2006
.45
(2006)
Gary Lennon
N/A
Kate and her brutish boyfriend Big Al sell handguns on the streets of New York. She's smart, stylish, and self-confident, but all that leaves her when Al, in a jealous and self-indulgent rage, beats her. Three friends encourage her recovery: Vic, a woman who would like to be Kate's lover; Reilly, who runs with Al but also is attracted to Kate and repulsed by Al's violence; and, Liz, the counselor assigned to Kate from a battered-women's program. Vic and Reilly talk about killing Al, Liz gives pep talks; Kate remains frightened. Will Al's menace and Kate's dependency hold sway?
300
(2006)
Zack Snyder (screenplay), Kurt Johnstad (screenplay), Michael Gordon (screenplay), Frank Miller (graphic novel), Lynn Varley (graphic novel)
16 wins & 41 nominations.
King Leonidas of Sparta and a force of 300 men fight the Persians at Thermopylae in 480 B.C.
A Scanner Darkly
(2006)
Philip K. Dick (novel), Richard Linklater (screenplay)
3 wins & 16 nominations.
An undercover cop in a not-too-distant future becomes involved with a dangerous new drug and begins to lose his own identity as a result.
Black Christmas
(2006)
Glen Morgan (screenplay), Roy Moore
1 nomination.
In the 70's, the boy Billy is born with yellow skin due to a liver disease and his dysfunctional mother rejects him. Later he witnesses his mother and her lover killing his beloved father and burying him in the basement of their house, and he is locked in the attic alone along his childhood. When he is a teenager, he is sexually abused by his mother and she has a baby girl called Agnes. During Christmas, the deranged Billy escapes from his imprisonment, kills his mother and stepfather and blinds one eye of Agnes. He is declared insane and his sister is sent to an orphanage. In the present days, Billy escapes from the Clark Sanatorium to spend Christmas with his family. Meanwhile, his former house is the Delta Alpha Kappa sorority house in the campus of the Clement University, and the housemother and the sisters Kelli Presley, Dana, Lauren Hannon, Megan, Heather, Megan Helms, Melissa and Eve Agnew are preparing the house for Christmas party in a stormy night while Clair Crosby is in her room writing a card to bury the hatchet with her sister. When three sisters vanish, the others receive weird phone calls and believe something is wrong, but they find that they are trapped in the location.
Black Sheep
(2006)
Jonathan King
5 wins & 5 nominations.
An experiment in genetic engineering turns harmless sheep into blood-thirsty killers that terrorize a sprawling New Zealand farm.
Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan
(2006)
Sacha Baron Cohen (screenplay), Anthony Hines (screenplay), Peter Baynham (screenplay), Dan Mazer (screenplay), Sacha Baron Cohen (story), Peter Baynham (story), Anthony Hines (story), Todd Phillips (story), Sacha Baron Cohen (based on a character created by)
Nominated for 1 Oscar. Another 20 wins & 28 nominations.
Kazakh TV talking head Borat is dispatched to the United States to report on the greatest country in the world. With a documentary crew in tow, Borat becomes more interested in locating and marrying Pamela Anderson.
Casino Royale
(2006)
Neal Purvis, Robert Wade, Paul Haggis
Won 1 BAFTA Award28 wins & 44 nominations total
James Bond (Daniel Craig) goes on his first mission as a 00. Le Chiffre (Mads Mikkelsen) is a banker to the world's terrorists. He is participating in a poker game at Montenegro, where he must win back his money, in order to stay safe amongst the terrorist market. The boss of MI6, known simply as "M" (Dame Judi Dench) sends Bond, along with Vesper Lynd Eva Green) to attend this game and prevent Le Chiffre from winning. Bond, using help from Felix Leiter (Jeffrey Wright), Rene Mathis (Giancarlo Giannini), and having Vesper pose as his partner, enters the most important poker game in his already dangerous career. But if Bond defeats Le Chiffre, will he and Vesper Lynd remain safe?
Children of Men
(2006)
Alfonso Cuarón (screenplay), Timothy J. Sexton (screenplay), David Arata (screenplay), Mark Fergus (screenplay), Hawk Ostby (screenplay), P.D. James (novel)
Nominated for 3 Oscars. Another 37 wins & 59 nominations.
The world's youngest citizen has just died at 18, and humankind is facing the likelihood of its own extinction. Set in and around a dystopian London fractious with violence and warring nationalistic sects, Children of Men follows the unexpected discovery of a lone pregnant woman and the desperate journey to deliver her to safety and restore faith for a future beyond those presently on Earth.
Day Watch
(2006)
Timur Bekmambetov, Sergey Lukyanenko (novel), Alexander Talal (screenplay), Vladimir Vasiliev (novel)
5 wins & 8 nominations.
A man who serves in the war between the forces of Light and Dark comes into possession of a device that can restore life to Moscow, which was nearly destroyed by an apocalyptic event.
Deja Vu
(2006)
Bill Marsilii, Terry Rossio
1 win & 5 nominations.
After a ferry is bombed in New Orleans, an A.T.F. agent joins a unique investigation using experimental surveillance technology to find the bomber, but soon finds himself becoming obsessed with one of the victims.
Firewall
(2006)
Joe Forte
3 nominations
As a bid to pay off his family's ransom a security specialist named Jack Stanfield is forced into robbing a bank that he is protecting! His family gets kidnapped and taken to the middle of nowhere and it's up to Jack Stanfield to rescue his family and get the money back!
Flags of Our Fathers
(2006)
William Broyles Jr. (screenplay), Paul Haggis (screenplay), James Bradley (book), Ron Powers (book)
Nominated for 2 Oscars. Another 15 wins & 24 nominations.
In 1945, the Marines attack twelve thousand Japaneses protecting the twenty square kilometers of the sacred Iwo Jima island in a very violent battle. When they reach the Mount Suribachi and six Marines raise their flag on the top, the picture becomes a symbol in a post Great Depression America. The government brings the three survivors to America to raise funds for war, bringing hope to desolate people, and making the three men heroes of the war. However, the traumatized trio has difficulty dealing with the image built by their superiors, sharing the heroism with their mates.
For Your Consideration
(2006)
Christopher Guest, Eugene Levy
3 wins & 10 nominations.
Three actors learn that their respective performances in the film "Home for Purim," a drama set in the mid-1940s American South, are generating award-season buzz.
Inside Man
(2006)
Russell Gewirtz
6 wins & 8 nominations.
From a cell, a man tells us he has planned the perfect bank robbery; he invites us to watch. An efficient gang enters a Manhattan bank, locks the doors, and takes hostages. They work deliberately, without haste. Detective Frazier is assigned to negotiate, but half his mind is occupied with the corruption charges he is facing. The bank's president has something to protect in a safe deposit box, so he brings in Madeleine White, a high-power broker with a hidden agenda. With an army of police surrounding the bank, the thief, the cop, and the plutocrat's fixer enter high-stakes negotiations. Why are the robbers asking for a plane, if they are so competent and they know they won't get one? Why aren't they in more of a hurry? If the job's perfect, why is the thieves' leader in a cell?
Jar City
(2006)
Arnaldur Indriðason (novel), Baltasar Kormákur (screenplay)
11 wins & 1 nomination.
Örn's daughter is dead because of a rare genetic disease. By this time Erlendur has to find Holdeberg's killer. He has to find out what happened 30 years ago and to connect it with his case and he has another problem...His relationships with his daughter.
Letters from Iwo Jima
(2006)
Iris Yamashita (screenplay), Iris Yamashita (story), Paul Haggis (story), Tadamichi Kuribayashi (book), Tsuyoko Yoshido (book)
Won 1 Oscar. Another 23 wins & 36 nominations.
The island of Iwo Jima stands between the American military force and the home islands of Japan. Therefore the Imperial Japanese Army is desperate to prevent it from falling into American hands and providing a launching point for an invasion of Japan. General Tadamichi Kuribayashi is given command of the forces on the island and sets out to prepare for the imminent attack. General Kuribayashi, however, does not favor the rigid traditional approach recommended by his subordinates, and resentment and resistance fester among his staff. In the lower echelons, a young soldier, Saigo, a poor baker in civilian life, strives with his friends to survive the harsh regime of the Japanese army itself, all the while knowing that a fierce battle looms. When the American invasion begins, both Kuribayashi and Saigo find strength, honor, courage, and horrors beyond imagination.
Lucky Number Slevin
(2006)
Jason Smilovic
5 wins & 4 nominations.
In an airport waiting room, a man in a wheelchair tells a stranger a story about a fixed horse race in 1979 that resulted in a family's deaths. In Manhattan, two bookies and the son of a Mob boss die. A young man just out of the shower answers the door to a neighbor woman and explains that he's visiting, has had a bad week, including being mugged, and doesn't know where his pal, who lives there, is. The neighbor is chatty; she's a coroner. Two thugs arrive and, believing the visitor to be the guy who lives there, take him to see the boss with the dead son, who tells him to kill the son of his Mob rival. Mistaken identity? What connects the threads? Cops are watching.
Miami Vice
(2006)
Michael Mann, Anthony Yerkovich (TV series)
1 win & 9 nominations.
Ricardo Tubbs is urbane and dead smart. He lives with Bronx-born Intel analyst Trudy, as they work undercover transporting drug loads into South Florida to identify a group responsible for three murders. Sonny Crockett [to the untrained eye, his presentation may seem unorthodox, but procedurally, he is sound] is charismatic and flirtatious until - while undercover working with the supplier of the South Florida group - he gets romantically entangled with Isabella, the Chinese-Cuban wife of an arms and drugs trafficker. The best undercover identity is oneself with the volume turned up and restraint unplugged. The intensity of the case pushes Crockett and Tubbs out onto the edge where identity and fabrication become blurred, where cop and player become one - especially for Crockett in his romance with Isabella and for Tubbs in the provocation of an assault on those he loves.
Pan's Labyrinth
(2006)
Guillermo del Toro
Won 3 Oscars. Another 88 wins & 89 nominations.
In the falangist Spain of 1944, the bookish young stepdaughter of a sadistic army officer escapes into an eerie but captivating fantasy world.
Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
(2006)
Andrew Birkin (screenplay), Bernd Eichinger (screenplay), Tom Tykwer (screenplay), Patrick Süskind (novel)
15 wins & 17 nominations.
Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, born with a superior olfactory sense, creates the world's finest perfume. His work, however, takes a dark turn as he searches for the ultimate scent.