12 best films of 2006

Admittedly, there was much that I missed this year, but based on what I saw, here are the best films of the year. Alphabetically ordered, they are as follows:

• Borat -- outrageous and controversial and funny as fuck, with an amazingly committed performance by sasha baron cohen
  
• Brick -- reworked old noir in a new way, with great lingo and fine performances. made for almost nothing.
  
• Cache -- haneke continues his cinematic mindfucks. makes establishing shots menacing.
  
• Casino Royale -- action movies are great if they have brains behind them. a welcome jolt to an almost-dead franchise.
  
• Chapelle's Block Party -- funny, exciting, joyous, moving. this was dave chapelle's version of going to a shrink.
  
• Children of Men -- a realistic view of the future, with some of the most fantastic camerawork and mise-en-scene this year.
  
• An Inconvenient Truth -- global warming isn't real! it's snowing outside!
  
• The Last King of Scotland -- simply because of forrest whittaker and the cinematography by anthony dod mantle.
  
• Little Miss Sunshine -- the little movie that could, and did, and does.
  
• LOL -- joe swanberg makes movies at a rapid clip, and not one of them is bad. sex, lies, and videotape, eat your heart out.
  
• Marie Antoinette -- horribly overlooked, this movie was a stunner in all ways. give it another chance.
  
• Thank You For Smoking -- a great debut with biting satire the likes of which we rarely see these days.