2006

For my "time capsule" original top ten list by Canadian (Toronto) release dates and personal awards, click here.

1. Marie Antoinette [Sofia Coppola] A
   
2. Volver [Pedro Almodovar]
3. INLAND EMPIRE [David Lynch]
   
4. Iran: une révolution cinématographique [Nader T. Homayoun]
5. Away from Her [Sarah Polley] A-
   
6. Monster House [Gil Kenan]
7. Offside [Jafar Panahi] B+
   
8. Inside Man [Spike Lee]
9. The Departed [Martin Scorcese]
10. The Namesake [Mira Nair]
11. Half-Nelson [Ryan Fleck]
12. When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts [Spike Lee]
13. The Silly Age [Pavel Giroud]
14. Old Joy [Kelly Reichardt]
    
15. Omkara [Vishal Bharadwaj] B
    
16. The Queen [Stephen Frears]
17. 12:08 East of Bucharest [Corneliu Porumboiu]
18. Black Snake Moan [Craig Brewer]
    
19. Casino Royale [Martin Campbell]
20. Friends with Money [Nicole Holofcener]
21. The Wind that Shakes the Barley [Ken Loach]
    
22. Children of Men [Alfonso Cuarón]
23. Bug [William Friedkin]
    
24. The Fountain [Darren Aronofsky]
25. This is England [Shane Meadows]
    
26. The Bubble [Eytan Fox]
    
27. The Prestige [Christopher Nolan]
28. Deliver Us From Evil [Amy Berg]
    
29. Letters from Iwo Jima [Clint Eastwood]
30. Art School Confidential [Terry Zwigoff]
31. Umrao Jaan [J.P. Dutta]
32. Confetti [Debbie Isitt]
33. Syndromes and a Century [Apichatpong Weerasethakul]
34. Infamous [Douglas McGrath]
35. Rescue Dawn [Werner Herzog]
36. The History Boys [Nicholas Hytner]
    
37. A Grave-Keeper’s Tale [Chitra Palekar]
38. Pan’s Labyrinth [Guillermo del Toro]
39. Lights in the Dusk [Aki Kaurismäki]
40. The Devil Wears Prada [David Frankel] B-
    
41. Scenes of a Sexual Nature [Ed Blum]
    
42. Borat: Cultural Learnings... [Larry Charles]
43. Flags of Our Fathers [Clint Eastwood]
    
44. The Lake House [Alejandro Agresti]
45. Quinceañera [Richard Glatzer, Wash Westmoreland]
46. Strangers with Candy [Paul Dinello]
    
47. The Fall [Tarsem Singh]
48. The Last King of Scotland [Kevin Macdonald]
49. Glue [Alexis Dos Santos]
50. Starter for Ten [Tom Vaughan]
51. Thank You For Smoking [Jason Reitman]
52. The Magic Flute [Kenneth Branagh]
53. World Trade Center [Oliver Stone]
54. Babel [Alejandro González Iñárritu]
55. Jindabyne [Ray Lawrence]
56. Nacho Libre [Jared Hess] C+
57. Breaking and Entering [Anthony Minghella]
58. The Black Dahlia [Brian De Palma]
59. The Night Listener [Patrick Stettner]
    
60. The Illusionist [Neil Burger]
61. An Inconvenient Truth [Davis Guggenheim]
62. Stick It [Jessica Bendinger]
63. Shortbus [John Cameron Mitchell]
64. Dreamgirls [Bill Condon]
65. Lady in the Water [M. Night Shyamalan]
66. A Prairie Home Companion [Robert Altman]
67. Dreamland [Jason Matzner]
    
68. Big Bang Love, Juvenile A [Takashi Miike]
69. The Da Vinci Code [Ron Howard]
70. The Painted Veil [John Curran] C
    
71. Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus [Steven Shainberg]
    
72. The Lives of Others [Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck]
73. Love and Other Disasters [Alek Keshishian]
    
74. Dong [Zhang Ke Jia]
75. Once [John Carney]
    
76. Mission Impossible 3 [Jon Abrams]
77. Little Children [Todd Field]
78. Sherrybaby [Laurie Collyer]
79. I Don’t Want to Sleep Alone [Tsai Ming-liang]
80. Penelope [Mark Palansky]
81. Little Miss Sunshine [Jonathan Dayton, Valerie Faris]
82. Superman Returns [Bryan Singer]
83. She’s the Man [Andy Fickman]
84. To Get to Heaven First You Have to Die [Djamshed Usmonov]
85. Stranger Than Fiction [Marc Forster]
86. Blood Diamond [Edward Zwick] C-
87. Trust the Man [Bart Freundlich]
    
88. The Break Up [Peyton Reed]
89. The Pursuit of Happyness [Gabrielle Muccino]
90. United 93 [Paul Greengrass]
91. Notes on a Scandal [Richard Eyre]
92. Failure to Launch [Tom Dey]
93. PotC: Dead Man’s Chest [Gore Verbinski]
94. Bobby [Emilio Estevez]
95. Laghe Raho Munnabhai [Rajkumar Hirani]
96. X3: X-Men United [Brett Ratner] D+
    
97. Running with Scissors [Ryan Murphy]
98. Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna [Karan Johar]
99. Scary Movie 4 [David Zucker]
100. Chup Chup Ke [Priyadarshan]
101. When a Stranger Calls [Simon West]
102. Step Up [Anne Fletcher]
103. Don: The Chase Begins Again [Farhan Akhtar] D
     
104. RV [Barry Sonnenfield]
105. The Holiday [Nancy Meyers]
     
106. Climates [Nuri Bilge Ceylan] D-
107. Catch and Release [Susannah Grant]
     
108. Venus [Roger Michell]
109. Apocalypto [Mel Gibson] F
     
110. The Last Kiss [Tony Goldwyn]
111. 300 [Zach Snyder]
112. Fanaa [Kunal Kohli]