2006

Academy winnerThe Departed poster

The Departed

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vs
Should have wonThe Prestige poster

The Prestige

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The Academy's ballot

Your #1 was The Prestige (#1).

The full slate

#1
The Prestige poster

The Prestige (2006)

⭐ Top-rated🏛️ All-time great

Composite 83.87

Dir. Christopher Nolan · Hugh Jackman · Christian Bale · Michael Caine · Piper Perabo

IMDb 8.5 (1,594,049 votes) · TMDB 8.208

A mysterious story of two magicians whose intense rivalry leads them on a life-long battle for supremacy -- full of obsession, deceit and jealousy with dangerous and deadly consequences.

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#2
The Departed poster

The Departed (2006)

🏆 Winner⭐ Top-rated🏛️ All-time great

Composite 83.72

Dir. Martin Scorsese · Leonardo DiCaprio · Matt Damon · Jack Nicholson · Mark Wahlberg

IMDb 8.5 (1,558,799 votes) · TMDB 8.16

To take down South Boston's Irish Mafia, the police send in one of their own to infiltrate the underworld, not realizing the syndicate has done likewise. While an undercover cop curries favor with the mob kingpin, a career criminal rises through the police ranks. But both sides soon discover there's a mole among them.

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#3
The Lives of Others poster

The Lives of Others (2006)

⭐ Top-rated🏛️ All-time great

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Dir. Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck · Martina Gedeck · Ulrich Mühe · Sebastian Koch · Ulrich Tukur

IMDb 8.4 (444,092 votes) · TMDB 8.038

In 1984 East Berlin, dedicated Stasi officer Gerd Wiesler begins spying on a famous playwright and his actress-lover Christa-Maria. Wiesler becomes unexpectedly sympathetic to the couple, and faces conflicting loyalties when his superior takes a liking to Christa-Maria.

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#4
Pan's Labyrinth poster

Pan's Labyrinth (2006)

⭐ Top-rated🏛️ All-time great

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Dir. Guillermo del Toro · Ivana Baquero · Sergi López · Maribel Verdú · Doug Jones

IMDb 8.2 (748,019 votes) · TMDB 7.765

In post–civil war Spain, 10-year-old Ofelia moves with her pregnant mother to live under the control of her cruel stepfather. Drawn into a mysterious labyrinth, she meets a faun who reveals that she may be a lost princess from an underground kingdom. To return to her true father, she must complete a series of surreal and perilous tasks that blur the line between reality and fantasy.

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#5
The Pursuit of Happyness poster

The Pursuit of Happyness (2006)

⭐ Top-rated

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Dir. Gabriele Muccino · Will Smith · Jaden Smith · Thandiwe Newton · Brian Howe

IMDb 8.0 (623,772 votes) · TMDB 7.886

A struggling salesman takes custody of his son as he's poised to begin a life-changing professional career.

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#6
Casino Royale poster

Casino Royale (2006)

⭐ Top-rated💰 Box office #4

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Dir. Martin Campbell · Daniel Craig · Eva Green · Mads Mikkelsen · Judi Dench

IMDb 8.0 (747,256 votes) · TMDB 7.6

Le Chiffre, a banker to the world's terrorists, is scheduled to participate in a high-stakes poker game in Montenegro, where he intends to use his winnings to establish his financial grip on the terrorist market. M sends Bond—on his maiden mission as a 00 Agent—to attend this game and prevent Le Chiffre from winning. With the help of Vesper Lynd and Felix Leiter, Bond enters the most important poker game in his already dangerous career.

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#7
Blood Diamond poster

Blood Diamond (2006)

⭐ Top-rated

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Dir. Edward Zwick · Leonardo DiCaprio · Djimon Hounsou · Jennifer Connelly · Kagiso Kuypers

IMDb 8.0 (626,900 votes) · TMDB 7.56

An ex-mercenary turned smuggler. A Mende fisherman. Amid the explosive civil war overtaking 1999 Sierra Leone, these men join for two desperate missions: recovering a rare pink diamond of immense value and rescuing the fisherman's son, conscripted as a child soldier into the brutal rebel forces ripping a swath of torture and bloodshed countrywide.

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#8
Children of Men poster

Children of Men (2006)

⭐ Top-rated

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Dir. Alfonso Cuarón · Clive Owen · Clare-Hope Ashitey · Chiwetel Ejiofor · Julianne Moore

IMDb 7.9 (567,444 votes) · TMDB 7.614

In 2027, in a chaotic world in which humans can no longer procreate, a former activist agrees to help transport a miraculously pregnant woman to a sanctuary at sea, where her child's birth may help scientists save the future of humankind.

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#9
Apocalypto poster

Apocalypto (2006)

⭐ Top-rated

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Dir. Mel Gibson · Rudy Youngblood · Raoul Max Trujillo · Gerardo Taracena · Iazua Larios

IMDb 7.9 (360,132 votes) · TMDB 7.64

Set in the Mayan civilization, when a man's idyllic presence is brutally disrupted by a violent invading force, he is taken on a perilous journey to a world ruled by fear and oppression where a harrowing end awaits him. Through a twist of fate and spurred by the power of his love for his woman and his family he will make a desperate break to return home and to ultimately save his way of life.

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#10
Little Miss Sunshine poster

Little Miss Sunshine (2006)

🎬 Nominee⭐ Top-rated

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Dir. Jonathan Dayton · Greg Kinnear · Toni Collette · Steve Carell · Paul Dano

IMDb 7.8 (560,160 votes) · TMDB 7.692

A family loaded with quirky, colorful characters piles into an old van and road trips to California for little Olive to compete in a beauty pageant.

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#11
Rang De Basanti poster

Rang De Basanti (2006)

⭐ Top-rated

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Dir. Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra · Aamir Khan · Siddharth · Kunal Kapoor · Sharman Joshi

IMDb 8.1 (126,751 votes) · TMDB 7.066

After a group of friends graduate from Delhi University, they listlessly haunt their old campus, until a British filmmaker casts them in a film she's making about freedom fighters under British rule. Although the group is largely apolitical, the tragic death of a friend owing to local government corruption awakens their patriotism. Inspired by the freedom fighters they represent in the film, the friends collectively decide to avenge the killing.

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#12
Letters from Iwo Jima poster

Letters from Iwo Jima (2006)

🎬 Nominee⭐ Top-rated

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Dir. Clint Eastwood · Ken Watanabe · Kazunari Ninomiya · Tsuyoshi Ihara · Ryo Kase

IMDb 7.8 (177,305 votes) · TMDB 7.486

The story of the battle of Iwo Jima between the United States and Imperial Japan during World War II, as told from the perspective of the Japanese who fought it.

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#13
The Fall poster

The Fall (2006)

⭐ Top-rated

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Dir. Tarsem Singh · Lee Pace · Justine Waddell · Daniel Caltagirone · Leo Bill

IMDb 7.8 (129,497 votes) · TMDB 7.625

In a hospital on the outskirts of 1920s Los Angeles, an injured stuntman begins to tell a fellow patient, a little girl with a broken arm, a fantastic story about 5 mythical heroes. Thanks to his fractured state of mind and her vivid imagination, the line between fiction and reality starts to blur as the tale advances.

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#14
Lucky Number Slevin poster

Lucky Number Slevin (2006)

⭐ Top-rated

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Dir. Paul McGuigan · Josh Hartnett · Morgan Freeman · Ben Kingsley · Lucy Liu

IMDb 7.7 (339,380 votes) · TMDB 7.476

Slevin is mistakenly put in the middle of a personal war between the city’s biggest criminal bosses. Under constant watch, Slevin must try not to get killed by an infamous assassin and come up with an idea of how to get out of his current dilemma.

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#15
300 poster

300 (2006)

⭐ Top-rated

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Dir. Zack Snyder · Gerard Butler · Lena Headey · Dominic West · David Wenham

IMDb 7.6 (914,530 votes) · TMDB 7.203

A story very loosely based the 480 B.C. Battle of Thermopylae, where the King of Sparta led his army against the advancing Persians.

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#16
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest poster

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006)

💰 Box office #1

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Dir. Gore Verbinski · Johnny Depp · Orlando Bloom · Keira Knightley · Jack Davenport

IMDb 7.4 (828,472 votes) · TMDB 7.381

Captain Jack Sparrow’s got a blood debt to pay: he owes his soul to the legendary Davy Jones, ghastly Ruler of the Ocean Depths. To escape eternal servitude aboard the Flying Dutchman, ever-crafty Jack must track down the still-beating heart of Jones. But he won’t do it alone: Will Turner and Elizabeth Swann are drawn back into another one of his perilous quests—assuming they can evade execution for aiding a pirate.

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#17
Babel poster

Babel (2006)

🎬 Nominee

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Dir. Alejandro G. Iñárritu · Brad Pitt · Rinko Kikuchi · Adriana Barraza · Cate Blanchett

IMDb 7.4 (329,496 votes) · TMDB 7.172

Tragedy strikes a married couple vacationing in the Moroccan desert, which jumpstarts an interlocking story involving four different families.

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#18
Cars poster

Cars (2006)

💰 Box office #6

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Dir. John Lasseter · Owen Wilson · Paul Newman · Bonnie Hunt · Larry the Cable Guy

IMDb 7.3 (538,900 votes) · TMDB 7.0

Lightning McQueen, a hotshot rookie race car driven to succeed, discovers that life is about the journey, not the finish line, when he finds himself unexpectedly detoured in the sleepy Route 66 town of Radiator Springs. On route across the country to the big Piston Cup Championship in California to compete against two seasoned pros, McQueen gets to know the town's offbeat characters.

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#19
The Queen poster

The Queen (2006)

🎬 Nominee

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Dir. Stephen Frears · Helen Mirren · Michael Sheen · James Cromwell · Helen McCrory

IMDb 7.3 (119,788 votes) · TMDB 6.952

The Queen is an intimate behind the scenes glimpse at the interaction between HM Elizabeth II and Prime Minister Tony Blair during their struggle, following the death of Diana, to reach a compromise between what was a private tragedy for the Royal family and the public's demand for an overt display of mourning.

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#20
Mission: Impossible III poster

Mission: Impossible III (2006)

💰 Box office #8

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Dir. J.J. Abrams · Tom Cruise · Philip Seymour Hoffman · Ving Rhames · Billy Crudup

IMDb 6.9 (425,915 votes) · TMDB 6.766

Retired from active duty, and training recruits for the Impossible Mission Force, agent Ethan Hunt faces the toughest foe of his career: Owen Davian, an international broker of arms and information, who's as cunning as he is ruthless. Davian emerges to threaten Hunt and all that he holds dear – including the woman Hunt loves.

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#21
Ice Age: The Meltdown poster

Ice Age: The Meltdown (2006)

💰 Box office #3

Composite 67.37

Dir. Carlos Saldanha · Ray Romano · John Leguizamo · Denis Leary · Queen Latifah

IMDb 6.8 (319,081 votes) · TMDB 6.7

Diego, Manny and Sid return in this sequel to the hit animated movie Ice Age. This time around, the deep freeze is over, and the ice-covered earth is starting to melt, which will destroy the trio's cherished valley. The impending disaster prompts them to reunite and warn all the other beasts about the desperate situation.

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#22
The Da Vinci Code poster

The Da Vinci Code (2006)

💰 Box office #2

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Dir. Ron Howard · Tom Hanks · Audrey Tautou · Ian McKellen · Jean Reno

IMDb 6.7 (486,939 votes) · TMDB 6.73

A murder in Paris’ Louvre Museum and cryptic clues in some of Leonardo da Vinci’s most famous paintings lead to the discovery of a religious mystery. For 2,000 years a secret society closely guards information that — should it come to light — could rock the very foundations of Christianity.

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#23
X-Men: The Last Stand poster

X-Men: The Last Stand (2006)

💰 Box office #7

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Dir. Brett Ratner · Hugh Jackman · Halle Berry · Ian McKellen · Patrick Stewart

IMDb 6.6 (573,087 votes) · TMDB 6.4

When a cure is found to treat mutations, lines are drawn amongst the X-Men led by Professor Charles Xavier, and Magneto's Brotherhood of Mutants.

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#24
Night at the Museum poster

Night at the Museum (2006)

💰 Box office #5

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Dir. Shawn Levy · Ben Stiller · Carla Gugino · Dick Van Dyke · Mickey Rooney

IMDb 6.5 (411,173 votes) · TMDB 6.6

Chaos reigns at the natural history museum when night watchman Larry Daley accidentally stirs up an ancient curse, awakening Attila the Hun, an army of gladiators, a Tyrannosaurus rex and other exhibits.

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#25
Happy Feet poster

Happy Feet (2006)

💰 Box office #10

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Dir. George Miller · Elijah Wood · Robin Williams · Brittany Murphy · Hugh Jackman

IMDb 6.4 (214,315 votes) · TMDB 6.2

Into the world of the Emperor Penguins, who find their soul mates through song, a penguin is born who cannot sing. But he can tap dance something fierce!

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#26
Superman Returns poster

Superman Returns (2006)

💰 Box office #9

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Dir. Bryan Singer · Brandon Routh · Kate Bosworth · Kevin Spacey · James Marsden

IMDb 6.1 (303,488 votes) · TMDB 5.8

Superman returns to discover his 5-year absence has allowed Lex Luthor to walk free, and that those he was closest to felt abandoned and have moved on. Luthor plots his ultimate revenge that could see millions killed and change the face of the planet forever, as well as ridding himself of the Man of Steel.

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How scoring works: films are ranked by a composite of a weighted (Bayesian) IMDb rating — the same method as the IMDb Top 250, so a high score from few voters can't outrank a strong score from many — blended with TMDB. Box office is a tiebreaker and a badge, never part of the score. Raw IMDb ratings and vote counts are shown on each card.