10. A Prairie Home Companion 
Robert Altman’s final feature, A Prairie Home Companion, is one of the most effortlessly endearing movies I’ve ever seen. It has a naturally unpolished, brassy charm that emanates from its down home musings and warmhearted characters. Meryl Streep gives the most wonderfully jubilant performance of her career and Virginia Madsen is as softly soulful here as she was in her career redefining role in Sideways. Altman’s cluttered, cinematic tapestry style could not be more perfect for photographing the on stage and behind the scene antics of this spontaneous, clumsy old fashioned radio show. Repeat viewings are highly rewarding since its scenes are so full of movement and detail. A Prairie Home Companion is a laugh out loud comedy treat, but it’s also fittingly level headed. As lovely a film as there ever will be about death, this movie just explodes with energy and exuberance even when tragedy strikes. We all face our own finales in life, and as the cast and crew of the show sing their final number, “Red River Valley,” it feels every bit as painfully ambivalent as life itself.
9. Mutual Appreciation
If John Cassavetes were alive to make a film in 2006, then this would probably be the kind he would make. Up and coming festival favorite Andrew Bujalski has mastered the sublime art of nothingness by capturing the awkward rhythms of twentysomething drunken banter and the thinly philosophical ramblings of their adorably pretentious ordinary days. Every “like...,"well…,” and “umm…," is like a gift cinematic realism heaven that helps make every second of this beautiful little film feel as true as documented footage. These characters come alive through their imperfections, the cracks in their logic, and the thinly veiled ulterior motives they can barely hide from each other let alone the audience on guard. We can witness their slips and their falls and see things about them that no one within the frame can recognize. It’s the closest thing to capturing an actual piece of life on film since Bujalski broke out with his equally honest Funny Ha Ha last year.
8. Little Miss Sunshine
Little Miss Sunshine has all the makings of a dreadful road trip movie, but the sincerity and integrity of high end cinema. It may look like a simple family movie farce, but this film has more heart than most others to hit the big screen this year. Little Abigail Breslin is a show stopping heartbreaker as Olive, a little girl who just wants to win big at a local pageant. She’s supported by one of the most impressive ensembles in any film this year. Greg Kinnear and Toni Collette sparkle with prickly charm as her bickering parents and Alan Arkin, Steve Carell, and Paul Dano make for the most earnest and hilarious comic foils of the year. All three deserve Best Supporting Actor recognition come Oscar time, but I doubt any of them will get it. However, this is without a doubt the year’s very best comedy.
7. The Proposition
The Proposition is a grisly Western that reestablishes the genre as a template for the expression of brutish men with wounded souls. The always wonderful Guy Pearce gives a completely flawless performance as a fugitive of the law who has made a deal to kill his more criminal older brother in exchange for the life of his softer, sweeter younger brother. His voyage to perform the dreadful task would be fodder enough for a brilliant film, but we also experience the film from the perspective of the law. This is particularly rewarding in the scenes with Emily Watson who gives a performance of such delicate beauty that it makes every gunshot resound with even more devastating nervousness. It’s an ugly film about vicious people, but it also takes time to spotlight characters of innocence. This, however, is not a film where the innocent prosper. It’s designed to be a tragic tale of violence and bloodshed that weighs heavily on the heart and mind.
6. Little Children 
If American Beauty and Las Liasons Dangereuses had an even more poetically obscene lovechild, it would probably be something along the lines of Little Children. Based on the Tom Perotta novel of the same name and adapted by In the Bedroom auteur Todd Field, the movie is a desolate, dark hearted tour de force of romance, sleaze, and hypocrisy. More than just another suburban satire, the film charts very complex relationships and plays tricks on the minds of even its most attentive and intelligent viewers. Its final scene is one of the most devastating and shocking montages of truthful tragedy to be witnessed all year. More importantly, it makes the audience as guilty as the local town in the unfortunate way we read into Jackie Earle Haley’s troubled sex offender. Who exactly is the victim becomes as blurred and complicated a judgment to make as you could hope for from a thoughtful film likes this one.
If American Beauty and Las Liasons Dangereuses had an even more poetically obscene lovechild, it would probably be something along the lines of Little Children. Based on the Tom Perotta novel of the same name and adapted by In the Bedroom auteur Todd Field, the movie is a desolate, dark hearted tour de force of romance, sleaze, and hypocrisy. More than just another suburban satire, the film charts very complex relationships and plays tricks on the minds of even its most attentive and intelligent viewers. Its final scene is one of the most devastating and shocking montages of truthful tragedy to be witnessed all year. More importantly, it makes the audience as guilty as the local town in the unfortunate way we read into Jackie Earle Haley’s troubled sex offender. Who exactly is the victim becomes as blurred and complicated a judgment to make as you could hope for from a thoughtful film likes this one.
5. Letters from Iwo Jima
Clint Eastwood has released not one, but two films of great beauty and raw complexity in the last three months and this is the better of the two. Letters from Iwo Jima is a somber and justifiably vicious war drama that explores the social, cultural, and personal significances of battle rather than basking in the glory of fight scenes and explosions. It looks not only at the lives of these people during the time of war, but also who they were before being turned into soldiers. The lives of these people and the families they’ve left behind are at the core of the film. The war is merely the obstacle standing in the way of their return. With this Iwo Jima saga, he has dissected the myths and exaggerated media representations of war and restored the human integrity of the soldier as a person rather than a picture or a story in a newspaper. He champions humanity and remains weary of what can happen when people stop being seen as human and start being considered pawns in a game played for national interests.
Clint Eastwood has released not one, but two films of great beauty and raw complexity in the last three months and this is the better of the two. Letters from Iwo Jima is a somber and justifiably vicious war drama that explores the social, cultural, and personal significances of battle rather than basking in the glory of fight scenes and explosions. It looks not only at the lives of these people during the time of war, but also who they were before being turned into soldiers. The lives of these people and the families they’ve left behind are at the core of the film. The war is merely the obstacle standing in the way of their return. With this Iwo Jima saga, he has dissected the myths and exaggerated media representations of war and restored the human integrity of the soldier as a person rather than a picture or a story in a newspaper. He champions humanity and remains weary of what can happen when people stop being seen as human and start being considered pawns in a game played for national interests.4. Children of Men 
Children of Men is the sort of epic that unites movie goers everywhere. It’s an exciting, embattled vision of the future full of violence and adventure, but it’s also one of the most deeply emotional and artful tales of the year. It’s a thinking man’s thriller that both indulges in fun spectacle and carves out its own visual style. Handheld cameras walking through futuristic London seem strikingly original in the face of so many cold, stiff interpretations of our future world. Here Alfonso Cuarón is depicting a future where the world has changed, but people have more or less remained the same. They’re still stubborn, selfish, and well meaning at their very core. Some try to be leaders while others just sit around casually waiting for the world to end. The complexity and the layers of detail here are astounding. It’s as honest and imaginative a depiction of the future as there’s ever been and one of the most original and moving films of the year.
Children of Men is the sort of epic that unites movie goers everywhere. It’s an exciting, embattled vision of the future full of violence and adventure, but it’s also one of the most deeply emotional and artful tales of the year. It’s a thinking man’s thriller that both indulges in fun spectacle and carves out its own visual style. Handheld cameras walking through futuristic London seem strikingly original in the face of so many cold, stiff interpretations of our future world. Here Alfonso Cuarón is depicting a future where the world has changed, but people have more or less remained the same. They’re still stubborn, selfish, and well meaning at their very core. Some try to be leaders while others just sit around casually waiting for the world to end. The complexity and the layers of detail here are astounding. It’s as honest and imaginative a depiction of the future as there’s ever been and one of the most original and moving films of the year.
3. Pan's Labyrinth
Fauns, fairies, and revolutionaries stand side by side in this brilliant, adult-sized fairy tale from visionary Guillermo del Toro. It depicts the life of a young girl at the time of the Spanish revolution who is summoned into a mysterious maze by magic creatures claiming that they will save her from her troubled life. Never has there been a film of this kind with such a vivid and terrifyingly real portrayal of both human and magical monstrosities. War and terror dominate the nation as little Ofelia makes her dangerous bid for painless immortality and seeks escape from the treacheries of humanity by cavorting with beasts and monsters. For every creature, there’s a comparable human and the real surprise is that sometimes the monsters are less horrifying than the humans they come to represent. The film touches on the universal ugliness in our world and gives us all a darkly ambiguous answer about whether anyone can really ever escape it at all.
Fauns, fairies, and revolutionaries stand side by side in this brilliant, adult-sized fairy tale from visionary Guillermo del Toro. It depicts the life of a young girl at the time of the Spanish revolution who is summoned into a mysterious maze by magic creatures claiming that they will save her from her troubled life. Never has there been a film of this kind with such a vivid and terrifyingly real portrayal of both human and magical monstrosities. War and terror dominate the nation as little Ofelia makes her dangerous bid for painless immortality and seeks escape from the treacheries of humanity by cavorting with beasts and monsters. For every creature, there’s a comparable human and the real surprise is that sometimes the monsters are less horrifying than the humans they come to represent. The film touches on the universal ugliness in our world and gives us all a darkly ambiguous answer about whether anyone can really ever escape it at all.2. Half Nelson 
Pure and simple, Half Nelson is the low key indie film of the year and one of the best films that could be seen anywhere in 2006. It’s a spirited yet somewhat bleak take on people living workaday, strung out lives in contemporary Brooklyn. Ryan Gosling gives the performance of a lifetime as the good hearted, drug addicted teacher at a local public school who connects in Lost In Translation fashion with a young student (Shareeka Epps) in a bond that defies age. One of the most painful and electrifying scenes I’ve ever see occurs here when the two social outcasts submit to their addictions and difficulties and cross paths in the least ideal of circumstances. This is one of the most truthful films anywhere this year. It’s a simple story about simple lives in the modern age.
Pure and simple, Half Nelson is the low key indie film of the year and one of the best films that could be seen anywhere in 2006. It’s a spirited yet somewhat bleak take on people living workaday, strung out lives in contemporary Brooklyn. Ryan Gosling gives the performance of a lifetime as the good hearted, drug addicted teacher at a local public school who connects in Lost In Translation fashion with a young student (Shareeka Epps) in a bond that defies age. One of the most painful and electrifying scenes I’ve ever see occurs here when the two social outcasts submit to their addictions and difficulties and cross paths in the least ideal of circumstances. This is one of the most truthful films anywhere this year. It’s a simple story about simple lives in the modern age.
1. Babel
Language and communication are essential to a civilized society. When within the walls of one’s own nation and granted the ability to speak intelligently in the language and style of those in proximity, it seems a perfectly simple and natural fact of life. When one crosses borders and reaches across the cultural, generational, and personal divides that stand between people of different mindsets and backgrounds, things become more complicated. Babel is the ambitious, intercontinental drama that aims to explore the difficulties of human expression in all of its forms. Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett play an American husband and wife on vacation in Morocco who find themselves lacking communication skills in their new setting. Adriana Barazza is brilliant as their nanny who must unexpectedly care for the couple’s children while across the border in Mexico. The third major standout performance and my favorite of the bunch is that of newcomer Rinko Kikuchi who gives a fierce and vulnerable performance as a deaf Japanese teenager trying to communicate without the capacity for any verbal language at all. It’s a massive and wonderful film that extends itself in every way to further define, detail, and stumble over the little complexities of making one’s thoughts verbally understood. The film itself is made as though ripped from the minds of its authors, Guillermo Arriaga and Alejandro González Iñárritu, to demonstrate for us all their thoughts on connecting in a world full of disjointed souls. 
