It was a pretty good year for films. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest was a box office treasure along with Cars, Happy Feet, Night at the Museum, The Pursuit of Happyness, Superman Returns, and X-Men: The Last Stand.
Russell Crowe (A Good Year) found he was no longer a box office draw while several films missed their box office targets with audiences including: American Dreamz, Annapolis, Ant Bully, Everybody’s Hero, Freedomland, Hoot, Just My Luck, Tenacious D and the Pick of Destiny, Ultraviolet, Van Wilder: The Rise of Taj, and The Wicker Man.
Steven Soderbergh’s quality film Bubble was largely ignored, but foreshadowed the way movies might be simultaneously released on satellite television, home video, and in theaters in the future.
Monster House and A Scanner Darkly took amazing new strides in animation while The Devil Wears Prada and Dreamgirls provided strong female roles.
Audiences made surprise box office hits out of Barnyard and Borat while documentaries including An Inconvenient Truth and Who Killed the Electric Car? bolstered the genre even more as popularity boomed even more on home video.
You also might want to catch some underrated film out on home video like End of the Spear, Flyboys, Lady in the Water, and The Proposition while avoiding disappointing formula flicks like The Break-Up, Click, The DaVinci Code, and Firewall.
The Best
Akeela and the Bee - Newcomer Keke Palmer holds her own with the talented Laurence Fishborne and Angela Bassett. Written and directed by Doug Atchison.
Casino Royale - Daniel Craig proved harsh critics wrong as this “blond Bond” took the reigns in a memorable 007 origin adventure.
The Departed - Megawatt star power and an amazing plot (based on the Hong Kong film Infernal Affairs) could finally get an elusive Oscar statue for director Martin Scorsese.
Flags of Our Fathers - Clint Eastwood creates a World War II masterpiece bookended by his Letters to Iwo Jima.
Fearless - Jet Li shows amazing presence and, of course, martial arts skills in this emotional film that hopefully gets an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language Film.
Inside Man - Spike Lee makes an unpredictable bank robbing hit without sacrificing quality with stars Denzel Washington, Clive Owen, Christopher Plummer and Jodie Foster.
Article comments
1 - Paul
As others have mentioned in other threads on best of 2006, where is Brick and Hard Candy?
Did you not think those two wonderful films were some of the best of 2006, especially in light of your selections Rocky Balboa and V for Vendetta?