(Photo: Courtesy of Sony Pictures)

Honorable Mentions
Spike Lee dropped the mannerisms and the ’tude and triumphed twice, with the studio caper picture Inside Man and his HBO Katrina documentary. Sofia Coppola personalized the costume-drama epic—for worse and, more often, better—in the ravishing Marie Antoinette. The History Boys made us want to talk in complete sentences. Casino Royale was the best Bond picture in decades—and with a refreshingly real (and butch!) new 007, Daniel Craig. The Proposition pumped fresh blood (and brain matter) into the frontier Western. Michel Gondry and Dave Chappelle threw the best block party in town, while Man Push Cart made midtown look stunning. Three terrific documentaries, Jesus Camp, Deliver Us From Evil, and Jonestown, made the best imaginable case for atheism. Al Gore: superstar. Hou Hsiao-Hsien seduced us in Three Times. Animania: Monster House had the year’s wittiest scares; Happy Feet had the year’s best dancing. Little Miss Sunshine and Shortbus also had the courage to go out with anthemic dance numbers. As a serenely corrupt free-marketeer, Bruce Willis was the one Happy Meal in Fast Food Nation. Edward Norton was the perfect (elegant, smirky) mascot for the lyrically eerie The Illusionist. Leonardo DiCaprio proved he’s more winning as a rogue than as a Sensitive Male in Blood Diamond. Hugo Weaving showed off his sonorous pipes as a masked avenger in V for Vendetta. But the year’s best pipes belong to Jennifer Hudson in Dreamgirls: She even screams on key.—D.E. and Logan Hill