The Best Films of 2005
By Nareg Torosian

Ask the media to define the 2005 film year, and they’re likely to call it the year of “the box office slump.” As many entertainment magazines noted throughout the year, theatrical receipts were down five percent from 2004 at a “dismal” $8.75 billion. Not that it was a total wash – the latest entries in a bevy of film franchises (“Star Wars,” “Harry Potter,” “Batman,” and “The Chronicles of Narnia”) all grossed over $200 million each, as did remakes of “War of the Worlds,” “King Kong,” and “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.”

But if you ask the critics to define the 2005 film year, chances are that you’ll hear about the rise of sociopolitical content in the year’s cinema. Scarcely a week passed by without seeing a movie about some kind of hot topic at the local Cineplex, be it about racism (“Crash”), terrorism (“Munich”), government persecution (“Good Night, and Good Luck”), homophobia (“Brokeback Mountain”), or machinations in the oil (“Syriana”) or pharmaceutical (“The Constant Gardener”) industries. Whether these films will make an impact on viewers other than that on their wallets remains to be seen, but these films were the saving graces of an otherwise lukewarm film season.

Before getting to my top 10, here’s a list of films that barely placed out but deserve recognition: “King Kong,” Peter Jackson’s fine remake of the 1933 classic; “The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada,” Tommy Lee Jones’s fractured Western of murder, loyalty, and injustice; “Pride and Prejudice,” one of the best costume dramas in recent memory, with a strong central performance by Keira Knightley; “Junebug,” a whimsical, understated look at the culture and culture clash within a small North Carolina town; “Mysterious Skin,” Gregg Araki’s caring but uncompromising look at how childhood abuse manifests itself in the lives of two teenage boys; “The 40-Year-Old Virgin,” one of the funniest, fully realized sex comedies in ages, with a breakout performance by Steve Carell; “Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit,” the only animated film that mattered in 2005; “The Constant Gardener,” Fernando Mereilles’s blistering adaptation of John Le Carré’s page-turner; “Capote,” a mesmerizing look at author Truman Capote, played by a never-better Philip Seymour Hoffman in the performance of the year; and “Match Point ,” Woody Allen’s superb return to form, revisiting the Dostoyevsky-ian themes everyone thought he abandoned after “Crimes and Misdemeanors.”

Now, here are the films that I believe were the best of 2005. Please note that I exclude foreign films and documentaries from these lists, as I reward them in separate categories in my yearly film awards list.

10. “Last Days” – Director: Gus Van Sant
Rounding out the minimalist trilogy that started with “Elephant” and “Gerry” (call it an indie penance for Hollywood outings “Good Will Hunting,” “Psycho,” and “Finding Forrester”), Van Sant’s hypnotic meditation on the final days of a Kurt Cobain-like rock star eschews traditional biopic trappings and captures despair and loneliness as few films can.

9. “Syriana” – Director: Steven Gaghan
Like “Traffic,” Steven Soderbergh’s sprawling drug trafficking epic for which Gaghan won an Oscar for his screenplay, “Syriana” boasts a political immediacy that should give American audiences a better understanding of the parties involved in a hot-button issue – in this case, the corruption inherent in the oil industry. But Gaghan’s labyrinthine film is no polemic. What makes “Syriana” work so effectively is that all the characters – oil magnates, government agents, lawyers, diplomats, migrant workers – are seen as three-dimensional, painted in shades of gray rather than black-and-white.

8. “The Squid and the Whale” – Director: Noah Baumbach
Divorce is never an easy subject to write about, much less make into a story that’s palatable and entertaining without betraying reality. But writer/director Baumbach, who used his own parents’ separation as the basis for his perceptive script, does just that. Led by the year’s best ensemble cast and featuring a career-best performance by Jeff Daniels, “The Squid and the Whale” is both painful and funny – usually at the same time – but always remains true to its characters.

7. “Broken Flowers” – Director: Jim Jarmusch
Two modern icons of deadpan comedy – indie godfather Jarmusch and Bill Murray – join forces and bring out the best in each other. Extending his mastery over emotionally muted characters dealing with midlife crises, Murray has never been better as an aging Don Juan who embarks on a cross-country trip to discover the former lover (Sharon Stone, Frances Conroy, Jessica Lange, and Tilda Swinton are all candidates) that reared the son he never knew he had. It’s all done with Jarmusch’s trademark wit and outsider sensibilities and closes on an ending more resonant than anything else Jarmusch has ever done.

6. “Brokeback Mountain” – Director: Ang Lee
Yes, it’s the “gay cowboy” movie that everyone’s talking about, but to say the film has a strictly homosexual agenda would cheapen Lee’s substantial achievement. This is not so much about male love as it is about any love of the forbidden variety, and the fearless central performances by Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal show an emotional knowledge and commitment to the material that few others would risk taking.

5. “Munich” – Director: Steven Spielberg
Spielberg has made the biggest gamble of his career with “Munich,” the toughest, most political, and least Spielberg-ian thing he’s ever done. Taking the guise of an international thriller, his retelling of the aftermath of the bloodshed at the 1972 Olympic Games is neither pro-Israeli nor pro-Palestinian – it’s anti-terrorist. By putting a human face on retribution and questioning the morality of killing in another’s name, “Munich” deals with a fundamental existential crisis with refreshing honesty.

4. “Sin City” – Directors: Robert Rodriguez & Frank Miller
“Sin City” is not just the best comic-book-to-screen adaptation ever made – it’s one of best literary film adaptations ever. Rodriguez’s meticulous, panel-by-panel recreation of Miller’s award-winning graphic novel series burns with violent, passionate intensity, creating a world that lives and breathes film noir. Abetted by eye-popping but perfectly incorporated CGI effects, a gutsy cast, and a propulsive sense of pacing, this was one of the most immersive films in recent memory.

3. “A History of Violence” – Director: David Cronenberg
To the casual theater patron, “History” is a rousing, stomach-churning thriller – a story of a small-town man who must come to grips with his past after a heroic deed gives him more attention than he’d like to afford. For the seasoned filmgoer, “History” is a deviously clever comment on humanity’s inherent knack for violence, using scenes of extreme, ugly bloodshed to strip away the artifice of violence as entertainment. Ingeniously deconstructing what it purports to be, this is Cronenberg’s best work to date, and regardless of your film-going habits, this one will leave you shaking.

2. “Good Night, and Good Luck” – Director: George Clooney
For his sophomore directorial effort, Clooney again turned to the world of television for inspiration, but by trading in the flashy pyrotechnics that befit the gonzo Chuck Barris of “Confessions of a Dangerous Mind” for the crisp, elegant black-and-white that suits the Edward R. Murrow of “Good Night,” Clooney shows a remarkable sense of stylistic maturity and a keen eye for period atmosphere. But what makes “Good Night,” the story of how newsman Murrow helped to bring down Senator Joseph McCarthy and end the baseless Communist witch hunt that gripped America in fear, such a great film is its economy – like Murrow’s journalistic style (commandingly appropriated by veteran character actor David Strathairn), Clooney’s film is lean, direct, resonant, and passionate. Some people in Washington should be watching this one right now.

1. “The New World” – Director: Terrence Malick
How on earth does this man do it? Malick is the J.D. Salinger of the film world, an enigmatic recluse whose sparse work shows signs of unquestionable genius. An ethereal retelling of the relationship between British explorer John Smith and Pocahontas, “The New World” is Malick’s first film since 1998’s “The Thin Red Line” (and only the fourth film he’s made in 32 years), but the wait was worth it. Fusing Emmanuel Lubezki’s gorgeous cinematography, James Horner’s haunting score, exhaustively authentic period trappings, and unadorned performances from Colin Farrell and impressive newcomer Q’orianka Kilcher, Malick constructs a visual poem that is wondrous to behold and impossible to forget.