National Board of Review's Best of 2006

The National Board of Review's Awards for 2006 were made known Wednesday night (just moments previously, I was in Red Bank caught up in Pedro Almodovar's "Volver," the winner for Best Foreign Film, I would enthusiastically find out soon enough) with Clint Eastwood's "Letters From Iwo Jima" (Ken Watanabe, left, stars) given the honor of Best Film. The National Board of Review is made up of film educators and other professionals with no official ties to Hollywood. The Board's choice for Best Film of 2005 was "Good Night, and Good Luck, not a stellar selection for the prize, if I do say so, when "The Squid and the Whale," "Brokeback Mountain," "Capote" and "A History of Violence" were, by a long shot, superior. "Dreamgirls," Bill Condon's adaptation of Michael Bennett's Broadway musical with Jamie Foxx, Beyonce Knowles and Eddie Murphy, didn't catch fire with National Board of Review judges (only former "American Idol" finalist Jennifer Hudson won an award for her performance as starlet Effie White) and, in effect, could tarnish the period musical's as-good-as-golden aura and cool any of the feverous momentum that began to gain cache in May with a spotlight tease at the Cannes Film Festival. Below, the list of National Board of Review winners.

Best Film: "Letters From Iwo Jima," Top Ten Films (in alphabetical order) "Babel," "Blood Diamond" (opens Dec. 8), "The Departed," "The Devil Wears Prada," "Flags of Our Fathers," "The History Boys" (opens Dec. 8), "Letters From Iwo Jima" (opens Dec. 20), "Little Miss Sunshine," "Notes on a Scandal" (opens Dec. 29) and "The Painted Veil" (opens Dec. 20), Best Foreign Film: "Volver" with "Curse of the Golden Flower," "Days of Glory," "Pan's Labyrinth" and "Water," Best Documentary: "An Inconvenient Truth" with "51 Birch Street," "Iraq in Fragments," "Shut Up & Sing" and "Wordplay," Best Animated Feature:
"Cars," Best Actor: Forest Whitaker, "The Last King of Scotland," Best Actress: Helen Mirren, "The Queen," Best Supporting Actor: Djimon Hounsou, "Blood Diamond," Best Supporting Actress: Catherine O'Hara, "For Your Consideration," Best Acting By An Ensemble: "The Departed," Best Director: Martin Scorsese, "The Departed," Male Breakthrough Performance: Ryan Gosling, "Half Nelson," Female Breakthrough Performance: Jennifer Hudson, "Dreamgirls," and Rinko Kikuchi, "Babel," Best Directorial Debut: Jason Reitman, "Thank You For Smoking," Best Adapted Screenplay: Ron Nyswaner, "The Painted Veil," Best Original Screenplay: Zach Helm, "Stranger Than Fiction," Top Ten Independent Films (in alphabetical order) "Akeelah and the Bee," "Bobby," "Catch A Fire," "Copying Beethoven," "A Guide To Recognizing Your Saints," "Half Nelson," "The Illusionist," "Lonesome Jim," "Sherrybaby," "10 Items or Less" and "Thank You For Smoking"