The
Scorecard
The
List of Critics
The
2006
Critics Lists
Critics
List 1
Critics
List 2
Critics
List 3
Critics
List 4
Critics
List 5
Critics
List 6
Critics
List 7
Critics
List 8
Critics
List 9
Critics
List 10
Critics
List 11
Critics
List 12
Critics
List 13
Critics
List 14
Critics
List 15
Critics
List 16
Critics
List 17
Critics
List 18
Critics
List 19
Critics
List 20
Critics
List 21
Critics
List 22
Critics
List 23
Critics
List 24
The
Worst
of 2006
Critics
List 1
Critics
List 2
Critics
List 3
The
2005 Lists
2005
Scoreboard
2005
Critics
2005 Worst
The
2004 Lists
2004
Scoreboard
2004
Critics
2004 Worst
The
2003 Lists
2003
Scoreboard
2003
Critics
2003 Worst
The 2003 Lists
The Top Tens:
Top Twenty
The
Big Chart .
| ...
The Worst
.. | .. The
Critics ..
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 917.5 |
 |
The tragic
yet heroic tale of the passengers who took fate into their hands
on Sept. 11, 2001, and overpowered their hijackers is the best
movie of the year. Even more than a blend of tribute and cautionary
tale, the film becomes a flight of realistic poetry. It gives
meaning to the phrase "the world changed on 9/11." It
makes you feel the ease and freedom of an early-morning takeoff
on a glittering day. It poignantly captures everything we lost. |
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 887 |
 |
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 867 |
 |
"Quintessential
Scorsese from a peerless American director at the height of his
powers. He hasn't worked at that altitude in recent years, so
this crime drama set in Boston is a cause for special celebration.
It's also an argument for setting the auteur theory of filmmaking
within the context of a collaborative medium. Mr. Scorsese's authorship
suffuses every frame -- and, yes, every spasm of violence. Yet
the film's distinction is also due to the screenwriter, William
Monahan, the cinematographer, Michael Ballhaus, and a superlative
cast led by Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon and Jack Nicholson." |
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 571 |
 |
"Letters
From Iwo Jima is an austere, radiant stunner — a soaring achievement,
as Eastern in its appreciation of group discipline as Flags is Western
in its contemplation of individual responsibility. In this year
of disastrous war when American soldiers are again fighting a culture
so confounding to our own, the elemental gravity and dignity of
Letters — spoken almost entirely in Japanese, played out by
Japanese actors all but one of whom are virtually unknown to a Stateside
audience — is all the more resonant and meaningful. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxLisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly |
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 569.5 |
 |
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 495.5 |
 |
"Look,
comedy is supposed to hurt. It can be cruel, uncomfortable, juvenile,
cretinous, all for the sake of advancing a sharp observation or
two, or blasting through a taboo, or simply cramping you up with
laughter. Comedy is not nice. The Greeks knew this. So did Lenny
Bruce. . Sacha Baron Cohen's tatty, low-budget prank-a-thon was
both the most overhyped movie of the year and the most underrated,
the smartest and the stupidest, the most bigoted and the most open-minded.
(It was also the funniest. Hands down.)" xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxTy Burr, Boston Globe |
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 460 |
 |
"There
are films that make you cry. There are films that make you laugh.
There are films that keep you on the edge of your seat. And,
there are films that make you think. Usually, it’d cost
you about the equivalent of renting a Tux to give every one
of those emotions a workout, but thanks to “Little Miss
Sunshine” there’s now an easier, equally satisfying,
alternative to seeing back-to-back movies at your local AMC
on opening day." |
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 381.5 |
 |
"'Alejandro
González Iñárritu's devastating contemplation
of what it means to be a citizen of the world in the first decade
of this century hopscotches from Morocco to Japan to Mexico (by
way of Southern California). Each of its three loosely interconnected
stories is steeped in dread and fraught with the confusion of people
struggling (and often failing) to communicate across cultural barriers.
The movie's vision of human fate is surreally heightened, and its
visceral sense of people as flesh-and-blood creatures has a palpitating
force. " xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxStephen Holden, New York Times |
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 365 |
 |
"Little
Children is the best film of 2006 because it gets to heart of what
all the best movies are after, with its clean, simple, challenging
script. Who are we? Who do we hope to be? What is the truth of how
we see ourselves and how others see us? And
in the end, we hope that we can grow up, even if that might lead
to a future we can't control with answers we don't want. But that
is the hard reality of being a grown up. You deal with it. You honor
those you love. You try your best to do what's right. And life keeps
rolling along." xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxDavid Poland, The Hot Button |
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 343.5 |
 |
"With a vigorous, headlong visual style and an eagerness to dispense with explication, Alfonso Cuarón's canny present-tense futurism, a thriller set in the London of twenty years from now, is also about the present moment, dispenses with superficial science-fiction trappings to weave an enthralling fable about the issues of immigration presently facing both First and Third World nations." xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxRay Pride, Movie City News |
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 327.5 |
 |
"What
makes a movie a transcendent and overwhelming experience? Is it
when you find yourself clapping and cheering throughout it? Or is
it spectacular moments such as when Eddie Murphy spins from a quiet
backstage piano solo to the soulful intensity of "Fake Your
Way to the Top"? Or is it Beyoncé Knowles twirling around
the lit stars of The Dreams debut? Can it all be summed up in Jennifer
Hudson's star-making performance that can break even the coldest
heart? This movie is one dream that I, thankfully, still can't get
out of my head." xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxGreg Ellwood, MSN |
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 327 |
 |
"Hey,
if there's a poster child this year for the continued vibrancy of
indie film, this is it. The hype is deserved: Ryan Gosling's agonized
performance as a well-intentioned white teacher in a Brooklyn, N.Y.,
junior high -- OK, so he smokes a little crack in the bathroom after
hours! -- is some of the noblest acting you'll see in any movie,
big or small. At virtually every step, director Ryan Fleck and co-writer
Anna Boden evade cliché for complexity" xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxAndrew O'Hehir, Salon.com |
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 291 |
 |
"There's
just something magical about the pairing of Pedro Almodovar and
Penelope Cruz. The Spanish master provides her with the most complex
role of her career, and she gracefully anchors one of his most emotionally
engaging works yet. As a middle-class wife and mom, Cruz deals with
everything from murder to the return of her deceased mother to making
an impromptu lunch for 30 people. She's sexy, fiery, funny, earthy,
wise and ultimately empowered. A great film about strong women from
a man who loves and appreciates them." xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxChristy Lemire. AP |
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 284.5 |
 |
"It's
not just that, with "United 93" and "World Trade
Center," the movie business finally got around to dealing with
the events of Sept. 11, 2001. It's that some of the best films of
the year were informed by the growing national sense of anguished
frustration about the war in Iraq.
Though that conflict was likely not high on anyone's mind when Clint
Eastwood's Flags of Our Fathers was conceptualized, its echoes
inescapably run through the narrative of the before and after of
the celebrated 1945 flag raising on Iwo Jima." xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxKenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times |
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 278 |
 |
"Mr.
Melville based the film on Joseph Kessel's 1943 French Resistance
novel and on his own experience fighting in the Maquis, which probably
explains why he painted the story a darker shade than did the original
author. Writing during the war, Mr. Kessel needed hope. Many years
later, Mr. Melville could afford to express his pessimism through
an austere mise-en-scène in which Resistance fighters carry
the shame of a nation on their squared shoulders, and a man's fallen
hat rocks on a cobblestone street, an allusion to the head that
will soon roll." xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxManohla Dargis, New York Times |
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 266 |
 |
"A
journey not through the nine circles of hell, but rather deep into
the purgatory that is the modern health-care system, as the eponymous
old man navigates overcrowded emergency rooms where all patients,
regardless of what ails them, are uniformly bandaged up in red tape.
For all its bilious critiques of a society insufficiently equipped
to care for its people, Cristi Puiu’s extraordinary sophomore
film is ultimately an absurdly funny and unbearably tragic human
comedy — maybe the human comedy — about the indignity
of old age, and how we are so often alone in this life but for the
kindness of strangers." xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxScott Foundas, LA Weekly |
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 212 |
 |
"The Dardenne Brothers, two of a slight fistful of the greatest filmmakers in the world today, did it again. Are their portraits of spiritual, cultural, and, yes, financial crisis, becoming repetitive? Does it matter when the result is so morally resonant and shatteringly humane? The narrative is as propulsive as any action movie this year, with a catharsis to rival "The Bicycle Thief." xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxMichael Koresky, indieWIRE |
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 202 |
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 182.5 |
 |
"I
came out of the theater thinking it was the best Bond since Goldfinger.
A subsequent viewing of Goldfinger — for this column —
has convinced me it's the best Bond ever." |
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 157 |
 |
"Aussie musician Nick Cave scripted and scored this John Hillcoat-helmed Western about an outlaw who must find and turn in one brother in order to save another. Outstanding performances by Guy Pearce and Ray Winstone anchor the film, but Cave's seamlessly integrated score is almost a character in and of itself. This is a Western even filmgoers who aren't fans of the genre overall can enjoy." xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxKim Vonyar, Cinematical |
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