1. "Flags of Our Fathers" / "Letters from Iwo Jima": Clint Eastwood's films unreel as one effortlessly masterful work. This radical anti-war film deconstructs the myriad ways mostly youthful flesh and blood can be manipulated, inspired, coerced into harm's way -- but never dishonors American and Japanese warriors "framed" into paying the price. "Flags" weaves a complex tapestry of visceral battlefield sequences, mediated reality, chamber-of-commerce flag-waving, a soldier's conscience, advertising and the terrible persistence of memory -- while "Letters" gives voices and faces to "The Enemy," traditionally stripped of idiosyncratic humanity by most war movies. If Eastwood's vision actually got inside all of our hearts and minds, we'd be hard pressed to bear arms.

2. "A Prairie Home Companion": Robert Altman stoked the communal give-and-take of Garrison Keillor's heartwarming radio hoedown with his usual sardonic delight in the crowded human comedy. "Companion" celebrates -- with joyous unsentimentality -- Altman's faves: show business, community, talk, music, old hands and comers, the sublime and the ridiculous. His movies gave Altman and his current pride of inspired players opportunity to act out and make believe until the set was struck and it was time to move on to a new cinematic collective. But artists like Altman never get away from these seductive fictions unscathed -- there's always the odd bit of mortality left behind, a signal that making art takes something out of you.

3. "Pan's Labyrinth": Guillermo Del Toro's gorgeous (and gory) fairy tale for grown-ups makes compelling visual poetry of a child's courageous quest for the restoration of family and love in dark times of war and madness. "Labyrinth" shifts seamlessly between actuality and its heroine's excursions into wildly phantasmagorical environs. Superb performances, terrific lensing, breathtaking F/X.

4. "United 93": Perhaps the horrors of 9/11 are too raw to be digested by star-driven melodrama like "World Trade Center." "United"'s stripped-down, riveting evocation of the ordinary shattered by the unthinkable is so authentic, we feel that this is how it must have been on that terrible morning. Looks like documentary, plays like human tragedy of the highest order.

5. "The Queen": Chronicling the comic / killing collision between old school and contemporary existential styles of showing one's face and feelings, "The Queen" contrasts private expression (Elizabeth II, given to putting on a brave face) and public spectacle (Diana, the "People's Princess," who exposed her bruised charm to every camera eye). Helen Mirren flawlessly incarnates Elizabeth as armored icon evolving into a vulnerable, even tragic figure.

6. "Apocalypto": There's an Old Testament Jeremiad embedded in Mel Gibson's dazzling adventure-chase movie, but sheer kinetic filmmaking trumps sermonizing about similarities between past and present civilizations given to wasting the earth, bloody invasions, maximum decadence. "Apocalypto"'s every face shines with exotic beauty, strength, viciousness (cast is mostly non-professionals) and the central, pell-mell race for survival grabs you up and never lets go.
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7. "Half Nelson": Skirting sentiment and cliché, "Half Nelson" showcases exquisitely nuanced performances (from Ryan Gosling, a crack-addled inner-school teacher; old soul Shareeka Epps, one of his students; and Anthony Mackie, devilishly charismatic drug-daddy). True-blue tensions and connections spark among these three-dimensional characters, playing out scenes that often go somewhere smart and unexpected.

8. "Climates": Documenting wounds inflicted in the name of love and lust, "Climates" maps Antonioni-like abysses of loneliness and alienation between lovers even as bodies strain to become one. Director Nuri Bilge Ceylan stars as a womanizer cold to the bone, while his wife (Ebru Ceylan) offers her incredibly expressive face to the camera's lingering gaze, her shifting emotions as visible as clouds moving in the sky.

9. "The Descent": Beautifully paced, photographed and designed, this Hieronymus Bosch horror movie avoids every tease and cheat that snuff 'n' slash flicks like "Saw" rely on. There's gore galore in this distaff descent into hell, but every drop's integral to a tale rooted in human character, choice and fate.

10. "Days of Glory": Who knew that, during WWII, North Africans enlisted to help save France, the country they thought of as their Motherland? "Days" follows a quartet of colorfully diverse soldiers through brutal battle and the realization that, in the eyes of French officers, they are hardly more than cannon fodder. A smartly directed action/war movie, enriched by a top-notch cast.

Note: As an exercise in brilliant filmmaking and tour-de-force acting, Martin Scorsese's "The Departed" would grace any 2006 10 Best List. Still, the movie felt hermetic and calculated to me, as though I was being galvanized by superb, heartless mechanics. Other, less perfectly crafted movies took firmer root in my memory because they reached hard for something new, surprising, transforming.

Honor Roll
"Little Children"; "Old Joy"; "Man Push Cart"; "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan"; "Casino Royale"

Brain Dead
"Dreamgirls";"Blood Diamond"; "The Prestige"; "X-Men: The Last Stand"

What are the year's 10 best movies? Write us at heymsn@microsoft.com

Kathleen Murphy currently reviews films for Seattle's Queen Anne News and writes essays on film for Steadycam magazine. A frequent speaker on film, Murphy has contributed numerous essays to magazines (Film Comment, the Village Voice, Film West, Newsweek-Japan), books ("Best American Movie Writing of 1998," "Women and Cinema," "The Myth of the West") and Web sites (Amazon.com, Cinemania.com, Reel.com). Once upon a time, in another life, she wrote speeches for Bill Clinton, Jack Lemmon, Harrison Ford, Joe Pesci, Robert De Niro, Art Garfunkel and Diana Ross.