BRICK (US, Rian Johnson)
Out of the 54 theatrically-released films I saw in 2006, I only found six that I really loved, and had to actually add four more to round out this list. But I do not hesitate to name the high school homage to noir Brick as among the very best that 2006 had to offer - even if it is technically a 2005 film. It's one of those rare pictures that actually got me excited about the medium.

LADY VENGEANCE (South Korea, Chan-wook Park)
I can't believe I missed Lady Vengeance in the theaters, after getting blown away by Park's Oldboy. But I must say, it's another viscerally beautiful film by Park. Less violent than the first two films in Park's "revenge" trilogy, it's no less disturbing. I didn't quite buy the weird fairy tale graphics at the beginning, but a half hour in, I was sold. And the final act is intense. See this!

THE WORLD'S FASTEST INDIAN (New Zealand, Roger Donaldson)
This too is a 2005 film, but the more interesting foreign and independent films take a while to reach American screens. Anthony Hopkins is great fun as a stubborn old motorbike enthusiast who makes the trek from smalltown New Zealand to the salt flats of Utah to break land speed records. A real stand up and cheer movie.

A SCANNER DARKLY (US, Richard Linklater)
This was not a film I expected to like: Keanu Reeves? Winona Ryder? Richard Linklater messing around again with that digital rotoscoping from Waking Life, which I hated? But I was impressed by its hallucinogenic animation and its faithfulness to the Philip K. Dick novel, about drug abuse amid a Big Brother-ish police state in the near future. It's funny, weird, angry, smart and ultimately quite sad.

LUNACY (Czech Republic, Jan Svankmajer)
One of those challenging foreign movies that only screen in a couple of theaters for a few days, stop-motion animator Svankmajer's mostly live action feature is a scathingly anti-religious film that puts the meaning behind the philosophies of the oft-misunderstood Marquis de Sade up on screen in ways that the overpraised - and now mostly forgotten - Quills only wishes it could have done.

THE QUEEN (UK, Stephen Frears)
It's funny to read critics' "ten best" lists at the end of each year. You always see the same movies. There's a faddishness behind some choices: Babel and Letters from Iwo Jima are good, not great. The much-honored The Queen, however, is terrific. Helen Mirren as Elizabeth II got all the attention, but the film itself is a rich study of the ambiguous relationship between royalty and the public.

THE AURA (Argentina/Spain, Fabián Bielinsky)
This slow little thriller is the final film by Bielinsky, who died at the age of 47 last year. Seek it out. I actually liked it more than Bielinsky's better-received predecessor Nine Queens. It's a deeper, more meaningful work. Beautifully shot, well-acted, and with an intriguing story about a lonely nobody who casually lies his way into a gang of criminals out for a big heist, The Aura is something special.

CHILDREN OF MEN (UK/US, Alfonso Cuarón)
Edge-of-your-seat science fiction from the talented Cuarón has a great central performance by Clive Owen and nonstop action. Some complain that its story - about a pregnant women in a future devoid of pregnant women - is poorly developed, but I disagree. There are so many details packed into Children of Men that it warrants repeat viewings, where the story's strengths may become more evident.

UNITED 93 (US, Paul Greengrass)
The year's other great suspense picture takes place in the all-too-recent past, with a documentary approach to the story of the courageous passengers on the fourth hijacked airliner on September 11, 2001. Although many regard the passengers as patriotic heroes, the film shows them simply as resourceful but desperate human beings doing what they can to save their own lives.

INLAND EMPIRE (US, David Lynch)
It's thoroughly confusing, it's three hours long, it's shot on video. It's turned off even rabid fans of writer/director Lynch. But Inland Empire is not pointless or self-indulgent. It is a mature work of art by a filmmaker at the peak of his creativity, and is so filled with ideas and imagination that I'd be a fool to write it off, even if I'm only starting to barely understand it.