10 Best

This post is devoted to film. It is awards season, and as an avid film lover I've decided to compile my own personal top ten list for the year in film. This list is made up of films released in the calendar year of 2006.

This is my personal list. It will include many found on other lists. It will include those nominated for academy awards. Some left off the list will receive honorable mentions purely on the strength of one particular acting performance within it. And a few twists of my own.

I'm looking for a name for this annual Phil top ten list? Any ideas?


And so we begin...


10. Children of Men - Beautifully shot. The cinematogrophy is incredible. Set in 2027 London, the human race is rendered infertile. With issues of race, the sanctity of life, and overzealous extremism, this is a haunting warning for the future.

9. Thank You For Smoking - Perhaps the funniest and wittiest film of the year. TYFS is a dark comedy about big tobacco and the M.O.D. Squad. (I'll let you find out what that means in the film) Aaron Eckhart is the king right now of dark biting comedy. Just see his performance in the film that no woman should see, In the Company of Men.

8. Letters from Iwo Jima - Eastwood impresses again. It's a brave film telling the other side of the famous story. Ken Wantanabe of "The Last Samurai" is magnificent as the Japanese commander.

7. United 93 - Many wondered if it was too soon. It wasn't for this film. Playing like a docudrama, the film about the events that took place on United flight 93 that crashed in a Pennsylvania field is the perfect "first" film about 9/11. It's worth it for everyone to see.

6. Babel - the epitome of an ensemble film. Real, scary, and haunting, this film shows us just how close we all live together.
(my pick to win Best Picture at the Oscars)

5. Half Nelson - Wow! Ryan Gosling, (The Notebook) comes out of the gates with a performance from out of nowhere. Absolutely incredible leading me to crown him, along with others more esteemed than I, the best young actor working today.

4. Borat - What can I say!? Hilarious, wrong, offensive, funny, wrong, hilarious. It's one of a kind. A film that will go down as one of the funniest of all time.

3. Casino Royale - I might catch some flack for this pick being on y list, let alone 3rd. I'm a huuuge Bond fan. The Bond genre has finally returned home. Daniel Craig portrays a darker, more human Bond in a film that is just flat better than any other Bond or Action/Spy movie made in a long, long time.

2. The Departed - DiCaprio (my favorite actor), Nicholson, Damon, Whalberg. In my opinion the best 3 actors in Hollywood now, DiCaprio, Damon, and Whalberg, light up the screen in Scorcese's return to crime drama. This is simply a fantastic flick, made by perhaps the greatest American film maker ever. Scorcese will win his first Oscar for best director, although DiCaprio will not win for best actor.

1. Pans labyrinth - This year's best film. "Pans" is the most captivating, beautiful, and moving film of the year. Described as a dark Alice in Wonderland, Mexican director Guillermo Del Toro paints his mythical story against the backdrop of 1940s Civil war Spain. This is a film that would be a great war epic, even without the magic of little Ophelia's world of the labyrinth. This film is in Spanish with English subtitles, and for the first time as I watched I saw just how incredibly beautiful the Spanish language is. Please everyone go see this film. Although not nominated for Best Picture, it is nominated for Best Foreign Film at this years Oscars.

Honorable Mentions: The Last King of Scotland, The Queen, Blood Diamond, V for Vendetta, Talladega Nights, Neil Young: Heart of Gold, For Your Consideration.