The Ten Best Films of 2005
01. Brokeback Mountain
After wandering an unpredictable cinematic path from "The Wedding Banquet" to "Sense and Sensibility" to "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon," wunderkind director Ang Lee arrived at his masterpiece in 2005 with his triumphant revisionist Western, "Brokeback Mountain." Even having been reduced by some to the misleading title of "the gay cowboy movie," this is one picture that refuses to be marginalized. Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal star in this adaptation of E. Annie Proulx's short story as two young sheep-herders who meet in 1960s Wyoming and stumble into a love affair that will consume them for decades in spite of society's refusal to accept it. All of the performances are first-rate, including Michelle Williams as Ledger's future wife, but Ledger is the revelation here; nothing in this 27-year-old's resume has even hinted at this level of acting. Up to and especially during the powerhouse conclusion, director Lee chronicles every somber moment of a relationship in which a man knows he has found his true love, but finds himself powerless to pursue it. "Brokeback Mountain" ranks among the great tragic love stories in movie history, standing right beside "Gone with the Wind" and "Casablanca."
02. A History of Violence
With that visceral rat-a-tat-tat that only David Cronenberg can conjure up, "A History of Violence" gave the director his biggest hit and best reviews in years, and for good reason. Viggo Mortensen plays Tom Stall, a man who appears to be a mild-mannered diner owner in the Midwest, but who may or may not be a killer being hunted by mobsters. The supporting cast of Maria Bello, Ed Harris, and William Hurt is excellent. "A History of Violence" finds some way to work as both a brutal thriller and a pointed character study.
03. Munich
In the most mature film he has ever made, director Steven Spielberg examines both the pro and con sides of terrorism, duty, and honor with this look at the bloody fallout to the 1972 Munich Olympic murders. Spielberg has the brains to make this into a cathartic thriller instead of just a treatise, and he has the guts to make it a film with two sides: a decidedly unpopular move from a man expected to follow his faith to a myopic indictment. In another of the year's where-did-this-performance-come from moments, Eric Bana knocks it out of the park, trading his previous hunkified roles in "Hulk" and "Troy" to turn in a characterization of depth and gravity.
04. Good Night, and Good Luck.
George Clooney's sophomore directorial effort crackles and burns. In a brisk 93 minutes, Clooney recreates the stormy days of CBS newsman Edward R. Murrow's televised war with Sen. Joseph McCarthy during the 1950s HUAC witch hunts. Gorgeously photographed in newsprint-tinged black-and-white by cinematographer Robert Elswit, "Good Night" also features career-best work by character actor David Straithairn and director Clooney, who also co-stars. This is the type of informed docudrama Hollywood should be making more often.
05. Pride & Prejudice
The last 10 years have given us a multiplex's worth of Jane Austen adaptations, but none as enjoyable and entertaining as Joe Wright's interpretation of the classic author's "Pride & Prejudice." Starring Keira Knightley as the headstrong Elizabeth Bennett, "Pride" has all the lace and bodice of PBS but none of the downtime. You can feel the passions of these characters just like you could in "Howards End" or "The Age of Innocence," only you'll be smiling a whole lot more. "Pride & Prejudice" is one movie whose creators clearly had their hearts in it.
06. Broken Flowers
One of Summer 2005's under-appreciated gems. In his best film since 1989's "Mystery Train," director Jim Jarmusch lent his particular brand of cine-sentiment to the Road Movie, plopping a wonderfully deadpan Bill Murray in an odyssey to visit four would-be mothers to a mystery would-be son. Is there a son at all? Or is it all about the possibility that there might be? Jarmusch's triumph is that both of those questions have multiple answers, yet you still are left wondering.
07. Hustle & Flow
What a year 2005 was for actor Terrence Howard. Even with standout work in "Get Rich or Die Tryin'" and "Crash," nothing could top his sublime leading work as a pimp struggling to go legit in the rap world in Craig Brewer's Memphis-filmed "Hustle & Flow." Gone are the usual cliches of rap movies in which the film seems to have been just hobbled out of spare parts to surround the soundtrack: "Hustle" flows with the blood and sweat of layered storytelling.
08. Junebug
In this amazingly authentic slice-of-life, director Phil Morrison and writer Angus McLachlan made it look way too easy. Culture clashes occur in film comedies all the time, but rare is the drama that seeks them out to explore the family dynamics of The Outsider Come In. All of the performances are spot on, but especially Amy Adams', who gave one of the year's most endearing performances. Here Adams shapes a character who at first seems simple-minded but ends up, in the film's cathartic closing, woefully complex.
09. Grizzly Man
A fascinating portrait of a man's finite connection to nature, Werner Herzog's "Grizzly Man" chronicles the last days of Timothy Treadwell, a wandering free spirit who lived among the wild grizzly bears of Alaska until one day they turned on him. Treadwell is alternately endearing and maddening, as he seems to be able to relate both too well and not at all to the dangerous creatures he surrounds.
In a year that produced more good documentaries than any other in memory, "Grizzly Man" was the best.
10. The Squid and the Whale
Perhaps never before have irreconcilable differences provided so much meaty movie comedy. In a marvelously droll performance, a never-better Jeff Daniels splits with wife (Laura Linney), leaving two growing boys in the acid-tongued wake of their marital fallout. It doesn't sound like much fun, but it is: filled with acerbic wit and biting dialogue, writer/director Noah Baumbach finds all sorts of comic gold in these decidedly dysfunctional hills.
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