I’m not a big fan of top ten lists. Still, it’s a year end ritual, so here we go. The very best films of 2006, according to Sean the Movie Guy:

1- “Dreamgirls”

I’ll admit that I love musicals, but “Dreamgirls” is the best I’ve seen in decades. Beyonce and Jamie Foxx star in this Diana Ross and the Supremes-like story, but it’s the supporting work by Eddie Murphy and Jennifer Hudson that makes the film so special. And don’t forget the best soundtrack of the year. I’ve never seen a standing ovation in the middle of a movie before. “Dreamgirls” is my easy pick as the Best Film of the Year.

2- “The Departed”

Martin Scorsese’s best movie in a decade, which is high praise as his past few films have all been Oscar nominated. Scorsese takes us to the means streets of Boston with an all star cast of cops and robbers, each trying to find an undercover mole in their organization. Expect multiple Academy Award nominations from the best ensemble cast of the year.

3- “Babel”

Three separate stories converge with sad results in this story about how our lack of communication dooms us to tragedy. Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu and Guillermo Arriaga may be the best writing/directing team working today, and they certainly know how to wring searing performances out of their actors. Powerful stuff.

4- “Little Miss Sunshine”

One of the best feel-good black comedies that I’ve seen in years, “Little Miss Sunshine” takes a supremely dysfunctional family and forces them on a very funny road trip. They may be a bunch of nutcakes, but they’re also family, and it’s a real joy to watch them begrudgingly unite and support their little girl who doesn’t realize that she’s too weird to win her beauty pageant.

5- “United 93”

Easily the most difficult film on my list, “United 93” is an educated guess at what happened aboard the one airplane that didn’t hit its target on September 11th. Director Paul Greengrass mocks the story up as a documentary film, which lends the film an air of authenticity, but most of the power comes from the fact that despite their best efforts, everybody in the audience knows that the passengers are all fated to die. “United 93” is a gut-wrenching exercise in futility.

6- “The Queen”

Helen Mirren is a lock to win the Academy Award for best actress in this fictionalized account of the British royal family dealing with the media storm that erupted upon the death of Princess Diana in 1997. It’s fascinating to watch the insolated English nobility being forced to confront the celebrity-obsessed modern world.

7- “Brick”

Who says Film Noir is dead? “Brick” resurrects the jaded detective and infuses his story with new life by setting everything up as a high school mystery. Joseph Gordon-Levitt stars as an outsider trying to find an ex-girlfriend who has mysteriously disappeared. Think “Veronica Mars” as played by a very young Humphrey Bogart with some of the best writing of the year.  

8- “Blood Diamond”

Part action flick, part propaganda, “Blood Diamond” exposes the bloodshed behind the African diamond industry. Leonardo DiCaprio and Djimon Hounsou provide award-worth acting and director Edward Zwick does a superb job at mixing the drama in with the violence.

9- “Letters From Iwo Jima”

Clint Eastwood manages to appear on my Top 10 list every year. This time out he does so by making a film that’s entirely in Japanese. What a show off! “Letters From Iwo Jima” is a deeply affecting portrait of the Japanese soldiers stationed on the infamous island. The film looks at how soldiers behave when they know that they are outgunned and fated to die. It’s yet another great film from a director who just seems to get better with each passing year.

10- “Shut Up and Sing”

Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” may have more notoriety, but for my money, Barbara Kopple’s “Shut Up and Sing” is the most powerful documentary film of the year. She focuses her cameras on the Dixie Chicks and the backlash that erupted when singer Natalie Maines told a London crowd that she was ashamed to be from the same state as President Bush. I doubt if this film will win back any previous fans of Dixie Chicks, but it is nevertheless a revelatory look at some outspoken artists who suddenly find that their fans have abandoned them.

Films that barely missed the cut:

“Akeelah and the Bee”

“Borat”

“Casino Royale”

“Flushed Away”

“Hard Candy”

“Iraq for Sale”

“Little Children”

“Monster House”

“The Proposition”

“Stranger Than Fiction”

“Tristam Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story”

“Volver”

“Water”

The Bottom Five – Not worthy of any commentary other than “Bleech!”

1-“Freedomland”

2-“The Wickerman”

3-“Doogal”

4-“Firewall”

5-“Material Girls”

 

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