Lists, 12/20.

Scroll down a tad and you'll see that today's been flush with lists, and tomorrow will see another virtual tsunami as well, cresting at indieWIRE. Looking over that ballot, I came this close to drawing up my own first top ten ever, but soon realized that a couple of criteria - features, released in the US, during 2006 - make perfect sense, of course, but also skew the list of a moviegoer in Berlin too severely to make the ballot worth much to either iW or me. That realization has sparked an interest in me, and hopefully other Daily readers, in lists drawn up outside the US. If you run across any, please do drop a line or a comment.

Example: zitty, the better of two city magazines here in Berlin, runs 21 individual lists from its contributing film writers and a collective poll in the issue that came out today. Unfortunately, none of all that is online, but I can tell you the poll's got The Lives of Others at the top, a film most Americans who care to see it won't be able to until early next year. Tied for the #2 slot are Sommer vorm Balkon, which most Americans will probably never even hear of, much less see; and Brokeback Mountain, which, for those of us in Region 2, was a 2006 film. This checkerboard pattern is repeated all the way down that list.

You'll see something similar even in Time Out London's list, which opens with Geoff Andrews's endorsement of The New World.

At any rate. Back to our old new world. One item I missed when I was pointing to Jim Emerson's and MSN Movies' lists is a wonderful revival of an old Film Comment favorite from Richard Jameson and Kathleen Murphy, former FC editor and contributor, respectively, "Moments Out of Time."

In one finely laid-out column served up as a single image, the L Magazine presents the "Best Films of 2006" as chosen and commented on by Michael Joshua Rowin, Jason Bogdaneris, Mark Asch, Jesse Hassenger and Nicolas Rapold.

Meantime, we've got three new lists at the main site:

• Erin Donovan: "Top 10 Movies About Women: An Ann Richards Memorial List."

• Heather Johnson: "10 Best Movie Box Sets of 2006."

• Jonathan Marlow: "Fifteen Bay Area Screening Highlights of 2006."

"Is Little Miss Sunshine the best movie of the year?" asks Paul Thomas Anderson. "I think so." Via bigscreenlittlescreen. Sledge, listing at film ick, agrees.

The Queen has swept the Toronto Film Critics Association's awards. By the way: "What you've heard about Helen Mirren's performance is true," insists A Mary Murphy at identity theory.

"The Year in Movie Music." Sam Smith's list goes to 21.

"Some of the best books are the ones we haven't read. Some of the most cherished volumes in my library are titles that have gone untouched since the day I bought them, no less loved for that." Mark Dery. A reading list. Film-related? Well... Luis Bu�uel's My Last Sigh is in there, how's that.

Online listening tip. John Powers recalls the cultural highlights of the year on Fresh Air. For nearly half an hour, by the way.

Posted by dwhudson at December 20, 2006 4:16 PM