Notes on a Scandal, Richard Eyre, 2006

Eyre's modest diversion centers on a well worn arc of obsession and betrayal, with Blanchett and Dench doing their damnedest to out-roar one another.

2 ou 3 choses que je sais d'elle (2 or 3 Things I Know About Her), Jean-Luc Godard, 1967

Godard exercises his most essayistic tendencies in this uneven series of socio-political vignettes. Recently re-released theatrically.

L'enfant, Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne, 2005

Not unlike Panahi's Crimson Gold, the Dardennes' examination of local delinquency is at once small and significant.

Apocalypto, Mel Gibson, 2006.

With Apocalypto, Gibson has crafted a consistently compelling (yet surprisingly conventional) adventure yarn that is, at once, as single minded as Herzog's Aguirre, as gorily stylish as Taymor's Titus, as unapolagetically indulgent as Jodorowsky's El Topo, and as schooled in the mechanics of popcorn thrills as any Lucas/Speilberg franchise

United 93, Paul Greengrass, 2006.

Much like Gus Van Sant’s Elephant, Greengrass’ unsentimental current events verite documents, with startling veracity, the machinations of the unthinkable usurping the mundane.

Moartea domnului Lazarescu (The Death of Mr. Lazarescu), Cristi Puiu, 2005.

An agonizing, effecitvely wrought Beckettian nightmare.

L'Intrus (The Intruder), Claire Denis, 2005

Denis’ rapturously meandering tone poem of loss, boundary, and memory is a visceral sensory experience.

Come Early Morning, Joey Lauren Adams, 2006

Adams’ directorial debut is a small triumph, bravely revisiting the fractured Southern psyche so expertly explored in such recent films as Phillip Morrison’s Junebug and David Gordon Green’s All the Real Girls.

A Prairie Home Companion, Robert Altman, 2006.

Altman’s appropriately artful meditation on death and purpose serves as a pitch-perfect coda to the director’s staggering ouvre.

Inside Man, Spike Lee, 2006.

Lee’s skillfully executed heist tale rates among the best modern takes on this classic genre.

Inland Empire, David Lynch, 2006.

Inland Empire is nothing if not a psychological experiment, as Lynch’s hypnotic composition, core-rattling sound design, and labryinthian (some may say Sisyphean) narrative, thoroughly disarms, disturbs, and dismantles the viewer.

The Queen, Stephen Frears, 2006.

Frears’ ivory tower saga is taut, engaging, and suspenseful in much the same fashion as Robert Altman’s Gosford Park, its upstairs/downstairs forerunner

Miami Vice, Michael Mann, 2006.

Mann, moreso than any major director, has embraced the digital format and showcases its full capabilities with this brooding adult art epic.

Manderlay, Lars von Trier, 2005.

With Manderlay, the second chapter of his proposed “America – Land of Opportunities” trilogy, von Trier offers a brillantly subversive, genuinely uncompromising, and remarkably accessible Brechtian yarn.

The Departed, Martin Scorsese, 2006.

Scorsese delivers his finest crime saga in over a decade with this exquisitely paced, sharply acted police procedural. 

Gabrielle, Patrice Chereau, 2005.

Chereau's parable of infidelity is stylistically frustrating and somewhat streched thin for its slight premise, yet maintains an unflagging emotional honesty.