2006 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]

The 10 Best Movies of 2006:

1. The Lives of Others/Das Leben der Anderen - Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck + Best Debut Movie of the Year + Best German Movie of the Year + Best Mega-hit Movie of the Year + Best Spy Thriller of the Year

2. Apocalypto - Mel Gibson + Best Epic of the Year + Best American Movie of the Year + Best Adventure Movie of the Year + Best Chase Movie of the Year

3. The Art of Crying/Kunsten at Græde i Kor - Peter Schønau Fog + Best Danish Movie of the Year + Best Drama of the Year + Best Adaptation of the Year

4. Black Snake Moan - Craig Brewer + Most Undeserved Flop of the Year + Best Music Movie of the Year + Best Mississippi Movie of the Year

5. The Departed - Martin Scorsese + Best Boston Movie of the Year + Best Gangster Movie of the Year + Best Comeback Actor of the Year: Matt Damon + Best Remake of the Year + Best Ensemble of the Year: Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Jack Nicholson, Mark Wahlberg, Martin Sheen, Ray Winstone, Vera Farmiga, Anthony Anderson, Alex Baldwin, Kevin Corrigan, James Badge Dale

6. The Boss of It All/Direktøren for Det Hele - Lars Von Trier + Best Comedy of the Year + Best Experimental Movie of the Year + Most Under-appreciated Movie of the Year

7. Flags of Our Fathers - Clint Eastwood + Best War Movie of the Year + Best Period Movie of the Year + Best True-Story Movie of the Year + Best Big Flop Movie of the Year

8. Children of Men - Alfonso Cuarón + Best Sci-fi Movie of the Year

9. Inland Empire - David Lynch + Best Art Film of the Year + Best Character Study of the Year + Best Poster of the Year + Best Comeback Actress of the Year: Laura Dern

10. Little Children - Todd Field + Best Feel-Bad Movie of the Year

 
Other masterpiece of 2006:

Babel - Alejandro Gonzáles Iñárritu


Other great movies of 2006 (in alphabetical order):

A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints - Dito Montiel + Best Shooting Star Actor of the Year: Channing Tatum + Best New York Movie of the Year + Best Autobiographical Movie of the Year

A Soap/En Soap - Pernille Fischer Christensen + Best Copenhagen Movie of the Year + Best LGBT Movie of the Year + Best Melodrama of the Year

Crank - Mark Neveldine, Brian Taylor + Best Action Movie of the Year + Best Los Angeles Movie of the Year

Déjà Vu - Tony Scott + Best New Orleans Movie of the Year + Best Car Chase of the Year (chase in the past scene)

Jonestown: The Life and Death of Peoples Temple, documentary - Stanley Nelson

The Last King of Scotland - Kevin Macdonald + Best Thriller of the Year + Best Huge Hit Movie of the Year

Other good, recommendable movies and TV-series of 2006 (in alphabetical order):

30 Rock - season 1 - Tina Fey + Best New TV-series of the Year + Best Sitcom of the Year

A Scanner Darkly - Richard Linklater + Most Unconventional Movie of the Year + Best Adult Animation Movie of the Year + Best Drug Movie of the Year

The Abandoned/Los Abandonados - Nacho Cerdà + Best Horror Movie of the Year + Best Spanish Movie of the Year + Best Haunted House Movie of the Year

Art School Confidential - Terry Zwigoff + Best Huge Flop Movie of the Year

The Da Vinci Code - Ron Howard + Best Paris Movie of the Year

Deadwood - season 3 - David Milch + Best Western Title of the Year + Best TV-series of the Year + Best Fight Scene of the Year (fight in the mud scene, episode 5: A Two-Headed Beast)

The Devil Wears Prada - Dave Frankel

Dexter - season 1 - James Manos Jr. + Best Miami Title of the Year

Diggers - Katherine Dieckmann

The Fountain - Darren Aronofsky + Best Psychedelic Movie of the Year + Best Mega-flop Movie of the Year

Friends with Money - Nicole Holofcener + Best Dramedy of the Year

Letters from Iwo Jima/硫黄島からの手紙 [Öjima Kara no Tegami] - Clint Eastwood + Best Big Hit Movie of the Year

Little Miss Sunshine - Jonathan Dayton, Valerie Faris + Best Independent Movie of the Year + Best Road Movie of the Year

Lucky Number Slevin - Paul McGuigan 

We Shall Overcome/Drømmen - Niels Arden Oplev

The 10 Worst Movies of 2006:

1. Are You Scared- Andy Hurst

2. Ira & Abby - Robert Cary

3. Automaton Transfusion - Steven C. Miller

4. A Good Year - Ridley Scott + Worst Poster of the Year + Most Deserved Flop of the Year

5. Fay Grim - Hal Hartley

6. Fair Haired Child, TV movie - William Malone

7. Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon - Scott Glosserman

8. Dragon Tiger Gate/Lóng Hǔ Mén/龍虎門/龙虎门/Lung4 Fu2 Mun4 - Wilson Yip + Most Ridiculous Movie of the Year

9. Cars - John Lasseter, Joe Ranft + Most Undeserved Hit of the Year

10. Blood Diamond - Edward Zwick 
 
Other poor, failed and/or mediocre movies of 2006 (in alphabetical order):

16 Blocks - Richard Donner
A Real Friend/Adivina Quién Soy, TV movie - Enrique Urbizu
Bandidas - Joachim Rønning, Espen Sandberg + Silliest Movie of the Year
Blame/La Culpa, TV movie - Narciso Ibáñez Serrador
The Caiman/Il Caimano - Nanni Moretti
Dreamgirls - Bill Condon + Most Overrated Movie of the Year
The Illusionist - Neil Burger
The Lost - Chris Sivertson 

[50 titles in total]

Notes:

The first updated version of the 2006 lists adds just 4 new titles but one of them is German Stasi past spy thriller masterpiece by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, The Lives of Others, which pushes Apocalypto down from the #1 spot to become the year's best film. Mel Gibson's sensational, Mayan-era chase adventure Apocalypto comes in 2nd, and Peter Schønau Fog's wry, Jutland-set incest adaptation drama The Art of Crying takes bronze. The list continues with Craig Brewer's electric blues sex-drama masterpiece Black Snake Moan, Martin Scorsese's grand gangster epos The Departed, Lars Von Trier's strangely composited absurd comedy The Boss of It All, Clint Eastwood's riveting WWII hero (and nation) examination Flags of Our Father, Alfonso Cuarón's spectacular sci-fi achievement Children of Men, David Lynch's fiercely unsettling, digital mystery epic Inland Empire and is capped by Todd Field's new entry, suburbia-set drama adaptation Little Children. These 2 newcomers to the list push out Alejandro González Iñnáritu's ambitious fate-crossing masterpiece Babel and Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris' uplifting road comedy Little Miss Sunshine from the top 10.
Among the other great films of the year are Dito Montiel's electric, New York-set debut A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints, Pernille Fischer Christensen's transvestite romance A Soap, Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor's power-charged Crank and Kevin Macdonald's terrific Idi Amin-thriller The Last King of Scotland. Other noteworthy good movies of the year include Richard Linklater's Philip K. Dick adaptation A Scanner Darkly, Nacho Cerdá's bone-chilling ghost horror The Abandoned and the 3rd and last season of David Milch's Deadwood. The other 2 new entries on this update are war movie Letters from Iwo Jima and serial killer indie The Lost, two films that don't make either the top or bottom list.
The Worst of 2006 Top 10 list is remarkably low on big studio fare, and the worst 3 are all low-budget trash: Andy Hurst's gory torture horror Are You Scared is the year's absolute worst, with Robert Cary's marriage-hating Ira & Abby taking silver and Steven C. Miller's amateurish zombie rubbish Automaton Transfusion bronze.
These poor attempts at entertainment and film are met by Ridley Scott's grating, hollow Provence-lauding A Good Year, Hal Hartley's tedious indie thriller Fay Grim, William Malone's Masters of Horror TV movie Fair Haired Child, Scott Glosserman's similarly low-flying, cheap horror Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon, Wilson Yip's ridiculous Hong Kong kung fu flick Dragon Tiger Gate, John Lasseter and Joe Ranft's generally poor, major animation Cars and finally Edward Zwick's morally dubious Africa actioner Blood Diamond.
Among the other great filmmakers who made below-par output in 2006 are Joachim Rønning and Espen Sandberg with their debut Bandidas.

Biggest Hits of the Year (reviewed so far):

[The profit is based solely on the cost and box office earnings for the films. Marketing costs and additional revenue (home video, TV rights and other auxiliary profits) are not taken into account] 

1. The Da Vinci Code: 178.28 mil. $ range
2. The Devil Wears Prada: 95.6 mil. $ range
3. The Lives of Others: 72.3 mil. $ range new entry
4. Cars: 64.76 mil. $ range
5. Babel: 29.12 mil. $ range
6. The Departed: 25.92 mil. $ range
7. Letters from Iwo Jima: 21.1 mil. $ range new entry
8. The Illusionist: 18.62 mil. $ range
9. The Last King of Scotland: 13.32 mil. $ range
10. Apocalypto: 8.24 mil. $ range

    Total profit: 527.26 mil. $

Biggest Flops of the Year (reviewed so far):

[The loss is based solely on the cost and box office earnings for the films. Marketing costs and additional revenue (home video, TV rights and other auxiliary profits) are not taken into account] 

1. Children of Men: 48.04 mil. $ range
2. Blood Diamond: 31.44 mil. $ range
3. Flags of Our Fathers: 28.64 mil. $ range
4. The Fountain: 28.6 mil. $ range
5. Bandidas: 27.68 mil. $ range
6. 16 Blocks: 26.36 mil. $ range
7. Little Children: 20.4 mil. $ range new entry
8. A Good Year: 18.2 mil. $ range
9. Dreamgirls: 18.08 mil. $ range
10. Black Snake Moan: 10.64 mil. $ range

    Total deficit: 258.08 mil. $

On the 2007 Oscars:

Ellen DeGeneres was successful as host for the first time, and the show had almost 40 mil. viewers domestically, up 2.5 % from the previous year. The most nominated film of the year was the not quite good flop musical Dreamgirls with 8 noms, which, unusually, though was not nominated in the Best Picture category, followed by Babel with 7 noms. But the night's biggest winner was The Departed with 4 wins, followed by Pan's Labyrinth with 3.
The golden men landed like this:
The Departed got Best Picture, Director (a long time coming for New-Yorker master filmmaker Martin Scorsese), Adapted Screenplay (William Monahan) and Editing.
Forest Whitaker took home Best Actor for The Last King of Scotland; Helen Mirren won Best Actress for The Queen. Alan Arkin won Best Supporting Actor for Little Miss Sunshine, while debuting Jennifer Hudson took home Best Supporting Actress for Dreamgirls. Michael Arndt won Best Screenplay for Little Miss Sunshine. Best Animated Feature was won by George Miller's poor penguin film Happy Feet; Best Foreign Film was won by The Lives of Others, and An Inconvenient Truth took Best Documentary and Best Song for I Need to Wake Up by Melissa Etheridge, a first for a documentary. The short film Oscars went to The Blood of Yingzhou District (doc.), West Bank Story (live action) and The Danish Poet (animated). Gustavo Santolalla won Best Score for Babel. Letters from Iwo Jima, and Dreamgirls took Best Sound Editing and Mixing, respectively. Guillermo Navarro won Best Cinematography for Pan's Labyrinth, which also won for Art Direction and Makeup. Marie Antoinette won for Best Costumes, and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest won for Best Visual Effects. Honorary Oscars went to Ennio Morricone and Sherry Lansing.

2006 titles still on the watch-list:

The Fall, The Blue Elephant, Pelts, The History Boy, Venus, Borat, The Forbidden City, Superman Returns, Click, An Inconvenient Truth, The Good German, The Danish Poet, Lifted, No Time for Nuts, The Little Matchgirl, Helmer & Son, The Blood of Yingzhou District, Recycled Life, Rehearsing a Dream, Two Hands: The Lweon Fleischer Story, Deliver Us from Evil, Iraq in Fragments, Jesus Camp, My Country, My Country, After the Wedding, Days of Glory, Monster House

Previous annual lists:
 
2017 in films - according to Film Excess
2016 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I] 
2016 in films - according to Film Excess
2015 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II] 
2015 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
2015 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess 
2014 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
2014 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II] 
2014 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
2014 in films - according to Film Excess
2013 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED IV]
2013 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
2013 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2013 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I] 
2013 in films - according to Film Excess    

2012 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED IV]
2012 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
2012 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2012 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
2012 in films - according to Film Excess 

2011 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
2011 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2011 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
2011 in films - according to Film Excess 

2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess    

2009 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
2009 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess

2008 in films - according to Film Excess

2007 in films - according to Film Excess
2006 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess
 

What do you think of the 2006 lists?
What films of the year are your favorites and least favorites?
Is/are any essential title/s missing on the watch-list?