I'll be posting my own "top of 2006" list here shortly, but I like Anthony Lane's picks.

My saddest moment in a movie theatre came a month ago, when I screened “All About Eve” to a bunch of acquaintances, one of whom came up to me at the end. “What happened?” she asked.

“Well,” I replied, “Anne Baxter got the award, and Bette Davis sat there all steamed up, and George—”

“No,” she said, tapping her foot, “what happened to movies like that? Movies with four great parts for women and lines you want to quote? Where did they go?”

No idea, but they sure as hell aren’t coming back.

I'm not so much in line with David Denby's companion write-up; while I agree on some of his picks ("Little Children" and "The Queen" among them), his commentary leaves something to be desired.

Lane has some interesting what-could-have-been questions:

How would “Mission: Impossible III” have ended up if Paul Greengrass ("United 93") had been in charge? Can you imagine “The Da Vinci Code” remade by Michael Haneke ("Caché / Hidden"), with Tom Hanks locked in a crypt?

Memorable Movies of 2006 | Anthony Lane in The New Yorker