, with the superb care of an old moviemaking pro who continues to grow as an artist. – Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly

6. Little Miss Sunshine (140 lists, 8 top spots)

There are films that make you cry. There are films that make you laugh. There are films that keep you on the edge of your seat. And, there are films that make you think. Usually, it’d cost you about the equivalent of renting a Tux to give every one of those emotions a workout, but thanks to “Little Miss Sunshine” there’s now an easier, equally satisfying, alternative to seeing back-to-back movies at your local AMC on opening day. – Clint Morris, Moviehole.net

5. Borat (152 lists, 8 top spots)

Look, comedy is supposed to hurt. It can be cruel, uncomfortable, juvenile, cretinous, all for the sake of advancing a sharp observation or two, or blasting through a taboo, or simply cramping you up with laughter. Comedy is not nice. The Greeks knew this. So did Lenny Bruce. . Sacha Baron Cohen’s tatty, low-budget prank-a-thon was both the most overhyped movie of the year and the most underrated, the smartest and the stupidest, the most bigoted and the most open-minded. (It was also the funniest. Hands down.) – Ty Burr, Boston Globe

4. Pan’s Labyrinth (153 lists, 25 top spots)

Writer-director Guillermo del Toro presents a wondrous hybrid of stark historical drama and wildly inventive fantasy in this saga of a girl (Ivana Baquero) whose encounter with an ancient forest spirit offers escape from her bleak life in 1944 Fascist Spain. The chilling images are as fanciful as anything Terry Gilliam’s ever dreamed up, and the film offers a marvelously ambiguous finale that could be the downer of the year — or pure bliss. – David Germain, Associated Press

3. United 93 (214 lists, 47 top spots)

The tragic yet heroic tale of the passengers who took fate into their hands on Sept. 11, 2001, and overpowered their hijackers is the best movie of the year. Even more than a blend of tribute and cautionary tale, the film becomes a flight of realistic poetry. It gives meaning to the phrase “the world changed on 9/11.” It makes you feel the ease and freedom of an early-morning takeoff on a glittering day. It poignantly captures everything we lost. – Michael Sragow, Baltimore Sun

2. The Queen (230 lists, 21 top spots)

The Queen is most astute political film in a long, long time. Helen Mirren as Elizabeth II and Michael Sheen as Tony Blair show us everything there is to know about the human dimensions of power. And while the movie doesn’t let anybody off easy, it understands every conflicting point of view at an organic level. And the cultural satire is funny as hell. – Bob Strauss, LA Daily News

1. The Departed (241 lists, 42 top spots)

Quintessential Scorsese from a peerless American director at the height of his powers. He hasn’t worked at that altitude in recent years, so this crime drama set in Boston is a cause for special celebration. It’s also an argument for setting the auteur theory of filmmaking within the context of a collaborative medium. Mr. Scorsese’s authorship suffuses every frame — and, yes, every spasm of violence. Yet the film’s distinction is also due to the screenwriter, William Monahan, the cinematographer, Michael Ballhaus, and a superlative cast led by Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon and Jack Nicholson. – Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal