2005 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]

The Top 10 of the Year

1. Six Feet Under - season 5 - Alan Ball + Best American Title of the Year + Best Drama of the Year + Best Los Angeles Title of the Year + Best Returning TV-series of the Year

2. The Death of Mr. Lazarescu/Moartea domnului Lăzărescu - Cristi Puiu + Best Romanian Movie of the Year + Most Undeserved Flop of the Year + Best Huge Flop of the Year + Best Societal Critique of the Year + Best Feel-Bad Movie of the Year + Best Low-Budget Movie of the Year

3. No Direction Home: Bob Dylan, documentary - Martin Scorsese + Best Epic of the Year + Best Music Movie of the Year

4. Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, documentary - Alex Gibney

5. The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe - Andrew Adamson
 + Best Family Movie of the Year + Best Fantasy of the Year + Best Adaptation of the Year + Best Blockbuster of the Year + Best Poster of the Year 

6. Hidden/Caché - Michael Haneke + Best French Film of the Year + Best Mystery of the Year

7. A History of Violence - David Cronenberg + Best Indiana Movie of the Year

8. Brokeback Mountain - Ang Lee + Best Western of the Year + Best LGBT Movie of the Year + Comeback Actor of the Year: Jake Gyllenhaal

9. The Constant Gardner - Fernando Meirelles + Best Thriller of the Year + Best Political Movie of the Year + Most Deserved Hit of the Year

10. Lord of War - Andrew Niccol + Best Villain of the Year: Nicolas Cage as Yuri Orlog + Best War Movie of the Year


Other great 2005 movies (in alphabetical order):

The 40 Year-Old Virgin - Judd Apatow + Best Debut Movie of the Year + Best Comedy of the Year 

Broken Flowers - Jim Jarmusch + Best Road Movie of the Year

C.R.A.Z.Y. - Jean-Marc Vallée + Best Canadian Movie of the Year + Best Coming-of-Age Movie of the Year

Dark Water - Walter Salles + Best Remake of the Year

 

Fierce People - Griffin Dunne + Best Shooting Star Actor of the Year: Anton Yelchin + Most Under-Appreciated Movie of the Year + Best Box Office Disaster of the Year + Worst Distribution of the Year + Best Youth Movie of the Year 

Hard Candy - David Slade + Best Independent Movie of the Year + Best Shooting Star Actress of the Year: Ellen Page

 

Hostel - Eli Roth + Best Horror of the Year + Best Mega-hit Movie of the Year + Best Sexploitation of the Year

 

Munich - Steven Spielberg + Best Period Movie of the Year + Best Spy Movie of the Year + Best Revenge Movie of the Year

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

Allegro - Christoffer Boe

 Batman Begins - Christopher Nolan + Best Superhero Movie of the Year

 Capote - Bennett Miller + Best Biopic of the Year

Coach Carter - Thomas Carter + Best Sports Movie of the Year

Deadwood, season 2 - David Milch, creator

Deer Woman, TV movie - John Landis + Best TV movie of the Year

The Descent - Neil Marshall + Best Monster Movie of the Year + Best Gore Movie of the Year + Best British Movie of the Year

Elizabethtown - Cameron Crowe + Best Big Flop Movie of the Year + Best Romance of the Year + Best Feel-Good Movie of the Year + Best Kentucky Movie of the Year

 

 

Good Night, and Good Luck. - George Clooney + Best B/W Movie of the Year + Best Huge Hit Movie of the Year 

 

 

Hazard - Sion Sono + Best Crime Drama of the Year + Bet New York Movie of the Year

House of Wax - Jaume Collet-Sera

 

Hustle & Flow - Craig Brewer + Best Tennessee Movie of the Year

Match Point - Woody Allen + Best London Movie of the Year

Me and You and Everyone We Know - Miranda July + Best Big Hit Movie of the Year + Best Dramedy of the Year

The Method/El Método - Marcelo Piñeyro

 

Mrs Henderson Presents - Stephen Frears

Murk/Mørke - Jannik Johansen + Best Mega-flop of the Year

 

Our Daily Bread/Unser Täglich Brot, documentary - Nikolaus Geyrhalter

 
The Bottom 10 of the Year

1. Day of the Dead 2: Contagium - Ana Clavell, James Glenn Dudelson

2. Everything Is Illuminated - Liev Schreiber + Most Overrated Movie of the Year

3. Dance of the Dead (TV movie) - Tobe Hooper

4. Accused/Anklaget - Jacob Thuesen

 

5. Off Screen - Pieter Kuijpers

6. Derailed - Mikael Håström + Most Undeserved Hit of the Year

7. Domino - Tony Scott + Worst Poster of the Year  

8. Get Rich or Die Tryin' - Jim Sheridan

9. Cigarette Burns (TV movie) - John Carpenter

 

10. The New World - Terrence Malick + Most Deserved Flop of the Year

Other failed, mediocre and/or poor movies of the year (in alphabetical order):

2001 Maniacs - Tim Sullivan

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Garth Jennings 
A Year Without Love/Un Año Sin Amor - Anahí Berneri

Angels in Fast Motion/Nordkraft - Ole Christian Madsen 
The Brothers Grimm - Terry Gilliam + Most Expensive Flop of the Year: 45.88 mil. $ range)
Chocolate (TV movie) - Mick Garris
Colour Me Kubrick: A Tru...ish Story/Color Me Kubrick - Brian W. Cook

Corpse Bride - Tim Burton, Mike Johnson
Dear Wendy - Thomas Vinterberg
The Devil's Rejects - Rob Zombie + Craziest Movie of the Year
The Dukes of Hazzard - Jay Chandrasekhar + Best Car Movie of the Year
The Exorcism of Emily Rose - Scott Derrickson
Flightplan - Robert Schwentke

Fragile/Frágiles - Jaume Balagueró
Fun with Dick and Jane - Dean Parisot + Best On-Screen Couple of the Year: Téa Leoni & Jim Carrey
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire - Mike Newell + Most Profitable Hit of the Year: 208.68 mil. $ range

Hostage - Florent-Emilio Siri 

Land of the Dead - George A. Romero
The Longest Yard - Peter Segal

Madagascar - Eric Darnell, Tom McGrath
The Matador - Richard Shepard

Oliver Twist - Roman Polanski 

Saw II - Darren Lynn Bousman 
Weeds, season 1 - Jenji Kohan, creator

[70 titles in total]

Notes:

The first update of the 2005 lists adds 19 reviewed titles to the mix: Two new titles make it to the Top 10 and three to the Bottom 10:

The Top 10 sees upset at the top, as the 5th and final season of Alan Ball's generational drama Six Feet Under earns gold, pushing Cristi Puiu's revelatory death-drama The Death of Mr. Lazarescu to silver. And Martin Scorsese's encompassing music documentary No Direction Home: Bob Dylan takes bronze.

The list goes on with Alex Gibney's enraging, shocking documentary Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room; Andrew Adamson's amazing family fantasy adaptation The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe; Michael Haneke's unsettling thriller Hidden; David Cronenberg's fascinating and brutal thriller A History of Violence; Ang Lee's mainstream-breaching, grand cowboy romance tragedy Brokeback Mountain; Fernando Meirelles' vivid, beautiful thriller adaptation The Constant Gardner; with Andrew Niccol's chilling, thrilling weapon's dealer war drama Lord of War rounding off the list. Steven Spielberg's controversial, elegant and suspenseful period thriller Munich and Griffin Dunne's mismanaged coming-of-age gem Fierce People fall out of the Top 10 in this edition.
Among the other great films of the year are David Slade's unpleasant thriller Hard Candy, Judd Apatow's hilarious debut The 40 Year-Old Virgin, Jean-Marc Vallée's vibrant youth movie C.R.A.Z.Y. and Walter Salles' great J-horror remake Dark Water. Other good entries of 2005 include the filthy 2nd season of Deadwood, Christopher Nolan's first Batman movie Batman Begins, the perhaps ultimate meet-cute, Elizabethtown, a nerve-wrecking claustrophobic cave horror, The Descent, and a weird but highly entertaining TV movie, Deer Woman.
The worst of the year are first and foremost low-budget fare: Day of the Dead 2: Contagium by Ana Clavell and James Glenn Dudelson may rank among the decade's worst, a travesty in the zombie genre. It is followed by Liev Schreiber's pretentious, dull and overrated Everything Is Illuminated and Tobe Hooper's Masters of Horror TV movie entry, Dance of the Dead as the year's 2nd and 3rd bottom of the barrel slush.
Following them are Jacob Thuesen's cloying pedophilia drama Accused; Pieter Kuijpers' depressing and dull Off-Screen; Mikael Håfström's ugly, pointless Derailed; Tony Scott's massive money-losing action dud Domino; Jim Sheridan's flawed rapper biopic Get Rich or Die Tryin'; John Carpenter's unimpressive TV movie Cigarette Burns; and finally master filmmaker Terrence Malick's pretentious epic The New World. Jaume Balagueró's UK-Spanish horror flunk Fragile, Eric Darnell and Tom McGrath's cynical cash-grab Madagascar and Tim Burton and Mike Johnson's loud and empty stop-motion animation Corpse Bride all escape the Bottom 10 list at this point.
Among the other great filmmakers who churned out sub-par efforts in 2005 we find Terry Gilliam (The Brothers Grimm), Thomas Vinterberg (Dear Wendy), Ole Christian Madsen (Angels in Fast Motion), Mike Newell (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire), Roman Polanski (Oliver Twist) and George A. Romero (Land of the Dead). 

 

On the 2006 Oscars:

Jon Stewart hosted the show for the first time, with 39 mil. viewers tuning in in the US, 8 % down from the preceding year. 4 pictures all took 3 wins each; Brokeback Mountain, King Kong, Memoirs of a Geisha and Crash, the latter winning Best Picture. Brokeback Mountain had raked in the most nominations with 8 nods.
Crash won Best Picture over fellow nominees Brokeback Mountain, Capote, Good Night, and Good Luck. and Munich. Ang Lee won Best Director as the first non-Caucasian person. Philip Seymour Hoffman won Best Actor for Capote; Reese Witherspoon Best Actress for Walk the Line; George Clooney Supporting Actor for Syriana and Rachel Weisz Supporting Actress for The Constant Gardner.
Paul Haggis and Robert Moresco won Best Original Screenplay for Crash, which also took Best Editing; Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana Adapted Screenplay for Brokeback Mountain. Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit won Best Animated Feature; Tsotsi by Gavin Hood Best Foreign Language Film for South Africa; and March of the Penguins by Luc Jacquet and Yves Darondeau Best Documentary. The short Oscars went to A Note of Triumph: The Golden Age of Norman Corwin (doc.), Six Shooter (live action) and The Moon and the Son: An Imagined Conversation (animation).
Gustavo Santoalla won Best Score for Brokeback Mountain; Jordan Houston, Cedric Coleman and Paul Beauregard won Best Original Song for It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp from Hustle & Flow; King Kong won Oscars for Best Sound Editing, Sound Mixing and Visual Effects.
Memoirs of a Geisha won Best Art Direction, Costume Design and Cinematography (Dion Beebe). The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe won Best Makeup. An honorary Oscar went to Robert Altman.

Biggest flops of the year:

[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. The Brothers Grimm - 45.88 mil. $ range

2. Oliver Twist - 43 mil. $ range (NEW ENTRY)
3. Domino - 40.84 mil. $ range

4. Hostage - 33.96 mil. $ (NEW ENTRY)
5. Elizabethtown - 24.2 mil. $ range

6. Get Rich or Die Tryin' - 21.4 mil. $ (NEW ENTRY)
7. Lord of War - 20.96 mil. $ range
8. Fun with Dick and Jane - 19.2 mil. $ range
9. Munich - 17.88 mil. $ range

10. House of Wax - 12 mil. $ range (NEW ENTRY)

= Combined losses: 279.32 mil. $

Biggest hits of the year:

[The gain 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. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire - 208.66 mil. $ range (NEW ENTRY)

2. Madagascar - 138.04 mil. $ range
3. The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe - 118 mil. $ range
4. Brokeback Mountain - 57.2 mil. $ range

5. Saw II - 55.08 mil. $ range (NEW ENTRY)
6. Flightplan - 39.32 mil. $ range
7. The Exorcism of Emily Rose - 37.68 mil. $ range

8. Hostel - 27.96 mil. $ range (NEW NETRY)
9. Match Point - 19.12 mil. $ range
10. The Descent - 17.83 mil. $ range

= Combined profits: 718.89 mil. $ 

2005 titles currently on the watch-list:

Forty Shades of Blue, Shadowboxer, Keeping Mum, Kinky Boots, Fateless, Dominion: Prequel to the Exorcist, Melissa P. Maestro, West Bank Story, One Too Many, The Saviour, Water, Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World, Time to Leave, Hardwood, The Children of Leningradsky

Previous annual lists: 

    
2021 in films - according to Film Excess 

2020 in films - according to Film Excess 

2019 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I] 

2019 in films - according to Film Excess 
2018 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
2018 in films - according to Film Excess  
2017 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
2017 in films - according to Film Excess
2016 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
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 IV] 
2015 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
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 IV]
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 V]
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 V] 
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 III]
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 III]
2009 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
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 and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II] 
2008 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
2008 in films - according to Film Excess
2007 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2007 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
2007 in films - according to Film Excess

2006 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II] 
2006 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
2006 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess   
2005 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess  

2004 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I] 
2004 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess

2003 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II] 

2003 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I] 
2003 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess 
2002 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess 
2001 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess 

2000 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess

1999 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess  

1998 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess 

1997 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess 

1996 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess 

1995 in films and TV-series - according to Film Exces

What do you think of the 2005 list?
Which 2005 titles would make to your top and bottom lists?
Which worthwhile 2005 titles are missing on the watch-list?