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Although a little late in the posting, now that VanRamblings has seen most of the films likely up for Oscar contention, we are able to post our list of what we consider to be the Top 10 Films of 2005.
For the most part, 2005 was business as usual in Hollywood, with the exception, of course, that business was down a whopping 5% (we’re talking hundreds of millions of dollars here), and admissions were down 7% over 2004.
In fact, 2005 produced the worst box office performance since 1985.
Still and all, there were movies to see during the year, many of which are now on video (some movies came and went in one week, while others never even made it to our shores, and more’s the pity in that department). From Capote, Good Night, and Good Luck and Walk the Line to Cinderella Man, Hustle and Flow and Crash there was much that was good that could be seen on the big screen throughout the year.
Overall, declining box office notwithstanding, 2005 was a pretty darn fine year for those of us who love movies. If 2006 exhibits a fraction of the variety and skill represented in the more than 500 films released worldwide in 2005, we’re in for a heady year.
Top 10 Films of 2005
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1. The Constant Gardener: Far and away the best film of the year, this provocative and assured thriller-romance provided not only the most alluring love story captured on film last year, this masterwork of suspense and political intrigue proved to be, as well, the most serious, the smartest and most gorgeously filmed piece of cinematic storytelling to reach the local multiplex in 2005.
2. Brokeback Mountain: Poignant, tender, troubling, beautiful, poetic, mournful and mythic, at once rich and spare, gorgeously filmed and elegiac, it is little wonder Brokeback Mountain is the odds on favourite to win Best Picture at the Oscars come Sunday, March 5th. You’ve read about it. If you haven’t seen it: do. Here’s betting it picks up a slew of Oscar nominations on January 31st.
3. Walk The Line: The best straightforward Hollywood entertainment of 2005, in Walk The Line the music soars, the lambent cinematography of the rural backroads of the southern United States evokes a simpler time and tragedy barely held at bay, and Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon do such a bang up job of portraying Johnny Cash and June Carter, it’s little wonder that both are in line for Oscar nods. If you’re gonna see one picture on the big screen this month, this one oughta be it.
4. Me, You and Everyone We Know: Quirky doesn’t begin to do justice to what surely is the oddest film among VanRamblings Top 10 films of 2005, and yet this film — by turns comic and tender, tragic and absurd — gives off what is surely one of the greatest of moviegoing pleasures — the sense of an artist seeing the world from some private vantage that is as original as it is truthful. On DVD, this was the most auspicious début of 2005.
5. Capote: Winner of the National Society of Film Critics Award, Capote boasts the best performance by an actor in film in 2005, and finally gives Philip Seymour Hoffman his due as one of America’s finest actors for the screen. Gripping, transformative, unsettling — with a mesmerizing performance by Hoffman at its centre — Capote is not to be missed. Now playing at Tinseltown, in Vancouver.
6. Crash: Number one on Roger Ebert’s Top 10 of 2005, Crash is not only one of the best Hollywood movies ever about race, it is an exhilarating, contentious, frank and, at times, tragic exploration of the racial divide in America today. And, yet, director Paul Haggis leaves room for hope. Sure to garner Oscar consideration, as it has a whack of critics’ awards, Crash is available now on DVD.
7. King Kong: As Peter Travers wrote in his review in Rolling Stone, King Kong is “the jaw-dropping, eye-popping, heart-stopping movie epic we’ve been waiting for all year.” Offering magnificent entertainment, and all at once wondrous, sophisticated, smart and funny, with a great emotional, heart-tugging core, this is why we (sometimes) love Hollywood films: because they’re larger than life and can be downright astonishing at times.
8. Look At Me: The first great film of 2005, this marvelous and uncommonly observant French drama offers a brilliant, blistering account of a literary Parisian family who are not at all what they appear to be on the surface. Like the baroque chorales in the film, Look at Me builds to a resonant climax that will reverberate long after you take your eyes from the screen. Available on DVD.
9. Downfall: You’ll be hearing a great deal more about the film’s director, Oliver Hirschbiegel, very soon. And little wonder why. This riveting re-creation of three world-changing collapses: those of the Nazi party, of militarized Germany as a whole, and of the Führer who guided them into self-destructive ruin was one of the most powerful films of 2005. Another must rental.
10. Munich: This was the second-to-last film we saw before compiling our Top 10 list, and we’re not sure if we’ve quite come to terms with it yet. Winner of Entertainment Weekly’s Best Film of 2005 award, Munich probably deserves to be higher on the list. Sure, it may be a superbly taut and well-made thriller, but it is the haunting ethical and personal issues which the film explores that stay with you long after the film has ended.
Of course, there are a great many more films that were released in 2005 that are deserving of consideration, both as potential films for you to see at your local multiplex or art house cinema, or to rent on DVD. We loved far more than the 10 films listed above (although we believe our Top 10 encapsulates what we see as most praiseworthy in film in 2005).
By rights, Ballet Russes — which is opening for a week’s run at the new VanCity Theatre at the Vancouver International Film Festival Centre on January 20th — should have made our Top 10 list, and did for the longest time. But only a handful of us saw it last October. As our favourite film at the 2005 Vancouver International Film Festival, this one is a must-see.
Good Night, and Good Luck just missed our Top 10, as did David Cronenberg’s A History of Violence, both of which are recommendable.
VanRamblings hasn’t seen Noah Baumbach’s The Squid and the Whale, about which we hear many good things, but it’s coming to The Hollywood Theatre next month, and we’ll catch it then (we no longer live our life inside a darkened theatre, seeking a sense of connection; we actually have a life now … occasionally … thus we missed this, and other films, in first run).
Matchpoint hasn’t arrived, and we can’t wait (but we won’t see it at one of Leonard Schein’s cinemas, because we’re boycotting him).
We saw both Pride and Prejudice and Rent over the holiday season, and loved them both (we cried our eyes out at the screenings … always a good thing when attending the cinema, we believe). By rights, each could have made the Top 10 list, but we wimped out and went for the more serious stuff (save, King Kong, I suppose … although King Kong was great), as we did with a number of other ‘chick flicks’ that are now available on DVD.
On the weekend, VanRamblings will post a list of highly recommendable films released in 2005 now available for sale or rental on video and DVD.
