Best Movies of 2005

I figure that I watched about 80 movies in 2005, mostly from Netflix, but some I saw either in the theatre, on TV, or from DVDs that I bought or borrowed. Here are the best (and worst) movies that I watched in 2005. [All links below go to IMDB].

The Best Movie was The Count of Monte Cristo. An adaptation of Alexandre Dumas' novel, it's athriller/action/drama movie. A good story, good acting, good cinematography and sets/costumes. (It takes place in Napoleanic France). Amélie, Good Will Hunting, and A Beautiful Mind were also great movies.

The Best Dramas were Good Will Hunting and A Beautiful Mind. Both are about mathematicans. In Good Will Hunting, Matt Damon plays a troubled young man who lives in Boston. He's working as a janitor at MIT and is "discovered" as a math prodigy by a professor there. A Beautiful Mind is a biography of John Nash, a mathematican who was awarded a Nobel Prize for Economics in 1994, but the story focuses on his struggle with schizophrenia. (Although, the film has been criticized for inaccuracies and omissions). Both films are deserved winners of Academy Awards. A notable mention goes out Clint Eastwood's critically-acclaimed Million Dollar Baby.

The Best Thriller was The Village. M. Night Shyamalan rocks. I can't wait for his next movie. His cinematography and sets are awesome and his stories are gold. Denzel Washington's John Q and The Manchurian Candidate were also good. Collateral, starring Jamie Foxx as a taxi driver, who picks up an assassin played by Tom Cruise, was also entertaining.

The Best Foreign Film was Amélie. It's a French film by director Jean-Pierre Jeunet which stars Audrey Tautou. The film is a comedy/drama. The story is very good and I love the cinematography/sets. The Brazilian-film City of God about an aspiring photographer who lives in a gang-infested slum of Rio de Janiero was solid.

The Best Comedy I watched was The Whole Nine Yards. Matthew Perry plays a dentist who gets caught up with a hit man played by Bruce Willis. The characters are good, the story keeps your attention, and it was funny. [Sadly, its sequel, The Whole Ten Yards is just plain bad. They must have had a different writer or something]. Notable mentions go out to Ben Stiller's Meet the Fockers and Meet the Parents.

The Best Documentary was Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism. It's a critical examination of the Fox News TV channel. i.e. Fox News claims to be "Fair and Balanced", but in reality it is a right-wing tabloid with little substance or informative value.

The Best Science Fiction film was Revenge of the Sith. I thought the final installment of Star Wars had good pace, a decent story, and it exceeded my expectations. [To be fair I am a sucker for Star Wars though]. A notable mention goes out to I, Robot where cop Will Smith chases a robot he suspects of murder in a futurist Chicago. [It also stars Bridget Moynahan, who is hot].

The Best Action Movie was The Last Samurai. Set in circa 1870 Japan, US Civil War veteran Tom Cruise goes to Japan to train and modernize their army, but is captured by rebel samurai. It is, perhaps, a bit too much of drama to be considered an "action" movie, but I don't think I saw any "pure" action movies this year that were great. (All the good action movies I saw could arguably belong to the sci-fi, drama, or thriller genres).

The Best Crime Film was The Untouchables. Kevin Coster plays Eliot Ness as he battles Al Capone (Robert De Niro) in Chicago during Prohibition. Sean Connery earned an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor. A notable mention goes out to The Usual Suspects, which has a great story about what happens after five criminals are brought together.

The Best Superhero Film was Batman Begins. Fantastic Four was also entertaining (but lacking in substance).

The Best 'Family' Movie was Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.

The Best Unoriginal Movie was National Treasure. Nicolas Cage is treasure hunter in a hokey, but entertaining story. (It's unoriginal because it's a cross between Indiana Jones/Lara Croft and the Da Vinci Code). After The Sunset was also a decent movie (but reminiscent of The Thomas Crown Affair and Ocean's Eleven).

The Best 'B' Movie' was The Day After Tomorrow. Global warming causes the ice caps to melt. Hence, the ocean's currents radically change (no longer warming the nothern hemisphere) and an instant ice age ensures. Dennis Quaid must rescue his son, who is trapped in a frozen New York City.

Some movies that exceeded my expectations were The Fifth Element, Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle, and Phone Booth. None of them is great and perhaps neither good, but they were decent.

The Most Disappiointing movie I saw was Close Encounters of the Third Kind. I learned that all Spielberg movies are not masterpieces. (A.I. Artificial Intelligence also sucked). Spiderman 2 also sucked horrendously. I expect sequels to have the same characters and similar stories as their predecessors, but this was crappier remake of Spiderman. I don't think they bothered to come up with a script, they just made a couple changes Spiderman's story. Braveheart (too long and too over-the-top) and The Terminator (too lacking in story, characters, and quality of cinematography) also were disappointing.

The Worst Movie was Daredevil. This was a difficult choice since, in addition to the above disappointing movies, Alexander, Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, Elektra, and The Truman Show lacked any redeeming qualities and were among the movies I saw in 2005 that warranted a single-star.

A few other good movies I saw that aren't mentioned above include Catch Me If You Can, Chocolat, Garden State, Pirates of the Caribbean, and The Terminal.