The Best (and Worst) of 2006

Film in 2006? It was the worst of times. It was the best of times. You couldn't ask for a better illustration of the highs and lows than the two movies released Friday 22 December: Clint Eastwood's Flags of our Fathers is one of the best, a sober, melancholy, meticulously researched WWII movie with clear contemporary parallels.

Zoom - which I have avoided - is reportedly among the very worst, a Tim Allen superhero comedy with a user rating of 1.3 on the Internet movie database, which is one of the lowest scores ever recorded. (The US critics weren't much kinder. Maitland McDonagh called it 'one of the most dismal excuses for family entertainment ever perpetrated by a major studio'.)

This was the year Sacha Baron Cohen provoked international debate with his hilariously offensive Borat movie. Tom Cruise was dumped by his studio, Paramount, then bought his own, United Artists. He had a kid and got married. (So did his second ex.) Jennifer Aniston proved yet again that she could sell magazines but not movie tickets. Daniel Craig made his critics eat their words. Mel Gibson commited career hari-kiri with an anti-Semitic drunken outburst, then pulled out a box office hit with a Mayan epic in the Yucatec language (Apocalypto is released here Jan 5).

Three Mexican filmmakers directed three of the most acclaimed and ambitious films of the year. Guillermo Del Toro's fantastic Pan's Labyrinth and Alfonso Cuaron's Children of Men were both compelling anti-facist parables, the former set in Spain, post WWII, the latter in Britain, 2027.

Were these Mexican films, American movies or European productions? It didn't really matter, as Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's Babel illustrates, the world is getting smaller, and we're more connected than we know (Babel, which showed at the 50th London Film Festival, is released in the UK January 12).

This time last year, in the run up to the Oscars, there was a flurry of political content in films like Brokeback Mountain, Syriana, Good Night and Good Luck, Munich and Jarhead. To everyone's surprise, Brokeback was pipped at the post for Best Picture by the Paul Haggis' film Crash. Spike Lee showed a heist movie could be political (Inside Man), and The Wachowski brothers even attempted a subversive blockbuster, although V for Vendetta (another film predicting a fascist future for Britain) couldn't live up to the hype.

Normal service resumed by May, when the blockbuster rollercoaster set up shop. Critics savaged The Da Vinci Code, but audiences couldn't help themselves. The Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest was the summer's biggest hit; Mission: Impossible 3; X-Men 3; Superman Returns; Miami Vice and Cars all did well enough without exceeding expectations. Sharon Stone bombed in Basic Instinct 2, and audiences seemed less enthusiastic about warmed over versions of Poseidon and The Omen than the studios had expected.

With the exception of Volver and Hidden, European filmmakers struggled to make an impact in the UK, but it was a solid year for homegrown filmmakers. The Queen, The History Boys, Venus (released Jan 26) and Notes on a Scandal all confirm our traditional virtues: intelligent writing and rich character acting. Ken Loach won the Palme d'or at Cannes with The Wind That Shakes the Barley. And if you're looking for something a bit fresher, Red Road, Flushed Away, A Cock and Bull Story, The Last King of Scotland, Starter for Ten, Road to Guantanamo, Brothers of the Head and London to Brighton suggest there is something for everyone.

Five years after September 11, Hollywood took on the events of that day head on in two major movies: United 93, from British production outfit Working Title, was a blisteringly intense recreation of the flight that fought back. Oliver Stone's World Trade Center was an attempt to salvage some kind of redemption from the ruins of Ground Zero. Despite an expensive advertising campaign, Stone's film is not making much a showing in the early stages of this year's Oscar race, while United 93 - a mere blip on the box office radar - is racking up plenty of support from the critics' ten best lists.

Talking of which… The best (and the worst) of 2006

10 Best Mainstream Releases

10 Best Art House Hidden (Caché) The most shocking climax, and the most tantalizing ending. 2. The Child (L'enfant) A young father sells out his own infant son and tries to make it right. 3. Grizzly Man The year's most vivid (and scary) documentary. 4. The Death of Mr Lazarescu About as dying as you'll want to get. 5. Volver Almodovar doing what he does best. 6. Three Times Three elliptical boy-girl stories in three different time periods. It stays with you. 7. Climates Art film par excellence: a filmmaker breaks up with his gf, in beautifully composed takes. 8. Lady Vengeance The final installment in Park Chan-wook's spectacular revenge trilogy. 9. Pan's Labyrinth Guillermo Del Toro's fantastic take on the Spanish civil war. 10. Road to Guantanamo Michael Winterbottom on the Tipton Three.

10 Christmas Turkeys 10. Firewall A decent thriller which falls apart in the last thirty minutes, when logic goes out the window and Harrison Ford starts to show his age. 9. The Benchwarmers Sorry, David Spade has no right to be on screen. 8. The Benchwarmers And Rob Schneider, that goes for you too… 7. Santa Clause 3 Oh dear. Tim Allen is on thin ice. Watch him age over the flashback and you'll go grey too. 6. The Sentinel Nothing against old men, but judging by this Michael Douglas 'thriller', they do get lazy. 5. The Pink Panther Anyone remember when Steve Martin was funny? Worst miscasting of the year. 4. The Wicker Man Another dreadful horror remake, this was just an insult despite some heavyweight talent attached. 3. Date Movie Any relationship that could survive this comedy is meant to last. 2. Proof Ponderous, pretentious literary stodge with Tony Hopkins a ghost of his former self. 1. Lady in the Water The formerly talented M Night Shyamalan seems to think he's God's gift, in which case we'd like to return him please. This incoherent fuddy duddy horror fable - with Bryce Dallas Howard as a narf called Story - is the most embarrassing film by a major director in years.

Tom Charity
tom.charity@lovefilm.com

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