While, like any knock-out tournament, the film fight format cannot create a ranking for the films I’ve seen this year, it can show one thing (and only one thing): my favourite film of the year. Here are the finalists:
- Team America: World Police
- Million Dollar Baby
- The Life Aquatic
- The Assassination Of Richard Nixon
- Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy
- Sin City
- War Of The Worlds
- The Wedding Crashers
- Land Of The Dead
- A History Of Violence
- Saw 2
- Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
Wow, those are some fairly excellent films (except Hitchhiker’s and War Of The Worlds, which won by default), and that’s leaving aside stuff that would have shined elsewhere (Batman Begins was out the same month as Sin City and there was little in it, for example, or pretty much everything in October).
So from the list of finalists, remembering that some better films never made it to the final twelve, the best film of this year is…
The Life Aquatic. While both Sin City and Million Dollar Baby nearly had it, the performances and perfect comic moments in the Bill Murray film take it into the lead. Quirky, but brilliantly so. Every scene adds a little more to the overall charm. A good winner.