Two kings ruled Hollywood this year: Kong and Clooney. Peter Jackson's epic eased the pain of 2005's sagging box office (down eight percent from last year). And George Clooney, taking on Big Oil (Syriana) and Big Media (Good Night, and Good Luck), eased the pain of audiences starved for challenge. The best movies, from David Cronenberg's A History of Violence to Paul Haggis' Crash, came from renegades eager to light a fire of provocation about the way we live now. You could see the flame from Ang Lee's Brokeback Mountain to Steven Spielberg's Munich. Burn, baby, burn.


1. A History of Violence
Directed by David Cronenberg

The best movie of the year. Why? Because it stays with you the longest, stands up to repeat viewings and shoots out exciting ideas with a velocity and power no gun could match. Thank David Cronenberg for that, and for turning a genre film about a small-town husband and father (Viggo Mortensen), who may be a stone killer, into a study of how we wrap our jones for violence in God, country, family and any other excuse that's handy. You know the drill. So does George Bush. Mortensen is so good that you don't fully appreciate the gravitational pull of his performance until you take it home and let it live inside your head. Maria Bello is a force of nature as his lawyer wife, who is both frightened and turned on by the stranger she finds in the man she married. The acting is flawless, with a special nod to the mesmerizing, mind-bending William Hurt for a demonically funny portrait of evil. You won't forget the words "Jesus, Joey" once you hear Hurt say them. What Cronenberg offers here is a master class in directing. The slaughter in the front yard is a scene for the time capsule. The man with a genius for locating what festers beneath fragile flesh in films such as The Fly, Dead Ringers, The Brood, Videodrome and Spider has never won an Oscar, or even been nominated for one. Jesus, Joey.

2. Brokeback Mountain
Directed by Ang Lee

Two Wyoming cowboys, played with piercing emotional honesty by Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal, meet in 1963 and spend the next twenty years hiding their passion from their wives and an intolerant society. For those who find no current relevance to Ang Lee's stunning visualization of Annie Proulx's short story, try counting the number of states in which gay marriage is legal. Or better yet, just settle into the year's most trenchant and deeply affecting love story.

3. Syriana
Directed by Stephen Gaghan

George Clooney, as actor and executive producer of this political fireball, has had to endure rave reviews that complain about how complicated it is to follow the hairpin turns of the plot. "Should a movie be this much work?" asked one critic. Wow, we've reached an age where even reviewers have to apologize to audiences for a movie that asks them to use their brains instead of just sitting back and letting Hollywood formula work them over. Director Stephen Gaghan has written a corrosive, many-tentacled script that actually lets you see the links between the oil crisis in the Middle East, Islamic fundamentalism, terrorism and the collusion of the White House with business interests whose main concern -- to quote a great Gaghan line -- is providing "the illusion of due diligence."

4. Good Night, and Good Luck
Directed by George Clooney

George Clooney, as actor, director and co-writer of this riveting look at TV news, has some people asking what's the point of dredging up a fifty-year-old battle between TV newsman Edward R. Murrow (David Strathairn in a performance that deserves to be legendary) and the infamous commie-hunter Sen. Joseph McCarthy. Everyone knows that TV news is impervious to bullying from advertisers and political opportunists. Everyone knows that Murrow's fear about television was ungrounded -- the box would never be used as an instrument to "distract, delude, amuse and insulate." Clooney merits credit for the uniformly strong acting, notably from Frank Langella as the wittily imperious CBS chairman, Bill Paley, and Patricia Clarkson as Shirley Wershba, a reporter coping with working in a world of men. Clooney's direction is so assured that only in hindsight do you realize the extent of his achievement. Shooting in black-and-white (cheers to cinematographer Robert Elswit) to evoke the Fifties, Clooney eases us smoothly through the hermetic world of the newsroom until we can almost inhale the cigarette smoke and the creative energy of journalists doing their best work under siege. As a piece of direction, it's a tour de force.

5. Munich
Directed by Steven Spielberg

Another chunk of history, this time dealing with the revenge that was ignited when eleven Israeli athletes were massacred at the 1972 Olympics by a group of Palestinian terrorists known as Black September. This mournful masterpiece is Steven Spielberg's harshest film yet, which is saying something, given Schindler's List and Saving Private Ryan. Working from a script co-written in a spirit of ethical inquiry and unforced compassion by Angels in America playwright Tony Kushner, Spielberg focuses on an Israeli hit squad, led by former Mossad agent Avner Kauffman (Eric Bana). They're sanctioned by Prime Minister Golda Meir (a forceful Lynn Cohen) but given no official standing as they go about their vengeance business, with only one contact (Geoffrey Rush, all steel and given a last line that could freeze blood) to bark orders. The other members of the team are played by Daniel Craig (guns), Mathieu Kassovitz (bombs), Hanns Zischler (forger) and Ciaran Hinds (cleanup). As an operative who works both sides of the fence, Michael Lonsdale slyly steals every scene he's in. The film moves like a thriller, and a tremendously exciting one, as the men travel to London, Paris, Athens and Beirut to eliminate the names they take on faith as the architects of the Munich massacre. There's a lock-step feeling that seeps into the killings, but the cumulative effect is devastating, which is precisely the point. There is never a moment when Spielberg and Kushner are not also measuring the human toll these executions are taking on the executioners. Though Spielberg insists his $70 million film is "inspired by real events" and not historical fact, controversy is already dogging him, with some Israelis objecting to what they see as a sympathetic portrait of the Palestinians, and vice versa. It's a long-standing conflict that this movie (or any other) won't solve. But a movie can illuminate, and Munich writes its most compelling passages on the face of Avner -- Bana is magnificent in the role, a man at war with his own conscience who hides his wife and child away in Brooklyn but can never escape his bad dreams. Spielberg saves the graphic sequence of the Munich slaughter for a climactic flashback, reminding us of a wrong that cannot be undone and of the self-perpetuating futility of vengeance. No easy answers, no happy ending, no hero who can lead by example. This is new territory for Spielberg, and he completes the journey with honor.

6. Capote
Directed by Bennett Miller

Philip Seymour Hoffman's colossal performance as gadfly author Truman Capote is a show in itself. But he's not the whole show. First-time feature director Bennett Miller, working from a first-rate script by Dan Futterman, creates a movie that digs deep into an enigma and emerges as a striking meditation on the intersection of art and life. Capote leaves the cocoon of his Manhattan social life in 1959 and travels to Kansas to research and write In Cold Blood, a nonfiction novel about the murder of a local family by two drifters. The work crowned his career and brought out all his demons. Hoffman takes you in close, and Miller doesn't flinch.

7. The Squid and the Whale
Directed by Noah Baumbach

The battleground here isn't in a war zone, it's at home -- and though the wounds are emotional, they leave bruises. Writer-director Noah Baumbach puts us in the crossfire of his parents' divorce. Dad (a never-better Jeff Daniels) is an academic. Mom (Laura Linney) is a writer. Their twelve-year-old son (the remarkable Owen Kline) is a serial masturbator. His sixteen-year-old brother (Jesse Eisenberg) -- Baumbach's surrogate -- hits on a student (Anna Paquin) who's sleeping with his dad. Forgive the laughs for sticking in the throat. The film is set in Brooklyn in the Eighties, but most children of divorce won't have trouble acclimating. If there's a braver, better acted, more brutally honest film about family life this year, I haven't seen it.

8. The Constant Gardener
Directed by Fernando Meirelles

Rachel Weisz is extraordinary as a hell-raiser who gets killed trying to find out who's using innocent Africans as guinea pigs for drug testing. And Ralph Fiennes is indelibly moving as her husband, a timid British diplomat who toughens up to search for her killer and finds hard truths that bring him closer to her and to Africa. It's a love story between a man and a ghost. Brazilian director Fernando Meirelles (City of God) provides a political and emotional resonance that's hard to shake.

9. Crash
Directed by Paul Haggis

Even when this ambitious drama about racism in Los Angeles flies off the rails, it's more alive than the play-it-safe hogwash (North Country) that passes for profundity in Hollywood. Director and co-writer Paul Haggis keeps the tension bristling and handles a large cast with an expertise rare in a first-time director. Sandra Bullock is shockingly effective as a DA's wife who shows her ugly side when two black men carjack her at gunpoint. And try not to cringe when a white cop (Matt Dillon) gropes a black woman (Thandie Newton) to humiliate her husband (Terrence Howard). Dillon has never done anything this powerful. Long after seeing Crash, you will still feel whiplash.

10. Wedding Crashers
Directed by David Dobkin
King Kong
Directed by Peter Jackson

Tenth place traditionally goes to the movie that gave me the most escapist fun. This year it's a tie. Wedding Crashers, with Owen Wilson and the pricelessly funny Vince Vaughn, qualifies as comic heaven. And there is no resisting King Kong, not with Peter Jackson turning on the thrills full-throttle and Naomi Watts turning on everything else, including the ape and the audience.

AP Movie Critics Pick the Top 10 Movies Mon Dec 19,10:40 AM ET



As film critics, we had a problem this year. There were too many great movies to choose from and only 10 spots on our best-of lists. After much soul-searching and paring, here's what we came up with — the absolute best of the best.

The top 10 films of 2005, according to AP Movie Writer David Germain:

1. "Dear Frankie" — Director Shona Auerbach spins a heart-on-its-sleeve drama of pure decency and inspiration. Emily Mortimer imbues her porcelain facade with steely inner strength as a Scottish mom who concocts a distant fantasy father to protect her deaf son (Jack McElhone) from the nasty truth about dad. Gerard Butler is a stoic stranger who finds his inner saint after signing on as the boy's sire for hire.

2. "King Kong" — This is why Peter Jackson is lord of the primates, at least in Hollywood. Jackson has made an action flick monstrous in scope yet with an intimate sense of pathos and tragedy. His remake about the giant ape doomed by love for a blonde (Naomi Watts, the new Fay Wray) dotes on the details of the 1933 original while indulging Jackson's aim of big-footing all the special-effects extravaganzas that came before.

3. "A History of Violence" — David Cronenberg has gone mainstream as only he can, presenting an action-packed crowd-pleaser that's still as weird as many of his esoteric films. Cronenberg offers a harrowing but often perversely comic study of what really lies beneath those we think we know so well, with ferocious performances from Viggo Mortensen, as a family man fending off mobsters, and Maria Bello, Ed Harris and William Hurt.

4. "Transamerica" — Felicity Huffman joins Dustin Hoffman, Julie Andrews and Hilary Swank in the Academy of Great Gender-Bending Performances, playing a man preparing for surgery to become a woman in Duncan Tucker's road-trip comic drama. Huffman undergoes a remarkable physical transformation, but it's her bearing — wry, shy glances, the tics of someone adjusting to a changing body — that makes her so lovably, painfully authentic.

5. "Capote" — Philip Seymour Hoffman is this year's Jamie Foxx, following that actor's uncanny portrayal of Ray Charles with a brilliant personification of Truman Capote as he researches his true-crime book "In Cold Blood." In Hoffman's hands, the vain, off-putting Capote is riveting, while he and director Bennett Miller present the man as both genius and fiend, torn between human affection and the unforgiving call of his art.

6. "Syriana" — Aren't actors supposed to be dumb? Nobody told George Clooney, who directed and co-starred in the Edward R. Murrow saga "Good Night, and Good Luck" and followed with a fiercely intelligent turn in Stephen Gaghan's thriller about oil-industry corruption. Clooney leads a rich ensemble of actors, and writer-director Gaghan crafts a dense, intricate world of greed and intrigue that rings frighteningly true.

7. "Grizzly Man" — Knowing the death Timothy Treadwell would meet in the grips of one of the bears he swore to protect, it's truly agonizing to watch this buoyant soul prattle on in self-recorded monologues that are the backbone of Werner Herzog's documentary. Some called it hubris to live with bears in the Alaska wild, yet Herzog captures a spirit lost among his own brethren who found himself only through kinship with these beasts.

8. "Broken Flowers" — Bill Murray has this droll, sad-sack thing down to an art. He's perfectly cast in Jim Jarmusch's story of an apathetic, aging Don Juan, whose road trip to revisit past lovers leads him to spiritual and physical crossroads. Murray's stillness is an ideal complement to Jarmusch's cryptic storytelling, the actor's stone face the place where viewers are asked to write their own interpretation of what they're seeing.

9. "The Producers" — The Mel Brooks movie that became a stage musical becomes a movie again, with Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick reprising their roles as Broadway con men aiming to concoct a sure flop. Broadway director Susan Stroman brings great energy and inventiveness to her film debut. It's silly, goofy, stagy, hokey, with scene-stealing performances by Uma Thurman as a bouncy Swedish bimbo and Will Ferrell as a crackpot Nazi playwright.

10. "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" — Steve Carell finally gets some, climbing to leading-man status with this hysterically funny, raunchy yet sweet-hearted tale of a middle-aged guy who's never done the deed. Carell's boyish earnestness carries the film, while he and co-writer and director Judd Apatow pile on broad, outrageous comedy and plenty of gross-out gags and crudity while still managing to keep it a class act.

___

AP Movie Critic Christy Lemire:

1. "The Squid and the Whale" — There isn't a false note in this darkly funny story about married writers who are divorcing, and how the split affects their sons. Writer-director Noah Baumbach's film, loosely based on his own '80s adolescence in Brooklyn, is poignant and observant, hilarious and achingly sad, often at the same time. Jeff Daniels is perfect as the pompous patriarch whose glory days have long since passed; he gets excellent support from Laura Linney as his wife and Jesse Eisenberg and Owen Kline as their confused kids.

2. "Capote" — They should just give Philip Seymour Hoffman the Oscar now and get it over with. The longtime character actor gives the performance of a lifetime as Truman Capote during the writing and researching of "In Cold Blood." Hoffman doesn't just look and sound like him — in Bennett Miller's film, he manages to embody a famous figure fully without devolving into caricature, something it could have been easy to do in portraying someone as well-known for his idiosyncrasies as his brilliance.

3. "Syriana" — Mind-bogglingly complicated yet full of small, pivotal moments, writer-director Stephen Gaghan's multilayered look at oil, power and manipulation in the Middle East demands more than one viewing. Don't be daunted by the subject matter; this is a meaty, intelligent film that truly has something to say, and will reward your perseverance. The flawlessly chosen ensemble cast includes Matt Damon, Jeffrey Wright, Christopher Plummer, William Hurt and an unrecognizable George Clooney as a veteran CIA officer.

4. "Good Night, and Good Luck" — Speaking of Clooney, he also proves himself surprisingly confident behind the camera, directing for only the second time. His depiction of Edward R. Murrow's on-air battles with Sen. Joseph McCarthy is a marvel of precise vision, shot in crisp black and white, set in only a few rooms at the CBS News headquarters and anchored by David Strathairn's measured, dead-on performance. Totally relevant today, even though it takes place a half-century ago.

5. "Murderball" — This documentary about quadriplegic rugby players is fast and furious, and it's touching without trying hard to be. It strikes the perfect tone throughout, without an ounce of condescension or heavy-handedness. The athletes are hardcore competitors and complete characters, joking about sex and the idiotic way in which they're often treated, and they allow us into their homes and lives with trust, dignity and grace.

6. "Crash" — Paul Haggis delivers a knockout punch that rivals the one he leveled with his Oscar-nominated "Million Dollar Baby" script. As director and co-writer, he weaves a tale of disparate, disconnected Los Angeles residents whose paths cross over a 36-hour period. The encounters expose their prejudices and frailties, but Haggis judges none of them and offers no easy answers; rather, everyone is to blame equally, simply for being human and imperfect. The excellent ensemble cast includes Terrence Howard, Matt Dillon, Don Cheadle and rapper Ludacris.

7. "The Upside of Anger" — Joan Allen gives a tour-de-force performance as the wealthy mother of four daughters coping with her husband's disappearance, and Kevin Costner does his best work in more than a decade as the alcoholic ex-ballplayer who becomes her unlikely ally. Like "American Beauty," it rips the veneer off genteel upper-middle class life to expose the angst and insecurity, all the while maintaining a dark sense of humor — only it isn't nearly so self-important.

8. "Broken Flowers" — Bill Murray does more with one eyebrow, raised in faint bemusement, than most actors can do with their entire bodies. In Jim Jarmusch's relaxed road trip pic, Murray's middle-aged lothario half-heartedly searches for the teenage son he never knew he had, and we learn about him — and he learns about himself — through his wildly unpredictable reunions with various ex-girlfriends. Jarmusch, in his typical subtlety, allows us to interpret the journey for ourselves.

9. "Tell Them Who You Are" — Mark S. Wexler's documentary about his father, veteran cinematographer Haskell Wexler, works as a warts-and-all look at a colorful, cantankerous character; as a study of movie history and methodology; and as a who's who of Hollywood, including interviews with everyone from Paul Newman and Sidney Poitier to Jane Fonda and Michael Douglas. But mainly it works as a portrait of a father-son relationship that's awkward, volatile, uneven and always painfully real.

10. "Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit" — Astonishingly elaborate yet undeniably cute, five years in the making yet utterly timeless, Wallace and Gromit finally reach the big screen in their first feature film, and it's a complete delight. The result is very much of the unique W&G universe, featuring the sweetly clueless, veddy British inventor Wallace and his best friend, the silent Gromit, who's the brains of the operation.

TURAN: Ten just isn't enough
This year, not one but two exceptional films take the top spot. Both were were heedlessly thrown away by their studios.
By Kenneth Turan
Times Film Critic

December 18, 2005

Though quality films are always disappearing from theaters before people have carved out the time to see them, most motion pictures live as full a life as their subject matter and the resources of their distributor allow. Some, however, to borrow a phrase from Shakespeare, are "untimely ripped" from screens, throttled by distributor neglect even though a wider audience was there for the taking.

1. This year, not one but two exceptional films, "The Best of Youth" from Italy's Marco Tullio Giordana and "Duma" from Carroll Ballard, suffered that excruciating fate, and it is to underline how infuriatingly destructive that state of affairs is that I've paired them at the top of my 10-best list.

Judging by my mail, both "Youth," serious adult cinema on an epic six-hour scale, and "Duma," a family movie made with texture and complexity, touched stronger chords in readers than any other films of the year. But disarray at a crumbling Miramax crippled the former, and disinterest at Warner Bros. turned the collapse of the latter into a self-fulfilling prophecy. It is so hard to get films of this quality made, it is beyond frustrating to see them heedlessly thrown away as these two were.

Aside from those depressing misadventures, 2005 turned out to offer a remarkable number of quality films. To maximize credit where credit is due, I've grouped together worthy contenders that pointed up the year's most positive trends.


The rest of the list

2. "Paradise Now" and "Syriana." A pair of films, one from Palestinian Hany Abu-Assad, the other from Oscar winner Stephen Gaghan, that manage the notable feat of making politically astute and dramatically compelling scenarios out of the nightmarish political reality of the Middle East.

3. "The Squid and the Whale." As perceptive as it is personal, Noah Baumbach's well-acted and acutely observed family drama is as good as independent filmmaking gets, with Ang Lee's "Brokeback Mountain" running a close second.

4. "Howl's Moving Castle" and "Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit." To have Hayao Miyazaki and Nick Park, two of the most creative animators ever, release features in the same year is almost too good to be true.

5. "A History of Violence" and "Munich." A pair of powerful, genre-bending meditations by two very different directors, David Cronenberg and Steven Spielberg, on the nature of violence and what it does to individuals and societies.

6. "Los Angeles Plays Itself" and the documentary field. Thom Andersen's intoxicating meditation on this city on camera was one of an unbelievable string of docs. Among the best were "Born Into Brothels," "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room," the Iraq double bill of "Gunner Palace" and "Occupation: Dreamland" and nature films including "Grizzly Man," "March of the Penguins" and "The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill." And don't forget the lovely "Ballets Russes." Quite a year.

7. "Capote" and "Good Night, and Good Luck." Two biographies that demonstrate that dramatizations of historic events can illuminate contemporary issues, especially if the acting is as compelling as Philip Seymour Hoffman in the former and David Strathairn in the latter.

8. "Batman Begins" and "King Kong." If we live in a world that demands tent-pole extravaganzas — and we do — it's a gift to have filmmakers like Christopher Nolan and Peter Jackson who can bring an auteur sensibility to blockbuster material.

9. "Head-On" and the foreign language field. As if a new film by Ingmar Bergman ("Saraband") wasn't enough, 2005 saw the widest variety possible of non-English-speaking motion pictures. Especially noteworthy were "Tony Takitani" from Japan, "The World" from China, "Look at Me" and "The Beat That My Heart Skipped" from France, and an unexpectedly strong group from Latin America and Spain: "The Holy Girl," "Machuca," "Lost Embrace" and "Torremolinos 73."

10. "The Constant Gardener." The unlikely team of British thriller writer John le Carré and Brazilian director Fernando Meirelles came up with a crackerjack film that is socially committed and dramatically involving.

CHOCANO: Major studios excepted
10 lists feel like arbitrary relics as it is, so I've upped the list of top films to an unlucky 13.
By Carina Chocano
Times Film Critic

December 18, 2005

Given all the focus this year on the declining box office, it would follow that compiling a list of the year's best movies might feel like an exercise in futility. And if I were required to choose only from the movies that pass for major American cinema these days, it would have been exactly that. There's an odd inversion that seems to be taking place: The more big studio dramas reach for "seriousness" of the kind that tends to win awards, the more bogus they come off.

A minuscule indie such as Andrew Bujalski's "Funny Ha Ha" leaves a more lasting impression than a trumped-up spectacle like "Memoirs of a Geisha." An incisive documentary like "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room" leaves you with more dread than a slick, safe thriller like "The Interpreter." Foreign films and documentaries, increasingly, synthesize and reflect contemporary life in ways Hollywood seems increasingly loath to do. Hollywood may be the Titanic of the international cinema landscape, and it now comes with self-rearranging deck chairs.

All of which is to say that when it came time to compile this list, I was surprised to find it hard to keep it to just 10. Top 10 lists feel like arbitrary relics as it is, so I've upped the list of top films to an unlucky 13, left out and missed several excellent ones, and haven't attempted to rank them. They are listed instead in alphabetical order, followed by a few words on some of the things that made them memorable.

"2046" (Wong Kar Wai) — Ziyi Zhang's heartbreaking performance as the unrequited lover of Tony Leung; the best soundtrack of the year.

"Brokeback Mountain" (Ang Lee) — Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal turn in two of the best performances of the year, and Lee's deceptively subtle direction makes the story linger longer than I expected it to.

"Capote" (Bennett Miller) — If cinematography can be rueful (in a good way), then Adam Kimmel's was. A near-perfect script by Dan Futterman and one of the most finely hewn, complex performances of the year, by Philip Seymour Hoffman.

"The Corporation" (Mark Achbar, Jennifer Abbott, Joel Bakan) — a surprising and chilling analysis of the modern American business as psychopathic "citizen."

"The Edukators" (Hans Weingartner) — The only accurate, ironic and poignant depiction of what it's like to be young and socially committed in the WTO era I can think of.

"Grizzly Man" (Werner Herzog) — Herzog took what might have been a news item-slash-nature documentary and spun it into a philosophical meditation on the urge to manufacture identity in the media age.

"Head-On" (Fatih Akin) — Brutally beautiful performances by Birol Ünel and Sibel Kekilli; a strikingly contemporary take on displacement.

"Junebug" (Phil Morrison) — Celia Weston, Embeth Davidtz and Amy Adams turn in three of the best female performances of the year in one small movie.

"King Kong" (Peter Jackson) — Perfectly cast, surprisingly nuanced for a movie featuring killer dinosaurs.

"Last Days" (Gus Van Sant) — A deceptively simple, lethally incisive portrait of the effects of sudden fame on a sensitive soul.

"The Squid and the Whale" (Noah Baumbach) — Two words (though I could go on): Jeff Daniels.

"Syriana" (Stephen Gaghan) — Amazingly ambitious and complex, exhilaratingly challenging and thought-provoking.

"Turtles Can Fly" (Bahman Ghobadi) — Easily the most heartbreaking film of the year. Soran Ebrahim's performance is unforgettable.

Taking stock of the good, the bad and the ugly

December 18, 2005

BY RICHARD ROEPER SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST

The biggest movie story of 2005 -- at times it seemed like it was the ONLY movie story of 2005 -- was the Great Box Office Slump.

Nearly every Monday from January through December, there was an avalanche of gloom-and-doom reports about yet another disappointing weekend at the box office. Things sounded so dire, I half-expected to read that all the major studios and the independents were shutting down, and everybody in the business was going to have to find another line of work.

Sean Penn would become a social studies teacher. Jamie Foxx could get a gig playing piano in a Chicago jazz club. Angelina Jolie would become the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. (Or does she already have that job?)

Years from now, we'd be telling the grandkids that Hollywood stopped making movies altogether because of the Great Box Office Slump of 2005. ("And that's why there was never another 'Deuce Bigalow' after 'European Gigolo,' little Timmy.")

Only one problem: the slump wasn't all that much of a slump.

THE TOP 10
1. "Syriana"
2. "The New World"
3. "Crash"
4. "Munich"
5. "Nine Lives"
6. "Capote"
7. "Brokeback Mountain"
8. "A History of Violence"
9. "Walk the Line"
10. "The 40-Year-Old Virgin"


THE BOTTOM 10
10. "The Legend of Zorro"
9. "Bewitched"
8. "Guess Who"
7. "The Man"
6. "Miss Congeniality 2"
5. "Stealth"
4. "The Longest Yard"
3. "Monster-in-Law"
2. "Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo"
1. "The Dukes of Hazzard"

Much to admire in a great cinematic season

December 18, 2005

BY ROGER EBERT Film Critic

How in the world can anyone think it was a bad year for the movies when so many were wonderful, a few were great, a handful were inspiring, and there were scenes so risky you feared the tightrope might break? If none of the year's 10 best had been made, I could name another 10 and no one would wonder at the choices.

There were a lot of movies to admire in 2005. These were the 10 best:

1. "Crash": Much of the world's misery is caused by conflicts of race and religion. Paul Haggis' film, written with Robert Moresco, uses interlocking stories to show we are in the same boat, that prejudice flows freely from one ethnic group to another. His stories are a series of contradictions in which the same people can be sinned against or sinning. There was once a simple morality formula in America in which white society was racist and blacks were victims, but that model is long obsolete. Now many more players have entered the game: Latinos, Asians, Muslims, and those defined by sexual orientation, income, education or appearance.

America is a nation of minority groups, and we get along with each other better than many societies that criticize us; France has recently been reminded of that. We are all immigrants here. What is wonderful about "Crash" is that it tells not simple-minded parables, but textured human stories based on paradoxes. Not many films have the possibility of making their viewers better people; anyone seeing it is likely to leave with a little more sympathy for people not like themselves. The film opened quietly in May and increased its audience week by week, as people told each other they must see it.

2. "Syriana": Stephen Gaghan's film doesn't reveal the plot, but surrounds us with it. Interlocking stories again: There is less oil than the world requires, and that will make some rich and others dead, unless we all die first. The movie has been called "liberal," but it is apolitical, suggesting that all of the players in the oil game are corrupt and compromised, and in some bleak sense must be, in order to defend their interests -- and ours.

The story involves oil, money and politics in America, the Middle East and China. The CIA is on both sides of one situation, China may be snatching oil away from us in order to sell it back, and no one in this movie understands the big picture because there isn't one, just a series of tactical skirmishes. "Syriana" argues that in the short run, every society must struggle for oil, and in the long run, it will be gone.

3. "Munich": Stephen Spielberg's film may be the bravest of the year, and it plays like a flowing together of the currents in "Crash" and "Syriana," showing an ethnic and religious conflict that floats atop a fundamental struggle over land and oil. Working from a screenplay by Tony Kushner, Spielberg begins with the massacre of Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympiad of 1972, and follows a secret assassination team as it attempts to track down the 11 primary killers. Nine eventually die, but not before the Israeli (Eric Bana) who leads the team loses his moral certainty and nearly his sanity, and not before the film sees revenge as a process that may have harmed Israel more than its targets.

The film is not critical of Israel, as some believe, but a more general mourning for the loss of idealism in a region marching steadily toward terrorism and anarchy. In defending itself, can Israel afford to compromise its standards -- or afford not to? Spielberg doesn't have the answer. He has the courage to suggest that some of Israel's post-Munich policies have not made it a better or safer place.

4. "Junebug": At last, a movie about ordinary people. Or put it this way: Phil Morrison's "Junebug" was the best non-geopolitical film of the year. In simply human terms, there was no other film like it. It understands, profoundly and with love and sadness, the world of small towns; it captures ways of talking and living I remember from my childhood, and has the complexity and precision of great fiction.

The story, written by Angus MacLachlan, involves Alessandro Nivola and Embeth Davidtz as Chicagoans who return to North Carolina to visit his family: His mother (Celia Weston), mercilessly critical of everyone; his father (Scott Wilson), who has withdrawn into his wood-carving; his brother (Benjamin McKenzie), who loves his wife but has been brought to a halt by his demons and shyness, and the pregnant wife (Amy Adams), who is a good soul.

"Junebug" is a great film because it is a true film. It understands that families are complicated, and their problems are not solved during a short visit, just in time for the happy ending. Families and their problems go on and on, and they aren't solved, they're dealt with. There is one heartbreaking moment of truth after another, and humor and love as well.

5. "Brokeback Mountain": Two cowboys in Wyoming discover to their surprise that they love each other. They have no way to deal with that fact. Directed by Ang Lee, it's based on a short story by E. Annie Proulx and a screenplay by Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana. In the summer of 1963, Ennis (Heath Ledger) and Jack (Jake Gyllenhaal) find themselves one night on a distant mountainside suddenly having sex. "You know I ain't queer," Ennis tells Jack after their first night together. "Me, neither," says Jake. But their love lasts a lifetime and gives them no consolation, because they cannot accept its nature and because they fear, not incorrectly, that in that time and place they could be murdered if it were discovered. Oh, what a sad and lonely story this is, containing what truth and sorrow.

6. "Me and You and Everyone We Know": The previous films have waded fearlessly into troubled waters. Miranda July's walks on them. It's a comedy about falling in love with someone who speaks your rare emotional language of playfulness and daring, of playful mind games and bold challenges. July writes, directs, and stars.

In her first film, she trusts a delicate sense of humor that negotiates situations that would be shocking if they weren't so darn nice. Can you imagine a scene involving teenage sexual experimentation that is sweet and innocent and not shocking at all, because it's not about sex but about what funny and lovable creatures we humans be? And when have you seen a woman seduce a man not with sex but with unbridled and passionate whimsy?

7. "Nine Lives": Rodrigo Garcia's film involves nine stories told in a total of nine shots. It is not a stunt. Most audiences will probably never notice that each scene is told in one shot, although they will sense the tangible passage of real time. The best story involves Robin Wright Penn and Jason Isaacs as two former lovers, now married to others (she pregnant), who meet by chance in a supermarket and during a casual conversation, realize that although their lives are content, they made the mistakes of their lifetimes by not marrying each other. Stating this so boldly, I miss the subtle sympathy that Garcia has for all of his characters, who are permitted those tender moments of truth by which we learn what a tease life is -- so slow to teach us how to live it, so quick to end.

8. "King Kong": A stupendous cliffhanger, a glorious adventure, a shameless celebration of every single resource of the blockbuster, told in a film of visual beauty and surprising emotional impact. Of course, this will be the most popular film of the year, and nothing wrong with that: If movies like "King Kong" didn't delight us with the magic of the cinema, we'd never start going in the first place.

Peter Jackson's triumph is not a remake of the 1933 classic so much as a celebration of its greatness and a flowering of its possibilities. Its most particular contribution is in the area of the heart: It transforms the somewhat creepy relationship of the gorilla and the girl into a celebration of empathy, in which a vaudeville acrobat (Naomi Watts) intuitively understands that when Kong roars he isn't threatening her but stating his territorial dominance; she responds with acrobatics that delight him, not least because Kong has been a gorilla few have ever tried to delight. From their relationship flows the emotional center of the film, which spectacular special effects surround and enhance, but could not replace.

9. "Yes": An elegant Irish-American woman, living with a rich and distant British politician, makes eye contact with a waiter. Neither turns away. Their sex is eager and makes them laugh. They are not young; they are grateful because of long experience with what can go wrong. He was a surgeon in Lebanon. Sally Potter tells their story in iambic pentameter, the rhythm of Shakespeare. The dialogue style elevates what is being said into a realm of grace and care.

Joan Allen stars, and has ever a movie loved a woman more? To recline at the edge of the pool in casual physical perfection is natural to her, disturbing to him. They realize they cannot live together successfully in either of their cultures. A third place is required. Their story is told in counterpoint with the bold asides of a cleaner (Shirley Henderson) who notes that for all their passion they shed the same strands of hair and flakes of skin and tiny germs as the rest of us, and must be cleaned up after. Bold, erotic, political, and like no other film I have ever seen.

10. "Millions": The best family film of the year is by the unlikely team of director Danny Boyle and writer Frank Cottrell Boyce. Nine-year-old Anthony Cunningham and his 7-year-old brother, Damian (Lewis McGibbon and Alex Etel) find a bag containing loot that bounced off a train and is currently stuffed under their bed. With limitless imagination and joy, the film follows the brothers as they deal with their windfall.

Oh, and Damian gets advice from saints, real ones. St. Francis of Assisi, his favorite, provides advice that Anthony is sure will get them into trouble. Despite how it sounds, this isn't a "cute little film." The director makes hard-boiled movies, the writer has worked at the cutting edge, and this is what a family film would look like if it were made with the intelligence of adults.

The Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association voted the frontier romance BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN as the best film of 2005, according to the results of its 12th annual critics’ poll released today.

Rounding out the composite list of the top 10 films of the year were CAPOTE (2), GOOD NIGHT AND GOOD LUCK (3), CRASH (4), CINDERELLA MAN (5), SYRIANA (6), PRIDE AND PREJUDICE (7), A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE (8), KING KONG (9) and THE THREE BURIALS OF MELQUIADES ESTRADA (10).

For Best Actor, the association named Philip Seymour Hoffman for CAPOTE. Runners-up included Heath Ledger for BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN (2), David Strathairn for GOOD NIGHT AND GOOD LUCK (3), Joaquin Phoenix for WALK THE LINE (4) and Russell Crowe for CINDERELLA MAN (5).

Felicity Huffman was voted Best Actress for TRANSAMERICA. Next in the voting were Keira Knightley for PRIDE AND PREJUDICE (2), Reese Witherspoon for WALK THE LINE (3), Joan Allen for THE UPSIDE OF ANGER (4) and Charlize Theron for NORTH COUNTRY (5).

In the Best Supporting Actor category, the winner was Matt Dillon for CRASH. He was followed by Paul Giamatti for CINDERELLA MAN (2), Jake Gyllenhaal for BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN (3), George Clooney for SYRIANA (4) and Jesse Eisenberg for THE SQUID AND THE WHALE (5).

For Best Supporting Actress, the association named Catherine Keener for CAPOTE. Runners-up included Michelle Williams for BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN (2), Rachel Weisz for THE CONSTANT GARDENER (3), Scarlett Johansson for MATCH POINT (4) and Amy Adams for JUNEBUG (5).

Ang Lee was voted Best Director for BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN. Next in the voting were George Clooney for GOOD NIGHT AND GOOD LUCK (2), Bennett Miller for CAPOTE (3), Peter Jackson for KING KONG (4) and Paul Haggis for CRASH (5).

The association voted PARADISE NOW as the best foreign-language film of the year. Runners-up were KUNG FU HUSTLE (2), DOWNFALL (3), NOBODY KNOWS (4) and BALZAC AND THE LITTLE CHINESE SEAMSTRESS (5).

MURDERBALL won for Best Documentary over MARCH OF THE PENGUINS (2), GRIZZLY MAN (3), ENRON: THE SMARTEST GUYS IN THE ROOM (4) and MAD HOT BALLROOM (5).

WALLACE AND GROMIT: THE CURSE OF THE WERE-RABBIT was named the best animated film of 2003, with CORPSE BRIDE as runner-up. The award for Best Cinematography went to Rodrigo Prieto for BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN, followed by Emmanuel Lubezki for THE NEW WORLD. Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana won the Best Screenplay award for BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN over Dan Futterman for CAPOTE.

The association voted ME AND YOU AND EVERYONE WE KNOW as the winner of the Russell Smith Award, named for the late Dallas Morning News film critic. The honor is given annually to the best low-budget or cutting-edge independent film.

The Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association consists of 33 broadcast, print and online journalists from throughout North Texas.

AAFCA Awards Crash as Top Film of 2005
African-American Film Critics Association Picks Crash for Number 1...

1. Crash
2. The Constant Gardener
3. Good Night, Good Luck
4. Brokeback Mountain
5. Syriana
6. Walk the Line
7. Hustle and Flow
8. Capote
9. Batman Begins
10.North Country