10) Hustle & Flow (tie)
The story itself is pure formula, but the most crucial element of Hustle & Flow is the journey it takes to get to its preposterous ending. Across the board the actors manage to perform with enough honesty and conviction in the material that you soon forget the conventional man-versus-personal-demons-who-rises-above-his-environment plot and are just enveloped by Terrence Howard’s performance, the hypnotic soundtrack, and the grimy southern look of the film itself, courtesy of Super 16 film stock. Even casting choices that might seem suspicious (I’m thinking of Anthony Anderson and DJ Qualls, of course, but with filmographies including Kangaroo Jack and The New Guy, respectively, it’s not hard to flinch over the very mention of their names) give way to worthy performances. Don’t let the Hip-Hop angle throw you off if you’re not into it – this is a film about survival and perseverance. It might only crack the top ten, but Hustle & Flow is there for a very good reason.
– John Felix

10) Broken Flowers (tie)
Twenty years can change the world's perception of a man. Just ask Bill Murray. Twenty years ago he was a clown prince of Hollywood, busting ghosts and chasing gophers. He took a slightly more serious turn with the modern day classic Groundhog Day, and then fell off the radar until Sophia Coppola made everyone remember why they loved his hangdog expression after she cast him in Lost In Translation. If the new dramatic life brought to his career was seen as a fluke by some, a one-shot boost, such questions were put to rest last year with the critical success of Broken Flowers, a meditative, powerful look at feeling empty and directionless, at how the years can change a life, and at that vague need we have to fill intangible voids in our life.

Murray shuffles, pouts and mopes his way through the film – but that's only on the surface. First impressions here are deceiving. Murray's performance stays with you, in retrospect revealing hidden depths and previously unseen layers. Jim Jarmusch's painfully somber direction only enhances this growing sense that something is empty in life, that we all yearn to find something, but what that something is is elusive at best. He doesn't use flash or manipulative music or beat you over the head, instead creating a visual poem of loneliness and self-imposed isolation that can only be described as haunting. The critics loved this one, but what really sets it apart is that this is a film the critics will love even more 10 years from now.
-- Eric San Juan

09) Good Night, and Good Luck
George Clooney’s questionable politics aside, somehow while paying the really hard dues in Hollywood he has managed to turn into one damn good filmmaker. Good Night, And Good Luck recounts how legendary CBS newsman Edward R. Murrow took on the architect of the Red Scare, Senator Joseph McCarthy, and shined the very bright light of television on his reckless campaign of personal destruction. Clooney’s choices here all seem pitch perfect; from his talented and rich cast, to his decision to shoot in era-appropriate black and white, right down to allowing the late McCarthy to once again hang himself by using actual footage of the Senator instead of an actor’s portrayal.

Unlike other period pictures recounting events of the 20th Century, I found it impossible to view this film as history without constantly thinking of the very modern parallels. Granted, it was very much the intention of the filmmakers to do this, but thankfully those parallels are not at all shoved down the throats of the audience. Quite the contrary. Behind the precise period detail, the noted differences in societal norms (smoking and lily-white office places chief among them), and the grainy black-and-white footage was a constant reminder that no matter how much things change, they stay the same, and that freedoms must never be taken for granted. For those who lament missing The Cold War, the Red Scare, and the Vietnam War, they can rest assured that we are currently living in an accelerated replay of those events. Good Night, And Good Luck serves as a much-needed reminder that we must not let officials with an important title railroad our lives.
– Larry Phillips

08) Brokeback Mountain
Hailed even before its release as an instant classic, Ang Lee’s movie is ultimately the kind of haunting, slow-burn experience that lingers in the mind long after it’s over, and actually benefits from repeat viewings. The story of Ennis (Heath Ledger) and Jack (Jake Gyllenhaal), two tough-guy Wyoming ranch hands who unsuspectingly fall in love one summer in 1962 and carry on an intense but closeted relationship for nearly two decades, Lee’s film appears on first viewing to be a tad uneven, too episodic. After a long, languorous, pitch-perfect opening act that depicts the cowboys’ first summer together as they shock even themselves by falling into a sexual relationship, the director switches gears as the men come down off Brokeback Mountain and fall back into their heterosexual marriages. The rightfully praised performances, Lee’s precise direction, and Rodrigo Prieto’s (Amores Perros, Alexander) stunning beige-hued cinematography go a long way toward concealing the film’s one inevitable central flaw -- the relative scarcity of scenes between the two male leads in the film’s latter half, leaving the actors to do some serious heavy lifting to remind us that it’s a “love story” and not one of lust born of circumstance.

Those performances, however, make all the difference, particularly Ledger’s. Where the narrative occasionally leaves us wanting more Jack-Ennis scenes and less Melvin And Howard-esque scenes of drab day jobs or Anna Faris being Anna Faris, Ledger creates a masterpiece with his internalized portrayal of an inarticulate man in total denial. Likewise, Lee and Prieto’s heartbreaking backdrop images of rock-solid Americana (contrast the heroic early Ennis, standing in front of an ass-kicking, all-American display of fireworks, with the sadsack eating pie all by his lonesome late in the film) are impossible to shake. Like the best modern classics, Brokeback Mountain reveals its power as a film not so much as it unspools before you, but as its characters and their tragedy (and that damn score!) stick in your head weeks, even months, later.
-- Lex M

07) Syriana (tie)
Most movies are content to tell stories; Stephen Gaghan's Syriana immerses us in one. From the opening, where we're dropped midstream into a narrative already in progress, to the very end, Syriana not only rewards patient and attentive viewers, it requires them. Syriana is not for everyone, but for those willing it rewards their effort tenfold.

Syriana's cast is an impeccable ensemble. There is no showboating; everyone is given his or her moment to shine. Oscar nominee George Clooney is a standout in an understated but powerful role as a veteran CIA man. Matt Damon delivers his best performance since The Talented Mr. Ripley, but the big surprise here is Alexander Siddig as an Arab prince who's progressive attitude makes him a danger to US interests. The real star of the show, however, is writer-director Stephen Gaghan, who is proving to be one of the most powerful and intelligent contemporary storytellers. Syriana's provocative nature tends to make it a love it or hate it affair. Although it takes great care in not overtly preaching, its viewpoint is pretty apparent. One thing is for sure: No matter what your political views, Syriana should inspire discussion and debate long after it's over.
– Trevor Griffiths

07) War Of The Worlds (tie)
A current Premiere magazine article on casting choices wallows about what Philip Seymour Hoffman could've brought to Spielberg's redux version of War of the Worlds instead of Tom Cruise. Mainly, a fat-man's sweating realism and the possible poetry that evidently lies behind it. Philip Seymour Hoffman instead of Tom Cruise... you have to let that sink in for a moment. Could wishing for Hoffman as the hero here be missing the point more? That's right, you nerds who complain about scientific stuff that isn't logical in a science FICTION movie. But that's another yawn. The point of casting Cruise, besides the fact that he's of course one of the few stars who can "carry" a movie with the word "worlds" in it, is that we don't see him do flik-flaks on his way to handsomely saving the day. The one saved most by the end of this movie is Cruise himself. The divorced, devil-may-care working-man, who goes from not standing up to his foreman in his first lines of dialogue, to recklessly Mustanging up Jersey streets, right into an appointment he forgot about -- his time of the week with the children. It only gets worse for him from there. If there ever was an anti-Cruise movie, this one's it. To boot, this release was in perfectly tune with Cruise's media downfall. Of course that isn't the only trick Spielberg and gang has to offer. The main one is courageously sticking with the ending that author H.G. Wells came up with almost a century before the invention of the summer blockbuster; and the message behind that ending, of all of the post 9/11 message-movies, is the most refreshingly basic one: For once the reason why we exist, live and should go on living on this planet is not answered by religion, coincidence or superior sapient intellect. And for once, a summer blockbuster doesn't have to end with good simply blowing up bad. All that is right should prevail anyway. Hopefully so will this most underrated masterpiece of 2005. A handsome exercise of master Spielberg's direction, amazing-yet-humble special effects, Janusz Kaminski's fascinating eye and... Dakota Fanning. (Yes, we know, kids like that don't really exist. Nerd.)
- Ried