1/2-way through 2005: The Best Films thus far

Cafe Society
1

So, now that the year’s half over, what are the best movies you saw that were released theatrically this calendar year? My Top 10:

  1. Crash
  2. The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill
  3. Almost Brothers
  4. Turtles Can Fly
  5. Kung Fu Hustle
  6. The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants
  7. 3-Iron
  8. Howl’s Moving Castle
  9. Batman Begins
  10. Walk on Water

Worst film of the year: Mr. & Mrs. Smith

The Top 10 I haven’t caught yet: The Best of Youth, Brothers, Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, The Holy Girl, Me and You and Everyone I Know, My Summer of Love, Mysterious Skin, Nobody Knows, The Other Side of the Street, Up and Down

Although there are a number of films I’ve missed that may have changed this list dramatically, usually by this time, I will have seen a couple of films I consider genuinely great. Although I like Crash a lot and find it very strong, in any other year there’s no way it’d be #1. For some reason, this year has struck me as particularly weak (or at least uninspiring), though there are plenty of films on the horizon that are keeping my hopes up.

What are your impressions of the year thus far?

2

I’ve only seen 11 movies so far this year:

Liked:

  1. Sin City
  2. Batman Begins
  3. Kung Fu Hustle
  4. Layer Cake
  5. Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith
  6. The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill
  7. Constantine
  8. Enron: The Smartest Guys In the Room
  9. The Hitchhiker’s Guide To the Galaxy

DISLIKED:
10. Be Cool
11. Ocean’s 12

3

In no particular order:

(seen)
Crash
Cinderella Man
Revenge of the Sith
Hitch

(Waiting to see)
Batman Begins
Bewitched
King Kong

4

Is there a link anywhere to major Hollywood releases so far this year? I can never remember what I’ve seen, or in which year.

Daniel

5

Err…I meant to add, a link to non-Hollywood pictures would be great, too; it’s just that such a list is going to be much larger.

Daniel

6

www.The-numbers.com should have an index of movies released by year, including 2005.

7

http://www.the-numbers.com/movies/index2005.html

8

Awesome site! It makes me realize how few movies I’ve seen this year in the theater, though–certainly not enough to participate meaningfully in this thread.

Daniel

9

Movies seen:

Assault on Precinct 13
Be Cool
Kingdom of Heaven
Madagascar
Batman Begins
War of the Worlds
None sucked outright, though Be Cool was disappointing and Assault was mindless bubblegum violence without much coherent plot.
The best was Batman Begins, with WOTW coming in a close second.

10

Liked a lot (though none of them was great):

Bride and Prejudice
Batman Begins
Enron: The Brightest Guys in the Room

Liked:

Mad Hot Ballroom
The Merchant of Venice