The Year in Paul: 2006

What I’ve Seen

300

American Dreamz

Babel

Barnyard

Blood Diamond

Borat

Cars

Cashback

Casino Royale

Children of Men

Eragon

Flags of Our Fathers

For Your Consideration

Half Nelson

Hollywoodland

Idiocracy

Inside Man

Jesus Camp

Letters from Iwo Jima

Little Miss Sunshine

Man of the Year

Mission: Impossible III

Nacho Libre

Night at the Museum

Notes on a Scandal

Open Season

Over the Hedge

Pan’s Labyrinth

Paprika

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest

Scoop

Snakes on a Plane

Stranger than Fiction

Superman Returns

Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby

The Da Vinci Code

The Departed

The Devil Wears Prada

The Fountain

The Good Shepherd

The Illusionist

The Last King of Scotland

The Lives of Others

The Pink Panther

The Prestige

The Queen

This Film Is Not Yet Rated

V For Vendetta

X-Men: The Last Stand

50 Total

The Best of What I’ve Seen

5. Casino Royale – The whole “gritty reboot” trend has had it’s ups and downs, but this is one of the clearest ups. Daniel Craig brings a welcome intensity, Eva Green positively smolders as one of the most memorable Bond girls, and the film contains any number of memorable set pieces and scenes. And “You Know My Name” goes down as one of the all-time great Bond themes.

4. Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby – While it doesn’t quite have the sustained genius of Anchorman, this is a close second in the Will Ferrell hall of fame. The casting is particularly inspired, with Gary Cole, John C. Reilley, Amy Adams, Jane Lynch, Michael Clarke Duncan, and especially Sasha Baron Cohen all stealing scenes. Remember: if you ain’t first, you’re last.

3. The Departed – What’s better than a crime drama about a mole? How about one with two, on competing sides? It’s a delicious premise that Scorsese milks for all it’s worth, complete with pretty unrelenting—and delightfully Scorsesian—violence.

2. 300 – Sure it might be a little fascist, but…hmm, let me start over. I’m of the “framing device” crowd on this movie; I view the film—and it’s more, eh…outlandish…elements as essentially all a fabrication of Dilios, who’s explicitly the one telling the story. That may or may not be Frank Miller’s (or Zach Snyder’s) intent, but it’s my interpretation, and it makes an already visually spectacular and viscerally thrilling film kinda brilliant.

1. Pan’s Labyrinth – Speaking of brilliant (and fascism, actually), Guillermo Del Toro’s magnum opus certainly qualifies as that. A stunning blend of a young girl’s changeling fantasy and the grim, violent world of Civil War era Spain around her, it’s a dark, beautiful, and fascinating masterpiece, with an especially memorable ending.