The 10 Best Movies of 2006

Many people dodged this movie for being too painful a topic -- a 9/11 re-enactment of what might have happened among the passengers on United Airlines Flight 93 when four hijackers took control of the plane. It's their right, and their loss. The gifted director Paul Greengrass has crafted a humane tribute to the power of resistance.

7 The Queen
Directed by Stephen Frears

There's this dumb theory that the potency of this film totally hangs on the magisterial performance of Helen Mirren as Queen Elizabeth II in the aftermath of the death of Princess Diana. Bollocks, as the Brits might say. Director Stephen Frears, working with an incisive script by Peter Morgan, is devilishly good at springing surprises, political, personal and profound.

8 Borat
Directed by Larry Charles

Maybe you live on planet mars and don't hear how Sacha Baron Cohen make fun about glorious nation of Kazakhstan and make big trouble with politically correct persons. Maybe you make benefit yourself and see cultural learnings of killer satire of year then laugh ass off.

9 Little Miss Sunshine
Directed by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris

This bracingly unsappy family comedy is 2006's best movie from first-timers. Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris drop their terrific cast (Greg Kinnear, Toni Collette, Alan Arkin, Steve Carell, Paul Dano and little Abigail Breslin) into a VW bus and ship them off to a beauty pageant that exposes the ugly side of America and the dysfunction bubbling inside their own wack-job heads. It's hilarious, heartbreaking and achingly true.