1) Sin City:
The casting was spot on, especially since not all of them were obvious choices (Who knew Clive Owen could be so badass?), the look of the film was fantastic, and it totally improved on the style that Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow failed miserably at using. And I have a huge amount of respect for Robert Rodriguez for telling the DGA to stick it when they said Frank Miller couldn't co-direct. He obviously wanted a great deal to stay true to the comics. I'd go so far as to say I haven't seen a movie stay this true to the source material since Greed.
2) Good Night, and Good Luck.:
I got a press screening pass to see this from my Film Appreciation class instructor, cause I was way into the whole McCarthyism era at the time (2 research papers on the subject later I'm a little burnt out on the subject). I was completely enthralled by the movie from the second Strathairn as Murrow opened his mouth to the closing credits. Strathairn did a fantastic job as Murrow, as did Clooney as Friendly.
3) Crash:
Like with Good Night and Good Luck, I was totally enthralled by this movie. The speech by Ludacris' character, and the twist after it, was what really caught my attention. The only reason this isn't the #2 movie is because a couple times I stopped and thought "man, that's a huge coincidence" more than I should have. Still a fantastic movie, with a great scene between Ludacris and Terrence Howard, and a surprisingly moving scene at the end with Don Cheadle's character.
4) Batman Begins:
I'd been following the progress of this movie ever since Christopher Nolan was named as the director, and got more and more anxious for it to come out with every detail that came out. I was actually expecting this movie to be better than Sin City before I saw either of them. Nevertheless, a great movie, one of the best comic book movies I've seen.
5) 40 Year Old Virgin:
Ok, some of why this movie is here is because of how utterly awful it could have been. Like Not Another Teen Movie awful. Instead it ended up being the funniest movie this year, and they made characters that I actually liked. And the ending is classic.
6) Oldboy:
Yeah, yeah, it's technically a 2003 movie, but it came out stateside in 2005. The movie goes on as a straightforward revenge movie, and then with one little line, you realise that it's not the revenge movie you thought it was. That aside, it blends being an action movie and a dramatic movie really well, and THAT is hard to do.
7) The War Within:
More people should have seen this movie. Unfortunately, it got a nothing release. What makes this movie great is Hassan, the main character. He is easly the deepest and most complex villain I've seen in a good long while. The entire movie up until the ending, he's built up as truly believing that he's doing the right thing, and that makes the ending all the more tragic.
8 ) Walk the Line:
I <3 Johnny Cash. I thought that they had dubbed Pheonix's singing when I saw the movie, and was shocked as shit when I found out he did his own singing. They found a good balance between too many music numbers and not enough, which gave the movie a really good pace, I was actually surprised (and a little bummed out) when it ended, cause I didn't think it'd been 2 hours yet.
9) Serenity:
Ok, I'm a Firefly nerd, but I still think it's a damn good movie. The dialogue is great, the villain is really cool ("I don't murder children." "I do, when I have to.") and you can get through the movie without having seen the series. Yes, some of the stuff has a LOT more weight if you watch Firefly first, but having seen it with someone who didn't watch Firefly, I can attest that it's enjoyable whether you've seen it or not (it's just more enjoyable if you have).
10) The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:
I actually got into an argument with someone over this movie. They couldn't stand how far from the book the movie strayed. But that's just what I liked about the movie. If you pay attention to the whole Hitchhiker's universe, NONE of the variations of the story are the same. The book, the record album, the radio show, the BBC mini-series, none of them are exactly the same, and it'd be a disservice to make this movie the same. That's what makes it such a good movie; it's not just an adaptation of the book. Plus, having Alan Rickman be the voice of Marvin was genius.[/i]