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ELIGIBLE TITLES FOR 2005

VOTE THROUGH JULY 31

Please post in this thread if you think anything needs to change about the list of eligible titles

Can you please add

Loft (Kiyoshi Kurosawa)
Pulse (Kiyoshi Kurosawa)
Red Eye (Wes Craven)
Where the Truth Lies (Atom Egoyan)

I actually have Loft as 2006 and Pulse as 2001 (where it made our top 10). Otherwise added

Excellent year for Asian cinema, which, sadly, except for the biggest titles, feels under-appreciated in these lists. In 2005 there's Hong Sang-soo's best film, A Tale of Cinema; Im Sang-soo's best film, The President's Last Bang; the crazy Tsai Ming-liang watermelon movie; and Apichatpong Weerasethakul's fabulous jungle musical short, "Worldly Desires", all currently on the list.

Not yet on the list are two 2005 Kobayashi Masahiro movies - indeed, it seems none of his films are on the list now. Bashing is short, simple film about the mistreatment of a kidnapped aid worker upon her eventual return to Japan. But Flic is a slow-paced, complex detective story that at times is so bizarre, so bizarrely funny, it pretty much demands you immediate rewatch it to confirm you weren't hallucinating the first time.

Sono Sion's Noriko's Dinner Table - a top-fiver for sure - is on the list, but the same year Sono made what for me, today at least, is the best movie of 2005, Yume no naka e [Into a Dream]. Erratically handheld, roughly edited, outrageous, no budget filmmaking à la Bad Film. Aliens, STDs, a deadpan Japanese production of "Streetcar", and somehow, a tearjerker! Good luck.

Other Asian films of note not on the list: Sabu's Dead Run [Shisso], Chen Kaige's wacky The Promise; and Stanley Kwan's Everlasting Regret (the most William Chang-y (best?) of Kwan's films, not least because Chang designed and edited it).

Non-Asian titles to add: Robinson Devor's delightfully sui generis Police Beat is 2005. And I'd recommend Jim Jennings experimental "Made in Chinatown" if the youtube version you'd likely find were not of such execrable quality.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THESE MATTERS!!!

yoshimori wrote: Tue Jun 02, 2026 2:56 pm Not yet on the list are two 2005 Kobayashi Masahiro movies - indeed, it seems none of his films are on the list now

Feel free to suggest additions beyond his films from this year

Thanks, yoshimori. Can you make recs for 2004, too? [Edit: never mind. Looks like you did!]

I've added all those suggestions plus Kobayashi's Haru's Journey for good measure

Could The Ax (Costa-Gavras) be added.

Done

swo17 wrote: Tue Jun 02, 2026 3:04 pm

yoshimori wrote: Tue Jun 02, 2026 2:56 pm Not yet on the list are two 2005 Kobayashi Masahiro movies - indeed, it seems none of his films are on the list now

Feel free to suggest additions beyond his films from this year

Kobayashi Masahiro was an independent filmmaker who was a bit of a Cannes darling at the turn of the millennium and the half decade afterwards, after which he became a fixture at other European tests (Locarno, Rotterdam, etc). For me, Flic (2005) was the film the made me seek out all previous and subsequent work, none of which, sadly, repeated that success. The best of the rest, for me, are Amazing Story (2003, Kobayashi's entry in the "Perfect Education" pinku series, which includes entries by Wakamatsu, Adachi, Fukasaku Kenta, et al), Rebirth (2007), and Where Are You? (2009) - but none of them are as interesting as the two 2005 films.