The 10 best films of 2006

A disclaimer: Producers are about to release some new movies as candidates for Oscar honors, which we'll be reviewing in early 2007. Our choices are based on films we've seen and are listed below in the order we saw them.

* The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada centers on the long trip on horseback from Texas to a small village in Mexico by a ranch foreman (Tommy Lee Jones, who also directed) in order to bury a cowboy friend, shot by a trigger-happy border guard. In the light of the current national dispute over illegal immigrants, this fine film carries extra significance and poignancy.

* Sophie Scholl: The Final Days is a powerful presentation of a young anti-Nazi student heroine, forcefully played by Julia Jentsch, on trial for distributing antiwar leaflets on a German campus in 1943. Even when her defense collapses, she lectures the prosecuting attorney that Germany should sue for peace. Ms. Jentsch makes Scholl naive yet credibly attractive. She turns briefly to prayer when deeply shaken.

* L'Enfant, directed by Belgian brothers JeanPierre and Luc Dardenne, is a closely observed look at depressed lives in an industrial town. Sonia is an innocent young woman who has just become a mother; Bruno, a petty thief who cares for her but sells their baby son for quick profit. Seeing Sonia in shock, he rushes to get the child back, with hair-raising results. A hint of transcendence emerges at the end when Bruno receives the gift of tears.

* Deepa Mehta's Water describes the situation of widows who are forced to live as outcasts in decrepit common homes in 1938 India. The film follows 8year-old Chuyia's entry into such a house, where she is befriended by the beautiful young Kalyani, forced to support the home by sometimes serving as a prostitute. Traditional Indian music plays in the background while growing awareness of Gandhi's example offers a needed ray of hope in this lyrical and heart-wrenching film.

* An Inconvenient Truth is probably the must-see documentary of the year. As host, Al Gore's professorial approach is overcome by the powerful evidence he brings--verbal and visual--of the dangers of global warming. He leaves viewers wanting more and wanting to do more.

* Robert Altman's Prairie Home Companion weaves together backstage and onstage narratives as he presents an imagined final performance of Garrison Keillor's weekly radio show. Wealthy Texas Christians are axing the program as "out of date." The movie captures Mr. Keillor's relaxed style, aided by Kevin Kline's comic performance and delightful duets by Meryl Streep and Lily Tomlin.

* The Queen makes gentle fun of maneuvering between Queen Elizabeth II and Tony Blair after the death of Princess Diana in 1997. At first Her Majesty ignores the outpouring of grief by the people but eventually consents to make a public statement in her honor. With restraint and professionalism, actress Helen Mirren gives the performance of the year. The queen's compassionate response to the needless slaughter of a stag suggests the depth of her inner feelings, and earns our full respect.

* World Trade Center was a pleasant surprise, a use of the events of Sept. 11 that is both realistic and restrained. The director, Oliver Stone, shifts between the two New York Port Authority policemen caught under the rubble at Ground Zero and their distraught wives at home. Nicolas Cage and Michael Pena give the men's heroism extra strength by making it seem everyday.

* Neil Burger's The Illusionist is a delightful magic show set in finde siecle Vienna, full of suspense but conveying a sense that happy endings are inevitable. I'm sure I'm not the only one unable to see through the movie's tricks, but this handsomely produced melodrama makes believers of all who delight in mystification, allowing us to believe in the victory of beauty over wickedness.

* Volver is Pedro Almodovar's suspensefnl but madcap tale of a sisterhood or women where the dead seem to return to life and family relations are topsyturvy. What is hard to explain is why, though the film includes grim materials, the viewer is left in an upbeat mood. Penelope Cruz is part of the answer; the rest is due to the director's skill in mixing humor and surrealism with his intertwined stories.

The year's end also saw the passing of Robert Altman, a master of multinarrative films using a repertory of actors (see "Prairie Home Companion" above). A quixotic rebel who grew up in Kansas City, Mo., where he was educated in part by the Jesuits, Altman did his best work in the late 1960s and early 1970s as the influence of the autocratic Hollywood studio system began to wane. His interwoven charac ter-driven plots and irreverent versions of classic genres from the western to the detective movie revealed a humanism that recalled the best films of Jean Renoir and Francois Truffaut.

From his breakthrough "M*A*S*H" (1970) to "Nashville" (1975), "Short Cuts" (1992) and "The Player" (1993), Mr. Altman offered films with a multiple-point-of-view perspective and an uncanny naturalness rare in American cinema. His casts revealed themselves as flawed but truly human figures, with" self-justifying but endearing reasons for their behaviors. Even his villains, including a vast array of thugs and hoodlums, share this humanity. There is just enough cynicism and sarcasm to appeal to coming-of-age baby-boomers, yet Mr. Altman maintained his vision of a repertory company. Always ready to try new technology, he used mobile sound systems so actors could have more freedom on the set. Low lighting and grimy sets gave his classic antiwestern, "McCabe & Mrs. Miller" (1971), a grungy, vermin-filled look.