Because the year isn’t complete without a few silly lists, here are my personal favourites for 2005. I haven’t seen Brokeback Mountain or Munich yet, and they’re on lots of critics’ lists, so they might fit in here somewhere.
I’m not judging these as the best or most artistically-gratifying films of the year–they’re just my favourites. With links if I’ve discussed them elsewhere, and 25 words or less on why I liked them:
- Syriana – Complicated, brainy and utterly modern
- Downfall – Bruno Ganz gives the performance of the year as Hitler (technically released in Germany in 2004, but I saw it here in 2005).
- A History of Violence – Astonishingly good performances and wonderful direction
- Capote – Only a character study, but one of the best I’ve ever seen.
- Lord of War – Andrew Niccol is a slick director who makes intelligent, layered films. Great despite the presence of Nicholas Cage.
- 3-Iron – A quiet, clever film from South Korea
- Unknown White Male – Not a technically astute documentary, but incredible subject matter.
- Shopgirl – Charming, off-beat comedy with note-perfect performances from the three leads
- Serenity – More Star Wars than Star Wars
- King Kong – Great storytelling, incredible effects, powerful themes and Naomi Watts is luminous. Too bad about all that slow-motion.
If I were going to pick some runner-ups, here are eight in no particular order:
- Walk the Line
- Crash
- The Family Stone
- Sin City
- Wedding Crashers
- Murderball
- Turtles Can Fly
- Broken Flowers
DarrenBarefoot.com 
Ooh, someone else who saw “Unknown White Male”…I loved it too. Interesting to see how an idea that’s gotten less-than-satisfactory treatment in Hollywood fiction becomes so compelling in real life…
Hey Darren, did you ever catch Constant Gardener? I suspect it would have made your list. 🙂
Jeff: I did, and it probably just missed my runners up list. It was definitely a good movie, but it left me a little underwhelmed (perhaps it was its early similarities to “The English Patient”?).
I admit, I knew nothing about the film, and the ‘fiennes factor’ had me worried about an English Patient style movie as well.
I’ve been thinking about your list and it just occurred to me that most of your top choices are movies with male lead characters, where women are in smaller roles.
So this begs the question- “Was 2005 a bad year for women in film?” The only movie that I can think of that was critically acclaimed with a female lead character was “North Country.”
Interesting.
Alexis: You’re right about that, though that may reflect more my taste in movies than the year’s best films.
That said, I wonder if there’s gender equality in the recent reduced box office. That is, are fewer women going to movies than men? I’ve never seen any research on this, so it’s just speculation.
After I thought about it, I looked at the top lists from critics, and the majority of “critically acclaimed” movies generally contained casts with a large number of men/male leads. So it seems that women might have done poorly in film this year. I think it’s also a factor that many of the top critics, directors and people who control the film industry are men. It might also be interesting to see how many men/women attend movies and drive the box office. More women read books, and so you would think that would drive which books get adapted into movies as well.
I might do a blog post about this at some point.
FYI, I posted a follow-up to this entry here:
http://www.darrenbarefoot.com/archives/2005/12/men-women-and-going-to-the-movies.html