The 10 Best Films of 2006

2006 was a very good year for movies. As I looked over the list of movies I saw this year I was struck by how many of them (22) I considered well above average. In compiling a best ten list it was a joy to discover that I rated exactly ten movies excellent, making it easy to come up with a list. Some years it is a stretch to try and round out a top ten list, as there were so few terrific movies. On other rare occasions there are more then ten terrific movies and it becomes harder to keep certain films out of the top ten.

This year marked two firsts in my many years of doing best ten lists. The first was having two films in the top ten directed by the same man. That honor goes to Clint Eastwood, once the box office superstar and now one of our greatest movie directors. Eastwood directed two films on the subject of the battle at Iwo Jima, one from the perspective of the Americans and one from the perspective of the Japanese, and crafted two cinematic masterpieces.

The other first is that my top two favorite films of the year were both entirely sub-titled. I have often had a foreign film in my top ten but never at the top of the list and have never had two on the list at all.

Before listing my ten favorite movies I want to make mention of 12 other exceptional films that just weren't quite as good as the top ten but certainly worthy of your attention. "Babel" is a powerfully told story interweaving many plots that all seem random but end up connecting in dramatic and unexpected ways. "Blood Diamond" showcased Leonardo DiCaprio is his second strong performance of the year. "Borat" wins the award for outright funniest movie of 2006. "Casino Royale" was the best James Bond film since the days of Sean Connery with an actor (Daniel Craig) worthy of filling Connery's shoes. "Clerks 2" is a strong follow-up to the independent hit of the early 90's. "Déjà vu" was a strong, original thriller with Denzel Washington and a time continuum playing strong roles in solving a terrorist plot. "The Descent" was the best horror film since "The Blair Witch Project" some seven years ago. "Dreamgirls" brought the movie musical back to life after a three year dip. "Hollywoodland" was a strong telling of the mysterious death of George (Superman) Reeves with Ben Affleck giving a strong performance as Reeves. "Monster House" was the most entertaining kids movie of the year. "Pirates of the Caribbean 2: Dead Man's Chest" was the best sequel and most entertaining summer movie of the year. "The Prestige" was the second (after "The Illusionist") and better of two films about magic. Will Ferrell played it mostly straight in "Stranger Than Fiction," the most original film of 2006. "United 93" was the first of two powerful films about the tragedy that befell our nation on 9/11, this one telling of the terrorists and eventual heroic passengers on the doomed flight that crashed in a field in Pennsylvania.. "We Are Marshall" was a powerful yet uplifting look at a tragedy of a small town trying to overcome their grief and move on with life after a plane crash kills the college's football team. "World Trade Center" was Oliver Stone's take on 9/11 minus any controversy in this straightforward telling of heroic fireman at WTC.

Here are my choices as the ten best films of 2006 in order of personal preference.

1) LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA - Clint Eastwood followed up his masterful "Flags Of Our Fathers" with an even better film that makes a perfect companion piece. This film is told from the standpoint of the Japanese as they prepare for battle with the Americans and we learn about them as they write letters to their loved ones knowing they will not be coming home. The film is almost entirely sub-titled as we follow these soldiers who have the proud belief that they will die for their country, but not before killing as many of the enemy as they can lest they be disgraced. Eastwood's film runs 2 hours and 20 minutes but never feels slow nor the action forced. There are many brilliant set pieces including one involving a barking dog and a defeated regimen deciding to die with honor by exploding themselves with grenades. This is a powerful film and sometimes hard to watch, but the rewards are great. Eastwood proves once and for all that he is one of our greatest directors.

2) PAN'S LABYRINTH - Guillermo Del Toro's brilliant fantasy for adults tells the story of a little girl and her pregnant mother going to live with a man the mother plans to marry. Unfortunately the man is a sadistic colonel who enjoys torturing prisoners. The little girl soon discovers a magic world with fairies and other nice (and not so nice) creatures lurking about. This film (entirely sub-titled in Spanish) is brilliantly told and filled with more imagination then any 10 movies put together in the last year. The sequence where the little girl mistakenly eats a grape after being warned not to eat anything at all is brilliant. I cannot stress enough that this is a film for ADULTS. It is creepy and very violent at times.

3) LITTLE CHILDREN - Todd Field's second directorial effort (after 2001's Oscar nominated "In The Bedroom") takes a look at the lives of several people in a typical suburban town in America. Kate Winslet plays a bored housewife who strikes up a friendship with a handsome but unhappily married man that sets off a string of surprising events that all come together in a powerful conclusion where an act of skateboarding changes the lives of several characters. Jennifer Connelly and Jackie Earle Haley (in a tremendous comeback performance as a sexual deviant) co-star. Field proves that after two films he is a master of perceptive looks at the lives of normal people thrown into unusual circumstances. He is a director to watch who needs to work more often.

4) THE DEPARTED - Martin Scorsese returns to the world of crime and violence and crafts another masterpiece that is likely to finally earn him his long over due Academy Award for Best Director. Here the film tells the story of a group of Boston undercover cops trying to nail the leader (Jack Nicholson) of a crime syndicate. Matt Damon plays a cop who is working for Nicholson while Leonardo DiCaprio plays a cop who has infiltrated Nicholson's crew and becomes a trusted member. Mark Wahlberg, Martin Sheen, Alec Baldwin and Anthony Andrews lead a strong supporting cast in this strong telling of betrayal and loyalties clashing in life on the streets.

5) LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE - The most crowd pleasing film of 2006 is this story of a dysfunctional family headed by patriarch Greg Kinnear as a man trying to sell a self-help book and going nowhere fast. Toni Collette plays the matriarch who seems to be the only normal one in the group as she struggles to keep her family together. Alan Arkin steals (and walked away with his first Academy Award nomination in 38 years) the movie as Kinnear's father, a no nonsense grandfather who speaks his mind about everything and tries to conceal a heroin habit. Steve Carrell plays Collette's brother, a suicidal homosexual who is a former professor. And then there are the two children, one a teenage boy who refuses to speak to anyone and the little girl (Academy Award nominee Abigail Breslin) whose only goal in life is to win the Little Miss Sunshine beauty pageant. And it is because of this pageant that the family hits the road in a barely working VW bus headed for California. This delightful comedy has a strong screenplay that refuses to conform to cliché and provides laughs and unexpected insights.

6) FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS - The first of Clint Eastwood's two tales of Iwo Jima tells the story of the lives of the men immortalized in the famous picture as they raised the American flag on Iwo Jima. Those who lived returned to the United States and found themselves the object of every media outlet and promotion in the country. Sadly, some of these men never believed themselves heroes and struggled with their newfound (and unwanted) fame. This film is almost as good as "Letters From Iwo Jima" but somehow failed to find an audience thus killing its chances for Academy Award nominations. Both films are must-sees.

7) A PRAIRIE HOME COMPANION - Based on Garrison Keillor's popular and long running radio show, this film tells the story of the final night of a radio show with its on-stage and behind the scenes look at the performers trying to put on one last great show. Famed director Robert Altman concluded a masterful career with the funny and entertaining film filled with terrific musical numbers and a terrific cast headed by Kevin Kline, Meryl Streep, Lily Tomlin, Tommy Lee Jones, Woody Harrelson, John C. Reilly, Virginia Madsen and Keillor himself. The film is a little more interesting to watch if you note that Madsen's performance may have been included perhaps by Altman, who may have known he was dying when he was making the film. Still the film is generally uplifting and one of the most entertaining films of the year. It was a fitting end for a master director who often made great movies.

8) THE QUEEN - Stephen (The Grifters) Frears brilliant look at the lives of the Royal Family, particularly Queen Elizabeth II, during the tragic week after Princess Diana has been killed. Helen Mirren gives the performance of the year in the title role as a woman firm in her beliefs because of royal protocol, unknowing to her the love the public had for Diana. Michael Sheen gives a brilliant performance as Prime Minister Tony Blair, whose opening weeks in office occurred during this tragic period where the public turned to him to play middleman between them and the Royal Family.

9) AKEELAH AND THE BEE - This film was sadly overlooked when first released but deserves to be found. Eleven year-old Akeelah lives in the inner city and has a tough life with a hard working mother who is rarely home and a brother who has just joined a gang. Akeelah starts missing school and is ordered by her principal to enter a spelling bee that she wins with incredible ease. With the coaxing of the principal, Akeelah enlists the aid of an English professor (Laurence Fishburne) to coach her on to the national spelling bee. It soon becomes evident to everyone but her mother (Angela Bassett) that Akeelah could provide hope and something to be proud of to her low-grade community, as long as she can overcome the hard work ethic of the professor (who has some personal demons of his own) and more experienced kids at the subsequent spelling bees. This is the feel good movie of the year.

10) NOTES ON A SCANDAL - One of the best thriller's of the year is this tale of the unusual relationship between two women teachers. Judi Dench plays the experienced teacher who takes a liking to a new, younger woman (Cate Blanchett) who befriends the older woman more out of kindness. Soon the older woman ingratiates herself into every facet of the younger woman's life and eventually finds out the younger woman is having a sexual affair with a male student. Armed with this information, the older woman begins emotionally blackmailing the younger teacher. This is a straightforward, powerfully told tale of obsession from different angles that wisely avoids going for the slam-bang violent ending of American thrillers such as "Fatal Attraction." Dench and Blanchett have both been deservedly nominated for their performances.