Movies of the Year

Naomi Watts with the ape in King Kong.

1: KING KONG
Yes it's long. It's a remake. Its leading man tends to dominate every scene he's in - and even then he doesn't show up for an hour into the film. But King Kong is the best movie of the year because it restores our faith in the magic of big cinema. Maybe one day we'll look back and find something quaint in Peter Jackson's take on the beast, just as we do about the 1933 original. But that feels a long way off, such is the film's technical wizardry that's informed by the obvious affection and respect Jackson feels for his legendary monster. Op-ed page bores who don't get out much will lament the hype and say Kong is just another nail in the coffin of proper movies. But Kong shows you still need performances like that of like Naomi Watts - or Andy Serkis as the ape's digital template - to make CGI spectaculars something more than that. Yes, it does excel in wondrous action. It's a film which deserves to be seen on the biggest screen with the biggest speakers possible. But it's also a film which shows that some stories get better, deeper, sadder and more exciting in the retelling.
Russell Baillie

2: MARIA FULL OF GRACE
The first truly great film of the year, this independent Colombian-American production had the feel of a documentary and the dramatic punch of a thriller. As a Bogota minimum-wage slave who goes into service as a drug mule, Catalina Sandino Moreno gave a heartbreakingly authentic performance that took us deep into the life of the title character, and debutant director Joshua Marston avoided both sensationalism and platitude.
Peter Calder

3: SIDEWAYS
A film of modest ambitions triumphantly achieved, this blend of two great cinematic staples - the odd-couple comedy and the road movie - followed two men as they travelled through the Californian wine country on differing quests. A wistful romantic comedy, it was all character rather than plot, but the writing and acting were sublime and the movie delivered pleasure on many levels. Peter Calder

4: THE SEA INSIDE
This widely honoured based-on-fact Spanish drama about a paraplegic man's quarter-century battle for a dignified death was refreshingly free of moral sententiousness and sensitive to the toll that suicide takes on those left behind. Although the movie veered close to sentimentality, Javier Bardem's central performance was the year's best.
Peter Calder

5: THE WORLD'S FASTEST INDIAN
Roger Donaldson's take on the story of a remarkable New Zealander was an old-fashioned feelgood drama with a triumph-against-the-odds climax that you could see coming from the first frame. But the fresh clean lensing was a joy to behold and Anthony Hopkins' generous performance inhaled the nature of a mid-century Kiwi bloke. Not a great New Zealand film, but a bloody good one.
Peter Calder

6: BROKEN FLOWERS
Offbeat indie maestro Jim Jarmusch's most commercial and accessible movie was also his most piercingly wistful and, like Lost In Translation, exploited Bill Murray's unique and brilliant talent as a modern clown. As an ageing bachelor who may have fathered a son long ago and who embarks on a search for his lost past, Murray played a perfect Everyman for an uneasy age.
Peter Calder

7: THE EDUKATORS
Smart but never smart-arsed, this German picture was a fast-paced cross between a romantic comedy and a thriller which, far from being politically pointed, looked askance at anyone silly enough to think that the system hasn't already won. The director seemed to keep the action one step ahead of the actors and the ending was priceless.
Peter Calder

8: VERA DRAKE
Mike Leigh's latest transcended everything he's done because it was driven by as much love as anger and brimmed with humanity. The story of a working-class woman who performed abortions because helping people in trouble was what she did, was observed with a hyper-real minuteness and was utterly devoid of glib moralising. Imelda Staunton in the title role was the actress of the year.
Peter Calder

9: DOWNFALL
This German-made depiction of Hitler's final days was as riveting as it was historically fascinating. With Swiss-born Bruno Ganz delivering a mesmerising performance as the doomed Fuhrer, the film captures the stifling subterranean atmosphere of the Berlin bunker while contemplating what Hitler first inspired in the German people and continued to inspire to the bitter end. The war film of the year.
Russell Baillie

10: STAGE BEAUTY
Less immediately charming and commercial but more pungent than Shakespeare in Love, this love story set in a Restoration England emerging from the Puritan gloom was a terrifically entertaining rumination on the distinctions between art and artifice, full of zinger lines and wonderful performances. Claire Danes and Billy Crudup were sensational.
Peter Calder

11: AE FOND KISS
The third part of Ken Loach's Glaswegian trilogy took a grim view of the culture clash that has animated a decade of Britcoms. Typically there was no easy way out of the predicament of its lovers - an attractive white schoolteacher and the son of diehard Pakistani immigrants, but Loach balanced the competing forces with assurance and not a trace of cliche.
Peter Calder

12: BATMAN BEGINS
With its gritty, grunty and grim retake on the comic book hero and Christian Bale in the mask, this confounded the low expectations placed upon any further Batsequel after the increasingly annoying 90s efforts. It neatly rebooted the franchise with a mix of exciting grounded-in-real-world action and its lessons in Batlore explaining why lonely anti-social playboy Bruce Wayne ended up working nights dressed like that. By bringing the Caped Crusader down to earth, it elevated the legend all over again.
Russell Baillie

13: RAY
Jamie Foxx deservedly won the best actor Oscar for his portrayal of Ray Charles in this conventional but irresistible biopic of the genius of soul. His performance elevated the film, while Charles' music and those scenes capturing the inspiration for some of his greatest songs kept Ray swingin' with infectious energy throughout.
Russell Baillie

14: MYSTERIOUS SKIN
This exploration of two men's strikingly different responses to child sexual abuse was eye-wateringly frank but also a tender, even lyrical, work with a sure feel for the emotional pulse of its characters. In an age when the fever about child abuse still runs hot, it was a brave and challenging movie.
Peter Calder

15: SIN CITY
It took much digital ingenuity on the part of director Robert Rodriguez and some very game actors to render faithfully Frank Miller's pen and ink graphic novels of hardboiled pulp fiction on to the big screen. But it worked, delivering a beautiful, brutally violent and bleakly funny film which delivered some of the year's darkest cinematic thrills.
Russell Baillie

16: THE WOODSMAN
Audacious, and nerve- wracking, occasionally forced but mostly flat-out brilliant, this study of a child molester just out of prison showcased the long-underrated talent of Kevin Bacon, who conveyed the turbulent inner life of a man who was almost completely closed off. The stage origins were visible at times, but it was a deeply engrossing film.
Peter Calder

17: THE CONSTANT GARDENER

The John Le Carre novel was stripped down into a sobering conspiracy thriller about a mid-level British diplomat in Kenya who realises, when his activist wife is killed, that his faith in the establishment may have been misplaced. Kinetic director Fernando Meirelles displayed great restraint and Ralph Fiennes was great in what was the thinking person's thriller of the year.
Peter Calder

18: FINDING NEVERLAND
Johnny Depp and young Freddie Highsmith might have got more attention as the leading characters in Charlie and Chocolate Factory, but their best film together was earlier in the year - in the delightful Finding Neverland, with Depp playing Peter Pan author J.M. Barrie, and Highsmith as one of the boys of the family who inspired his classic fairytale.
Russell Baillie

19: WALLACE AND GROMIT: THE CURSE OF THE WERE RABBIT
The animated film of the year wasn't some Pixar gigabyte monster but the hilarious first feature for the very English stop-motion characters Wallace and Gromit. Their pursuit of the mega-bunny muching its way through the vege patches of the good folk of Tottington delivered an uproarious gagfest while the fingerprints visible on Gromit's plasticine snout were an endearing reminder of the human touch and painstaking patience behind Nick Park's creations.
Russell Baillie

20: HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS
In what was a good year for Asian chop-socky films giving the Western arthouse some much-needed adrenalin - honourable mentions also to Kung Fu Hustle and Ong-Bak - House of Flying Daggers offered the grandest cinematic experience. Yes, the period Chinese film from director Zhang Yimou starring three of Asia's biggest stars (Takeshi Kaneshiro, Andy Lau and Zhang Ziyi) did amazing things with swords, arrows, daggers, bamboo, and colour-coded scenery. But there was a big romantic heart beating beneath its action and a melodramatic finale to die for.
Russell Baillie