The top 10 films of 2006, according to AP Movie Writer David Germain:
1. “Pan’s Labyrinth” — Writer-director Guillermo del Toro presents a wondrous hybrid of stark historical drama and wildly inventive fantasy in this saga of a girl (Ivana Baquero) whose encounter with an ancient forest spirit offers escape from her bleak life in 1944 Fascist Spain. The chilling images are as fanciful as anything Terry Gilliam’s ever dreamed up, and the film offers a marvelously ambiguous finale that could be the downer of the year — or pure bliss.
2. “The Queen” — Helen Mirren needs to clear shelf space for her best-actress Academy Award. With a potent mix of autocratic condescension and touching pathos, Mirren delivers the performance of the year in a difficult role as a universally known figure — Queen Elizabeth II, amid the crisis over the death of Princess Diana. Ever-wily director Stephen Frears injects great humor and subtle historical depth to a story that plays out over just a matter of days.
3. “Little Miss Sunshine” — It’s a profound comedy, a hilarious tragedy. Filmmakers Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris have crafted one of the great road-trip films, the story of a painfully screwed-up family racing to get their little girl to a beauty pageant. Portrayed by a fantastic ensemble led by Greg Kinnear, Toni Collette and Steve Carell, the characters are so real you want to console them over their sufferings even as you guffaw over their antics.
4. “United 93” — Sept. 11, 2001, comes rushing back in director Paul Greengrass’ searingly authentic re-creation of the doomed flight whose passengers died after battling their terrorist hijackers. Using an anonymous cast that captures the strangers-on-a-plane sense of air travel, the film is agonizing yet oddly cathartic, a testament that leaves viewers with renewed empathy — and maybe a bit more peace of mind — over the victims’ final moments.
5. “Days of Glory” — World War II from a fresh perspective. Director Rachid Bouchareb spins an epic with great relevance today, following a band of North African soldiers who helped liberate France from the Nazis. Beautifully acted by Jamel Debbouze, Sami Bouajila, Roshdy Zem, Samy Naceri and Bernard Blancan, the film is a reminder of the courage and sacrifice made by colonials, who were repaid with decades of continued racism and second-class citizenship.
6. “Deliver Us From Evil” — Director Amy Berg renders a piercing portrait of a wolf in shepherd’s clothing with this documentary centering on defrocked Roman Catholic priest Oliver O’Grady, who admitted to sexually abusing at least 25 children. The film painfully captures the raw emotional wounds that remain for victims and their families, and it stands as an indictment against a monolithic institution that owes a grave debt of penance.
7. “Letters From Iwo Jima” — Part two of Clint Eastwood’s World War II double-feature capped an unparalleled achievement by a filmmaker who gets better with age. Two months after his take on Americans at Iwo Jima, Eastwood offers a touching tribute to the island’s Japanese defenders, dramatizing their camaraderie, bravery and humanity in a cause they surely knew was lost. Ken Watanabe leads a magnificently understated cast as the general orchestrating the defense.
8. “Flags of Our Fathers” — Eastwood’s sprawling drama of heroism glorified, overlooked and redefined centers on American troops depicted in the immortal photo of the raising of the U.S. flag at Iwo Jima. Ryan Phillippe, Adam Beach, Jesse Bradford and Barry Pepper head a selfless ensemble in a story that seamlessly shifts from the battle field to the home front to the present day as it examines the price dutiful men pay in service to their nation’s propaganda.
9. “An Inconvenient Truth” — As runner-up in the 2000 presidential election, Al Gore can’t set policy on global warming. But he can stand on a grand soapbox and caution us all about the dangers. Director Davis Guggenheim creates a compassionate sketch of a public servant and family man whose triumphs and failures have set him on a mission: to warn the world that emissions from our rampant consumption of fossil fuels may cause a catastrophic environmental meltdown.
10. “Children of Men” — It’s often said that children are the world’s most precious natural resource. Director Alfonso Cuaron proves it with a frightening glimpse into a near future in which a plague of infertility has left humanity on the edge of extinction. Clive Owen, Julianne Moore and Michael Caine star in this tale of a world in mourning over the unborn, the film offering a germ of hope amid terrible — and very topical — social and racial chaos.
AP Movie Critic Christy Lemire:
2. “The Queen” — Helen Mirren rightfully has been the main recipient of praise for her subtle, stinging and eventually sympathetic portrayal of Queen Elizabeth II during the week after Princess Diana’s death. It’s the performance of the year and she will win the Oscar. But many other parts help make this machine hum: Stephen Frears’ intimate direction; Peter Morgan’s wry, observant script; and a knockout supporting turn from Michael Sheen as Tony Blair. An intelligent, surprising, relevant film.
3. “Half Nelson” — Its inner-city setting could have inspired an overly feel-good film, but director Ryan Fleck and co-writer Anna Boden present the material with a bracing realism that keeps it raw and grounded. Ryan Gosling is mesmerizing as a charismatic junior-high teacher by day and a crack addict by night whose separate lives begin bleeding dangerously into each other. Shareeka Epps is astonishingly assured as the student who provides an unexpected path toward redemption.
4. “House of Sand” — Everything and nothing happens in this emotionally arresting, visually dazzling epic. Birth and death, hope and disappointment, scientific discovery and endless solitude — it all transpires on the sandy northern edge of Brazil, where three generations of women fight to survive, played by two actresses of amazing versatility. Director Andrucha Waddington brings out the best in real-life mother and daughter Fernanda Montenegro and Fernanda Torres.
5. “United 93” — Paul Greengrass’ brave, bold recreation provokes a rare physical reaction. By now you know what’s going to happen: that hijackers will take over a United Airlines flight from Newark to San Francisco on 9/11, and that passengers will rush the cockpit and struggle to conquer them right until the Boeing 757 nose-dives into a Pennsylvania field. Still, it’s impossible not to feel engrossed with every fiber in your being. It’s pure, raw filmmaking: respectful but free of melodrama.
6. “Dave Chappelle’s Block Party” — There’s a wonderfully kinetic energy about this documentary, which is part concert film, part impromptu comedy show. Highlights are the thunderous performances from acts like Dead Prez, the Roots and Kanye West, but in between there’s Chappelle being Chappelle — riffing, singing, joking with neighbors and strangers on the street, uniting black and white, young and old at his packed, rainy Brooklyn party.
7. “Little Miss Sunshine” — With their story about a family of losers flailing in a society obsessed with winning, directors Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris have come up with no stereotypes, no self-consciously quirky indie-movie cliches. These are real people, all hiding behind something, all trying to be someone they’re not, until they realize after being crammed together for 48 hours that they’re fine just the way they are. Steve Carell, Alan Arkin, Greg Kinnear and Abigail Breslin all shine.
8. “The Last King of Scotland” — This is not hyperbole. This is how good Forest Whitaker is: He actually makes you feel sorry for Idi Amin. Under the direction of documentarian Kevin Macdonald, making his feature debut, Whitaker gets plenty of room to demonstrate the vastly contradictory facets of the larger-than-life Ugandan dictator. You feel as if you are there and can see how easy it might have been to be seduced by this charismatic character who also happened to be a cold-blooded killer.
9. “Venus” — “He was gorgeous,” a woman remarks upon seeing a photo of a young Peter O’Toole. He IS gorgeous still, at 74, as a rakish British stage actor who enjoys one last fleeting romance (sort of) with a crass, much younger woman who teases and taunts him but reminds him what it’s like to feel like a man, to feel alive. Director Roger Michell’s film (written by Hanif Kureishi) dazzles the mind with its dry, wicked wit, but in the end, it also breaks your heart.
10. “Casino Royale” — All those naysayers who questioned the selection of Daniel Craig as the new James Bond have been duly silenced. He’s raw, reckless and intense in this prequel, which sheds new light on the iconic character by showing his darker side. Martin Campbell’s direction is both fluid and explosive, and the sultry Eva Green is no mere Bond girl. This isn’t just the rejuvenation of a flagging franchise, it’s a high-voltage jump start. The year’s best blockbuster.