Films of the Year

So our final 2006 list arrives with Albums coming next week too. Some little awards at the end too. Enjoy my 11 favourite films of the year.

1. Pan’s Labyrinth – Guillermo Del Toro’s masterpiece, a thematic continuation of his previous Spanish horror/fantasy films Cronos and The Devil’s Backbone, this is breaktaking, beautiful and emotional filmmaking. Juxtaposing Facist Spain and a violent father figure against a young girl's fantasy world with pitch perfect performances and understated CGI never used for flash, always for the storytelling. Achingly personal yet managing to provoke nostalgic emotion for fantastical fairytales of youth, this is just astonishing stuff.
2. The Departed – Scorsese continues his (pretty much) unbroken success as a director with a film to stand up to his finest works. A gritty, sprawling, down-home crime thriller with a grandstanding turn from Jack Nicholson who leaves no piece of scenery unchewed.
3. Capote – Nearly our film of the year but just pipped by these two at the end of the term. Still though, a superlative debut movie from Bennett Miller propelled by the best male performance in a movie since Spacey in American Beauty. Hoffman inhabits Capote creating a heart possessing monster caught inside his own ambition.
4. Brick – Maverick filmmaking of the highest quality, this high school set thriller transported Dashiell Hammett’s gumshoe prose to a modern high school but this was far from a gimmick. Rian Johnson backed up his debut with inventive camera work and stylish quirks, again propelled by a great lead performance from Joseph Gordon Levitt.
5. Brokeback Mountain - The year's most controversial picture and its most achingly romantic. The 'gay cowboy movie' was so much more than it ridiculous tag and Heath Ledger finally proved acting might well be the career to follow. A perfect evocation of love forbidden and lost to circumstance, nothing brought more tears to the eye.
   
6. Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada – A slow, elegiac western from Tommy Lee Jones that was moving, funny and full of gorgeous vistas shot by a veteran lense. Jones’ performance didn’t draw enough praise for sure but his future behind the camera could be special if he matches this with his next effort. Elegant, brilliant filmmaking.
7. Good Night and Good Luck – Old fashioned and staunch in its approach, George Clooney really made his mark with his second directorial effort, a blistering portrayal of McCarthy era politics and fearless news casting. The whole cast excel but David Strathairn puts in a stoic turn as Ed Murrow while Clooney pays homage to his heroes in style.
8. Squid And The Whale – Easily the most underrated movie of the year, this is ballbusting stuff; difficult to watch through being both achingly personal and deeply relatable. Jeff Daniels should’ve been nominated for an Oscar while Noah Baumbach’s script exorcises his childhood demons in near psychotic fashion that certainly will have his therapist either jumping for joy or throwing in the towel.
9. Little Miss Sunshine – A sweet natured and heart-warming tale of a dysfunctional family and their trip across America to a beauty contest. Steve Carell steal the show as a gay, suicidal Proust scholar but this is a movie with a big heart but a subversive mind that prevents it from descending into mawkish road movie nonsense. Plus, great soundtrack.
10. The Proposition – Brutal, bloody and muddy Australian western from the increasingly fertile pen of Nick Cave. Its ugly violence is handled with a dab hand by John Hillcoat but its Cave’s script, brought to life vividly by Guy Pearce, Ray Winstone and a scene-stealing turn from Danny Huston, that gives this movie its power. Elegiac, intense, gruelling stuff but very much worth it
11. Grizzly Man - An incredibly moving portrait of a man both stupid, crazy, courageous and likely, clinically insane. Timothy Treadwell's life was deeply sad but Werner Herzog finds an elegiac poeticism to his eventual demise at the hands of the Grizzly Bears he devoted himself to protecting.
    

Honorable Mentions: Miami Vice, Inside Man, Thank You For Smoking, Borat, The New World, United 93, World Trade Center, Stranger Than Fiction

**Remember we are British and therefore have not seen many of the movies you Americanites have. We do realise some of these came out last year for you but hey, what can you do?**


Best Actor: Phillip Seymour Hoffman (Capote)
Runner Up: Jeff Daniels (The Squid And The Whale)

Best Actress: Ivana Baquero (Pan's Labyrinth)
Runner Up: Meryl Streep (The Devil Wears Prada)

Best Supporting Performance: Jack Nicholson (The Departed)
Runner Up: Danny Huston (The Proposition)

Best Director: Guillermo Del Toro (Pan's Labyrinth)
Runner Up: Martin Scorsese (The Departed)

Best Screenplay: Rian Johnson for Brick
Runner Up: Dan Futterman for Capote / Nick Cave for The Proposition

Best Soundtrack: Marie Antionette
Runner Up: Brick

Worst Movie of the Year: V for Vendetta (easily)
Runner Up: The Da Vinci Code