Best Movies of 2005

Best Movies of 2005 from the LA Times Movie Critics

This is something I put together was back at the beginning of 2006 when the top 10 movie lists were published by various publications. I thought it would be a good idea to republish the lists to give you some older movies to choose from. Hope you find something worth viewing.

"Top 10" and "Best of" movie lists are a feature of the closing of every year. Hollywood blockbusters get plenty of coverage, but what about the less-marketed, less widely-distributed independent and foreign movies? The LA Times reviewers' picks for top 10/best of 2005 movies contain an overwhelming line up of independent, foreign, and documentary films from 2005. Most of their picks are movies that most people will not have heard of or had an opportunity to see unless they live in large metropolitan areas, but many are now released on DVD if you wish to buy them for your collection or rent from Netflix.com.

Best 10 Movies List by Kenneth Turan

My personal favorite movie reviewer for LA Times, Kenneth Turan, found it impossible to list just 10 picks, and titled his "top 10 movies" list as "Ten Just Isn't Enough", giving multiple picks of related genres in his list of ten.

Turan's first picks were described by him in a Shakespearean quote as "untimely ripped" from the screens:

• "The Best of Youth" from Italy's Marco Tullio Giordana and "Duma" from Carroll Ballard
• Middle-Eastern focus: "Paradise Now" and "Syriana"
• Family drama: "The Squid and the Whale" with "Brokeback Mountain"
• Animated: "Howl's Moving Castle" and "Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were Rabbit"
• Meditations on the nature of violence and its outcomes: "A History of Violence" and "Munich"
• Documentary: "Los Angeles Plays Itself", "Born Into Brothels," "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room," "Gunner Palace", "Occupation: Dreamland", "Grizzly Man," "March of the Penguins" "The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill" and "Ballets Russes"
• Biographies: "Capote" and "Good Night, and Good Luck."
• Blockbusters with auteur: "Batman Begins" and "King Kong."
• Foreign language: "Head-On" "Saraband", "Tony Takitani" (Japanese), "The World" (Chinese), "Look at Me", (French), "The Beat That My Heart Skipped" (French), "The Holy Girl," (Spanish), "Machuca," (Spanish), "Lost Embrace" (Spanish), and "Torremolinos 73 (Spanish)
• Last, but not least, and on its own, Turan's pick for 10th place was "The Constant Gardener."

Top 10 Movie Picks by Carina Chocano

Like Turan, Carina Chocano found herself unable to limit her best 10 movies for 2005 to ten, listing the following 13 movies:

• "2046" (Wong Kar Wai)
• "Brokeback Mountain" (Ang Lee)
• "Capote" (Bennett Miller)
• "The Corporation" (Mark Achbar, Jennifer Abbott, Joel Bakan)
• "The Edukators" (Hans Weingartner)
• "Grizzly Man" (Werner Herzog)
• "Head-On" (Fatih Akin)
• "Junebug" (Phil Morrison)
• "King Kong" (Peter Jackson)
• "Last Days" (Gus Van Sant)
• "The Squid and the Whale" (Noah Baumbach)
• "Syriana" (Stephen Gaghan)
• "Turtles Can Fly" (Bahman Ghobadi)

Top Ten Movie Picks by Kevin Thomas

Thomas was actually able to restrain himself to an actual count of 10 in his picks for Top Ten Movies for 2005.

• "Mysterious Skin." (Gregg Araki)
• "Brokeback Mountain." (Ang Lee)
• "Crash." (Paul Haggis)
• "The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada." (Tommy Lee Jones)
• "Garçon Stupide" (Lionel Baier)
• "Hustle & Flow" (Craig Brewer)
• "Ballets Russes" (Dayna Goldfine and Dan Geller)
• "Tropical Malady" (Apichatpong Weerasethakul)
• "Keane" (Lodge Kerrigan)
• "The Holy Girl." (Lucrecia Martel)