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Best of the Year

The Best Films of 2007

by Christopher Beaubien • April 27, 2008 • 2 Comments

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There Will Be Blood (dir. Paul Thomas Anderson)
Zodiac (dir. David Fincher)
Once (dir. John Carney)
Sweeny Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (dir. Tim Burton)
Ratatouille (dir. Brad Bird)
Brand Upon the Brain! (dir. Guy Maddin)
4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (dir. Cristian Mungiu)
Black Book (dir. Paul Verhoeven)
Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead (dir. Sidney Lumet)
Michael Clayton (dir. Tony Gilroy)
Zoo (dir. Robinson Devor)
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (dir. Julian Schnabel)
No Country for Old Men (dir. Joel and Ethan Coen)
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
(dir. Andrew Dominik)
Eastern Promises (dir. David Cronenberg)
The Lookout (dir. Scott Frank)
Grindhouse (dir. Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino)
with a nod to Death Proof and a wink to Thanksgiving (dir. Eli Roth)
Starting Out in the Evening (dir. Andrew Wagner)
Glass: A Portrait of Philip in Twelve Parts (dir. Scott Hicks)
Stephanie Daley (dir. Hilary Brougher)
You, The Living (dir. Roy Andersson)
The Savages (dir. Tamara Jenkins)
Away from Her (dir. Sarah Polley)
Juno (dir. Jason Reitman)
Sicko (dir. Michael Moore)
Margo at the Wedding (dir. Noah Baumbach)
Persepolis (dir. Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud)
Lake of Fire (dir. Tony Kaye)
Joshua (dir. George Ratliff)
Hot Fuzz (dir. Edgar Wright)
The Kite Runner (dir. Marc Forster)
Charlie Wilson’s War (dir. Mike Nichols)
Waitress (dir. Adrienne Shelly)
No End in Sight (dir. Charles Ferguson)
Paris, Je T’aime (dir. 22 Filmmakers)
Snow Angels (dir. David Gordon Green)
In the Valley of Elah (dir. Paul Haggis)
Bridges to Terabithia (dir. Gabor Csupo)
Terror’s Advocate (dir. Barbet Schroeder)
Breach (dir. Billy Ray)
Boy A (dir. John Crowley)
Frownland (dir. Ronald Bronstein)
The Mist (dir Frank Darabont)
Atonement (dir. Joe Wright)
La Vie en Rose (dir. Olivier Dahan)
Romance & Cigarettes (dir. John Turturro)
Gone Baby Gone (dir. Ben Affleck)
No Reservations (dir. Scott Hicks)
The Simpsons Movie (dir. David Silverman)
Into the Wild (dir. Sean Penn)
Hairspray (dir. Adam Shankman)
The Darjeeling Limited (dir. Wes Anderson)
Please Vote for Me (dir. Weijun Chen)
3:10 to Yuma (dir. James Mangold)
The Bourne Ultimatum (dir. Paul Greengrass)
A Mighty Heart (dir. Michael Winterbottom)
The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters (dir. Seth Gordon)
1408 (dir. Mikael Håfström)
Your Mommy Kills Animals (dir. Curt Johnson)
Brick Lane (dir. Sarah Gavron)
Lars and the Real Girl (dir. Craig Gillespie)
An American Crime (dir. Tommy O’Haver)
Helvetica (dir. Gary Hustwit)
Year of the Dog (dir. Mike White)
The Great Debaters (dir. Denzel Washington)
Under the Same Moon (La Misma Luna) (dir. Patricia Riggen)
The Brave One (dir. Neil Jordon)
Shoot ‘Em Up (dir. Michael Davis)
American Gangster (dir. Ridley Scott)

The Best Films of 2006

by Christopher Beaubien • April 26, 2008 • 1 Comment

Little Children (dir. Todd Field)
Pan’s Labyrinth (dir. Guillermo del Toro)
Children of Men (dir. Alfonso Cuarón)
United 93 (dir. Paul Greengrass)
Paprika (dir. Satoshi Kon)
Tristram Shanty: A Cock and Bull Story (dir. Michael Winterbottom)
Man Push Cart (dir. Ramin Bahrani)
The King (dir. James Marsh)
The Descent (dir. Neil Marshall)
The Proposition (dir. John Hillcoat)
The Illusionist (dir. Neil Burger)
The Lives of Others (dir. Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck)
Babel (dir. Alejandro González Iñárritu)
The Queen (dir. Stephen Frears)
Stranger Than Fiction (dir. Marc Forster)
Little Miss Sunshine (dir. Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris)
Climates (dir. Nuri Bilge Ceylan)
Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit
Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (dir. Larry Charles)
Inland Empire (dir. David Lynch)
Flags of Our Fathers | Letters from Iwo Jima (dir. Clint Eastwood)
The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (dir. Cristi Puiu)
Red Road (dir. Andrea Arnold)
Notes on a Scandal (dir. Richard Eyre)
The Departed (dir. Martin Scorsese)
Bubble (dir. Steven Soderbergh)
The Last King of Scotland (dir. Kevin Macdonald)
Deliver Us from Evil (dir. Amy Berg)
Bug (dir. William Friedkin)
Open Window (dir. Mia Goldman)
The Notorious Bettie Page (dir. Mary Harron)
Marie Antoinette (dir. Sofia Coppola)
The Dead Girl (dir. Karen Moncrieff)
The Bridge (dir. Eric Steel)
Joyeux Noel (dir. Christian Carion)
Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (dir. Adam McKay)
Casino Royale (dir. Martin Campbell)
Blood Diamond (dir. Edward Zwick)
Edmond (dir. Stuart Gordon)
Curse of the Golden Flower (dir. Yimou Zhang)
Half Nelson (dir. Ryan Fleck)
Conversations with Other Women (dir. Hans Canosa)
Brick (dir. Rian Johnson)
A Prairie Home Companion (dir. Robert Altman)
This Is England (dir. Shane Meadows)
Lassie (dir. Charles Sturridge)
Something New (dir. Sanaa Hamri)
The Good Shepard (dir. Robert De Niro)
Apocalypto (dr. Mel Gibson)
Come Early Morning (dir. Joey Lauren Adams)
Old Joy (dir. Kelly Reichardt)
Rescue Dawn (dir. Werner Herzog)
Slither (dir. James Gunn)
Friends with Money (dir. Nicole Holofcener)
12 and Holding (dir. Michael Cuesta)
V for Vendetta (dir. James McTeigue)
Monster House (dir. Gil Kenan)
Fast Food Nation | A Scanner Darkly (dir. Richard Linklater)
Bobby (dir. Emilio Estevez)
The Namesake (dir. Mira Nair)
12:08 East of Bucharest (dir. Corneliu Porumboiu)
The Wind That Shakes the Barley (dir. Ken Loach)
The Night Listener (dir. Patrick Stettne)
Shut Up & Sing (dir. Barbara Kopple and Cecilia Peck)
Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (dir. Tom Tykwer)
Sherrybaby (dir. Laurie Collyer)
Venus (dir. Roger Michell)
Strangers with Candy (dir. Paul Dinello)
Hollywoodland (dir. Allen Coulter)
Taking Lives (dir. D.J. Caruso)
Idiocracy (dir. Mike Judge)
The Prestige (dir. Christopher Nolan)
Time (dir. Ki-duk Kim)
Fido (dir. Andrew Currie)
Black Snake Moan (dir. Craig Brewer)
Akeelah and the Bee (dir. Doug Atchison)
Manufactured Landscapes (dir. Jennifer Baichwal)
Flushed Away (dir. David Bowers and Sam Fell)
Water (dir. Deepa Mehta)
A Good Year (dir. Ridley Scott)
Breaking and Entering (dir. Anthony Minghella)
Jesus Camp (dir. Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady)
Clerks II (dir. Kevin Smith)
Dreamgirls (dir. Bill Condon)
Manderlay (dir. Lars von Trier)
This Film Is Not Yet Rated (dir. Kirby Dick)
Tekkonkinkreet (dir. Michael Arias)

The Best Films of 2005

by Christopher Beaubien • April 25, 2008 • Start the Discussion!

best2005_top

Capote (dir. Bennett Miller)
A History of Violence (dir. David Cronenberg)
The Best of Youth (dir. Marco Tullio Giordana)
Schultze Gets The Blues (dir. Michael Schorr)
Brokeback Mountain (dir. Ang Lee)
Me and You and Everyone We Know (dir. Miranda July)
Sin City (dir. Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller)
Mysterious Skin (dir. Gregg Araki)
Duane Hopwood (dir. Matt Mulhern)
Junebug (dir. Phil Morrison)
Nine Lives (dir. Rodrigo Garcí­a)
The Squid and the Whale (dir. Noah Baumbach)
The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (dir. Tommy Lee Jones)
Munich (dir. Steven Spielberg)
The Weather Man (dir. Gore Verbinski)
Sweet Land (dir. Ali Selim)
Oldboy (dir. Chan-wook Park)
Saraband (dir. Ingmar Bergman)
Millions (dir. Danny Boyle)
Nuit Noire, 17 Octobre 1961 (dir. Alain Tasma)
Firecracker (dir. Steve Balderson)
Match Point (dir. Woody Allen)
Tokyo Godfathers (dir. Satoshi Kon)
Downfall (dir. Oliver Hirschbiegel)
The 40 Year Old Virgin (dir. Judd Apatow)
Volver (dir. Pedro Almodóvar)
Crash (dir. Paul Haggis)
Shopgirl (dir. Anand Tucker)
Good Night, and Good Luck (dir. George Clooney)
Batman Begins (dir. Christopher Nolan)
Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (dir. Alex Gibney)
The New World (dir. Terrance Malick)
Eve and the Fire Horse (dir. Julia Kwan)
Yes (dir. Sally Potter)
Cache (aka Hidden) (dir. Michael Haneke)
Syriana (dir. Stephen Gaghan)
Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (dir. Nick Park)
Lord of War (dir. Andrew Niccol)
King Kong (dir. Peter Jackson)
Thumbsucker (dir. Mike Mills)
Grizzly Man (dir. Werner Herzog)
Hard Candy (dir. David Slade)
Paradise Now (dir. Hany Abu-Assad)
L’enfant (dir. Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne)
The Upside of Anger (dir. Mike Binder)
The Matador (dir. Richard Shepard)
Look Both Ways (dir. Sarah Watt)
Hustle & Flow (dir. Craig Brewer)
North Country (dr. Niki Caro)
Our Daily Bread (dir. Nikolaus Geyrhalter)
Three Times (dir. Hsiao-hsien Hou)
Three… Extremes
(dir. Fruit Chan “Dumplings”, Chan-wook Park “Cut”, Takashi Miike “Box”)
Broken Flowers (dir. Jim Jarmusch)
Pride & Prejudice (dir. Joe Wright)
Duma (dir. Carroll Ballard)
Mrs Henderson Presents (dir. Stephen Frears)
Thieves of Innocence (dir. Paul Arcand)
Walk the Line (dir. James Mangold)
Prime (dir. Ben Younger)
Fever Pitch (dir. Bobby and Peter Farrelly)
Murderball (dir. Henry Alex Rubin and Dana Adam Shapiro)
Corpse Bride (dir. Tim Burton and Mike Johnson)
The Aristocrats (dir. Paul Provenza)
Jarhead (dir. Sam Mendes)
Off the Map (dir. Campbell Scott)
Stay (dir. Marc Forster)
March of the Penguins (dir. Luc Jacquet)
Sophie Scholl: The Final Days (dir. Marc Rothemund)
The Greatest Game Ever Played (dir. Bill Paxton)
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (dir. Tim Burton)
Where the Truth Lies (dir. Atom Egoyan)
The World’s Fastest Indian (dir. Roger Donaldson)
Havoc (dir. Barbara Kopple)
Sky High (dir. Mike Mitchell)
Cinderella Man (dir. Ron Howard)
Bee Season (dir. Scott McGehee and David Siegel)
Wah-Wah (dir. Richard E. Grant)
Game 6 (dir. Michael Hoffman)
In Her Shoes (dir. Curtis Hanson)
Tupac: Resurrection (dir. Lauren Lazin)
Funky Forest: The First Contact (dir. Katsuhito Ishii and Hajime Ishimine)
Domino (dir. Tony Scott)

Honourable Selection: The “Up” Documentaries

49 Up (dir. Michael Apted, 2005)
42 Up (dir. Michael Apted, 1998)
35 Up (dir. Michael Apted, 1991)
28 Up (dir. Michael Apted, 1984)
21 Up (dir. Michael Apted, 1977)
7 Plus Seven (dir. Michael Apted, 1970)
Seven Up! (dir. Paul Almond, 1964)

The Best Films of 2004

by Christopher Beaubien • April 24, 2008 • Start the Discussion!

best2004_top1

Kill Bill Vol. I & II (dir. Quentin Tarantino)
The Fog of War (dir. Errol Morris)
Kinsey (dir. Bill Condon)
Spiderman 2 (dir. Sam Raimi)
Ripley’s Game (dir. Liliana Cavani)
Million Dollar Baby (dir. Clint Eastwood)
The Incredibles (dir. Brad Bird)
Finding Nemo (dir. Andrew Stanton and Lee Unkrich)
Baadasssss! (dir. Mario Van Peebles)
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (dir. Michel Gondry)
Vera Drake (dir. Mike Leigh)
Closer (dir. Mike Nichols)
Hotel Rwanda (dir. Terry George)
Fahrenheit 9/11 (dir. Michael Moore)
Young Adam (dir. David Mackenzie)
Sideways (dir. Alexander Payne)
Before Sunset (dir. Richard Linklater)
The Aviator (dir. Martin Scorsese)
The Assassination of Richard Nixon (dir. Niels Mueller)
Intimate Strangers (dir. Patrice Leconte)
A Home at the End of the World (dir. Michael Mayer)
Moolaadé (dir. Ousmane Sembene)
3-Iron (dir. Ki-duk Kim)
Undertow (dir. David Gordon Green)
King of the Corner (dir. Peter Riegert)
The Libertine (dir. Laurence Dunmore)
House of Flying Daggers (dir. Yimou Zhang)
Collateral (dir. Michael Mann)
The Terminal (dir. Steven Spielberg)
Dear Frankie (dir. Shona Auerbach)
Maria Full of Grace (dir. Joshua Marston)
Primer (dir. Shane Carruth)
Brothers (dir. Susanne Bier)
Melinda and Melinda (dir. Woody Allen)
When Will I Be Loved (dir. James Toback)
Spartan (dir. David Mamet)
Yesterday (dir. Darrell Roodt)
Darwin’s Nightmare (dir. Hubert Sauper)
My Summer of Love (dir. Pawel Pawlikowski)
The Woodsman (dir. Nicole Kassell)
Down to the Bone (dir. Debra Granik)
Mean Creek (dir. Jacob Aaron Estes)
In the Realms of the Unreal (dir. Jessica Yu)
The Polar Express (dir. Robert Zemeckis)
Turtles Can Fly (dir. Bahman Ghobadi)
The Ladykillers (dir. Joel and Ethan Coen)
Friday Night Lights (dir. Peter Berg and Josh Pate)
Cellular (dir. David R. Ellis)
Howl’s Moving Castle (dir. Hayao Miyazaki)
The Passion of the Christ (dir. Mel Gibson)
Finding Neverland (dir. Marc Forster)
Palindromes (dir. Todd Solondz)
Napoleon Dynamite (dir. Jared Hess)
The Bourne Supremacy (dir. Paul Greengrass)
Tanner on Tanner (dir. Robert Altman)
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (dir. Wes Anderson)
Secret Window (dir. David Koepp)
The Clearing (dir. Pieter Jan Brugge)
Saved! (dir. Brian Dannelly)
The Notebook (dir. Nick Cassavetes)
Shaun of the Dead (dir. Edgar Wright)
The Machinist (dir. Brad Anderson)
Shrek 2 (dir. Andrew Adamson and Kelly Asbury)
Helboy (dir. Guillermo del Toro)
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (dir. Gore Verbinski)
Vanity Fair (dir. Mira Nair)
My Mother (dir. Christophe Honoré)

The Best Films of 2003

by Christopher Beaubien • April 23, 2008 • Start the Discussion!

best2003_top

The Son (dir. Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne)
The Barbarian Invasions (dir. Denys Arcand)
Lost in Translation (dir. Sofia Coppola)
City of God (dir. Fernando Meirelles)
Whale Rider (dir. Niki Caro)
American Splendor (dir. Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini)
House of Sand and Fog (dir. Vadim Perelman)
Northfork (dir. Michael and Mark Polish)
Owning Mahowny (dir. Richard Kwietniowski)
Matchstick Men (dir. Ridley Scott)
Girl with a Pearl Earring (dir. Peter Webber)
The Man on the Train (dir. Patrice Leconte)
The Five Obstructions (dir. Jørgen Leth and Lars von Trier)
Monster (dir. Patty Jenkins)
Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (dir. Peter Weir)
Lilya 4-Ever (dir. Lukas Moodysson)
The Triplets of Belleville (dir. Sylvain Chomet)
Mystic River (dir. Clint Eastwood)
Intermission (dir. John Crowley)
All the Real Girls (dir. David Gordon Green)
The Station Agent (dir. Thomas McCarthy)
The Saddest Music in the World (dir. Guy Maddin)
Touching The Void (dir. Kevin Macdonald)
May (dir. Lucky McKee)
Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter…and Spring (dir. Ki-duk Kim)
School of Rock (dir. Richard Linklater)
The Shape of Things (dir. Neil Labute)
The Company (dir. Robert Altman)
Japanese Story (dir. Sue Brooks)
Together (dir. Kaige Chen)
Dogville (dir. Lars von Trier)
Love Actually (dir. Richard Curtis)
Thirteen (dir. Catherine Hardwicke)
Capturing the Friedmans (dir. Andrew Jarecki)
Bad Santa (dir. Terry Zwigoff)
The Cooler (dir. Wayne Kramer)
Shattered Glass (dir. Billy Ray)
The Mother (dir. Roger Michell)
I’m Not Scared (dir. Gabriele Salvatores)
Dopamine (dir. Mark Decena)
The Return (dir. Andrei Zvyagintsev)
My Architect (dir. Nathaniel Kahn)
Elephant (dir. Gus Van Sant)
Big Fish (dir. Tim Burton)
Free Radicals (dir. Barbara Albert)
Down with Love (dir. Peyton Reed)
Identity (dir. James Mangold)
Tarnation (dir. Jonathan Caouette)
The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (dir. Peter Jackson)
The Dreamers (dir. Bernardo Bertolucci)
Open Water (dir. Chris Kentis)
Hulk (dir. Ang Lee)
Nathalie… (dir. Anne Fontaine)
Osama (dir. Siddiq Barmak)
Looney Tunes: Back in Action (dir. Joe Dante)
The Matrix Reloaded (dir. Andy Wachowski and Larry Wachowski)
Peter Pan (dir. P.J. Hogan)
Elf (dir. Jon Favreau)
Swimming Pool (dir. François Ozon)
Tupac: Resurrection (dir. Lauren Lazin)
The Last Samurai (dir. Edward Zwick)
The Corporation (dir. Mark Achbar and Jennifer Abbott)
Seabiscuit (dir. Gary Ross)