Tuesday, December 05, 2006

the list

Films of the year 2006

Well, the year is beginning to wind down, and though there’s still a few new releases to go yet, some of you have been asking me to let you know what I’ve enjoyed in 2006. So, here’s what I’d recommend:


what I probably consider to be the ten best films of the year, though of course we don't want to be too dogmatic about this:

10: a scanner darkly

9: cache

8: munich

7: syriana

6: the three burials of melquiades estrada

5: junebug

4: the new world

3: the fountain

2: little miss sunshine

1: children of men


honourable mentions for:
grizzly man
an inconvenient truth
good night, and good luck
paradise now
superman returns
walk the line
the beat that my heart skipped
pavee lackeen the traveller girl
babel
stranger than fiction
the prestige
the queen
the departed
borat
bobby
casino royale


biggest disappointment:
wim wenders’ don’t come knocking

worst film I endured this year:
the wicker man


three I haven’t seen that may change the make up of this list once I get around to it:
prairie home companion
little children
pan’s labyrinth

3 comments:

Alan in Belfast (Alan Meban) said...

You're right that we don't want to get too dogmatic about this ... but you surely must put Caché (Hidden) above Syriana.

In fact, some of your honourable mentions list (eg, The Beat My Heart Skipped) deserve to be higher than the stylish but story-light Syriana.

Peter said...

Good list. And ,wow, I've seen seven of them! My taste must be improving. I'm not sure if The New World deserves such a high placing, looking back it seems a little....clunky. And I'm interested that such a bleak, crushing film was your number one. Just the slightest sliver of hope at the end. Not much to live on there....

gareth higgins said...

thanks for the comment peter - i know what you mean about children of men - but i thought that the whole story was about the lengths to which a man was prepared to go to defend life - i know it's a bleak story, but i think it's also a profoundly optimistic film.a