When the Motion Picture Academy looked at 2005, it gave its Best Picture award to Paul Haggis' heavy-handed Crash. The only good thing about that choice is the entertaining possibility that it prompted some people to rent David Cronenberg's Crash by mistake. Here are 20 of the many, many better movies made that year:
1. Caché
Written and directed by Michael Haneke
I'll warn you upfront: This picture doesn't come out and tell you the solution to the mystery that drives its plot. But sharp-eyed viewers ought to be able to piece it together, and in any event the solution isn't really the point.
2. Live and Become
Directed by Radu Mihăileanu
Written by Mihăileanu and Alain-Michel Blanc
This would make an interesting double feature with Europa Europa.
3. Corpse Bride
Directed by Tim Burton and Mike Johnson
Written by John August, Pamela Pettler, and Caroline Thompson
In which a spider sings that life is "just a temporary state/Which is cured very quickly when we meet our fate."
4. The Dying Gaul
Directed by Craig Lucas
Written by Lucas, from his play
"You can do anything you want, as long as you don't call it what it is."
5. The Curse of the Were-Rabbit
Directed by Nick Park and Steve Box
Written by Park, Box, Bob Baker, and Mark Burton
When this got the Oscar for Best Animated Feature, I got sucked into a weird online debate with someone who didn't like the movie because he was convinced it had a hidden anti-gun subtext. To me that's like claiming an Elmer Fudd cartoon has a hidden anti-gun subtext. At any rate, this is as clever and funny as a good Elmer Fudd cartoon, and that's pretty high praise.
6. Deadwood 2
Written by David Milch, Jody Worth, Elizabeth Sarnoff, Ted Mann, Victoria Morrow, Steve Shill, Regina Corrado, Sara Hess, and Bryan McDonald
Directed by Shill, Ed Bianchi, Alan Taylor, Gregg Fienberg, Michael Almereyda, Ted Van Patten, and Dan Minahan
In a year without The Wire, this became the best thing on HBO.
7. Hustle & Flow
Written and directed by Craig Brewer
I'd like the American conservative movement a lot better if it had embraced this as a loving, textured tribute to a regional culture instead of damning it for being a rapping-pimp movie.
8. The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada
Directed by Tommy Lee Jones
Written by Guillermo Arriaga
Faulkner on la frontera.
9. Noroi: The Curse
Directed by Kôji Shiraishi
Written by Shiraishi and Naoyuki Yokota
Proof that a found-footage horror flick doesn't have to be derivative or dumb.
10. Veronica Mars
Written by Rob Thomas, Jed Seidel, Diane Ruggiero, Dayna Lynne North, Phil Klemmer, Aury Wallington, Russell Smith, John Enbom, and Carolyn Murray
Directed by Mark Piznarski, Harry Winer, Michael Fields, Nick Gomez, Sarah Pia Anderson, Nick Marck, Guy Bee, Marcos Siega, John Kretchmer, David Barrett, and Steve Gomer
Forget High School Musical; I'll take high school noir.
Honorable mentions:
11. Paradise Now (Hany Abu-Assad)
12. Sin City (Robert Rodriguez, Frank Miller)
13. Grizzly Man (Werner Herzog)
14. The Thick of It (Armando Iannucci)
15. Nine Lives (Rodrigo García)
16. Batman Begins (Christopher Nolan)
17. Forty Shades of Blue (Ira Sachs)
18. Happy Endings (Don Roos)
19. The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (Cristi Puiu)
20. Rize (David LaChapelle)
Of the films of 2005 that I haven't seen, I'm most interested in Election. No, not the one with Reese Witherspoon and Matthew Broderick—that one already topped my list for 1999. I mean the Johnnie To movie from Hong Kong.
