A year of seriously good films

It was not the best of years, it was not the worst of years. For a change, I had no trouble compiling a 10-best list, or even a roster of worthy also-rans. And anyway, who says movies have to be timeless to be worth talking about?

One dominant theme this year was a fascination with royalty and rulers – in other words, a fascination with power. In very different ways, and with varying degrees of success, movies as disparate as "The Queen," "The Last King of Scotland," "All the King's Men," and "Marie Antoinette" were about the consequences of autocracy. Maybe this is because, in parlous times, we want to believe that if only certain despoiled monarchs were not in power we would be OK, and there wouldn't be any wars.

A more direct expression of the times came through in films such as Paul Greengrass's very fine "United 93," which gave a docudrama immediacy to the events of 9/11, and Oliver Stone's less auspicious "World Trade Center," which focused almost entirely on the rescue operations that day. In retrospect, the "Is it too soon for this film?" debate provoked by both films was rather silly – as if anyone could presume to speak for everyone regarding such a trauma.

The Iraq war and its ramifications was most often the subject of documentaries, such as "The Ground Truth," "Iraq in Fragments," and "The War Tapes," or a docudrama such as "The Road to Guantanamo." Dramas featuring actual warfare usually were set back in time, such as Clint Eastwood's "Flags of Our Fathers" and "Letters From Iwo Jima," which dealt with a less chaotic and more comprehensible conflict than Iraq. Some films featuring warfare took place in the apocalyptic near future but were really about today, like the extraordinary "Children of Men" or the excruciating "V For Vendetta."

On the lighter side, 2006 was a pretty dull year for comedy, especially romantic comedy. I got a kick out of "Borat" and "For Your Consideration," but the hoopla for "Little Miss Sunshine," a hard-sell movie about not selling out, was a bit much. Still, compared to "The Break Up" or "The Holiday," it was practically Preston Sturges.

Many of the big franchise movies, including "X-Men" and "Superman Returns," were flat. But in "Casino Royale" with Daniel Craig, we finally have a new 007 who, for the first time since Sean Connery, is also a first-rate actor. When was the last time you went to a James Bond for a performance?

The foreign-language movies were the usual mixed bag, if only because, as usual, so many excellent foreign films were shown only to critics at film festivals and not picked up for general release. The oft-repeated joke this year is that Jean-Pierre Melville's "Army of Shadows," made in 1969 but only now being distributed in America, is the best foreign film – some say the best film – of 2006. (I wouldn't go that far).

The indie scene was mixed, though performances such as Ryan Gosling's in "Half Nelson" or Maggie Gyllenhaal's in "Sherrybaby," put most of their higher-priced counterparts in the shade.

But enough grumbling. It's time to accentuate the positive. In alphabetical order, here's my Top 10:

Richard Linklater, who can segue from a commercial classic such as "School of Rock" to an art-house marvel such as "Before Sunset," is the most consistently interesting youngish director around. This rotoscope animation Philip K. Dick adaptation is profoundly unsettling and features a marvelous performance – I said performance – by Robert Downey Jr. as a junkie.

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