1. The Grudge 2 (2006)
I'm going out on a limb for this movie, but I think it's very underrated. It's an American(ized) sequel to the Japanese original, but it retains the same director and tone as the first. There are some great, spooky moments in it and I really liked how the plot collapses back into itself in the end. Those more familiar with manga like Uzumaki might get more out of it than most of its intended (American) audience, but I really enjoyed it.
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2. La Moustache (2005)
A Frenchman suffers from a bizarre type of retrograde (and anterograde) amnesia, he slips between timelines for no apparent reason, or none of the above. Whatever this movie's really about, it's French surrealism at its best.
Fun Fact: The "friend at the dinner party," Mathieu Amalric, might seem familiar. He played James Bond's adversary in Quantum of Solace.
3. Towelhead (2007)
A Lebanese-American girl experiences a sexual awakening in suburban Texas. Like The Babysitters (below) I think this one deserves a reappraisal. It deals in some very risky subject matter, and I applaud those involved for attempting it.
If you watch it be prepared - it gets AWKWARD.
Fun Fact: Mario Bello's in this one too! She appears in The Dark, Flicka and this movie.
4. Proof (2005)
Searching account of a mathematician's daughter and her attempt to cope with grief. Every now and then I'll see an (older) movie and think: "Gwyneth Paltrow was a pretty good actress," and this film is just another example. She manages to hold her own against Anthony Hopkins in Proof, and while watching it I was again reminded that she'd probably have a more robust acting career if she wasn't so eccentric.
Surprisingly the weak link here is Jake Gyllenhaal, who isn't given enough to do. Proof would have been better without his character and the attendant love story he represents.
Fun Fact: John Madden also directed Paltrow in the Oscar-winning Shakespeare in Love several years before.
5. The Babysitters (2007)
Hard to watch this in 2026 and not think about the Epstein Files.
Katherine Waterston, that near-Ripley from Alien: Covenant, stars as a high school student pimping out her female friends. It resembles a gender-flipped Risky Business, but it works on its own terms and some of its scenes are very memorable.
Critics hated it, but I think it deserves a reappraisal. It wasn't widely released and those damning scores on sites like Rotten Tomatoes only represent a handful of people.
6. The Dark (2005)
An old spooky house on the Welsh coast, a mother and daughter's strained relationship, and a vanished cult with suicidal tendencies. There isn't a lot in The Dark that most horror fans won't have seen before (or recently, in movies like The Mummy), but there are a couple disturbing scenes and for this reason alone I recommend it.
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7. Bon Cop, Bad Cop (2006)
Extremely Canadian buddy cop movie set between Quebec and Ontario. You might recognize Colm Feore from the thousand and one films he's appeared in as a character actor. It covers very familiar territory, but there's a great chemistry between the leads and it never gets boring.
Fun Fact: This movie might be the highest-grossing domestic release in Canadian film history, but some claim that, adjusted for inflation, 1981's Porky's still holds that title.
8. Bridge to Terabithia (2007)
Disney-produced film in which two bullied kids find release in a world of their own imagining. Josh Hutcherson will be familiar to most moviegoers, and if his costar AnnaSophia Robb rings a bell it's probably because she also appeared in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory as "Violet Beauregarde."
9. She's the Man (2006)
Yet another teen adaptation of Shakespeare, in this case the play in question being Twelfth Night.
Films like this require characters who are slow on the uptake, but it works well enough and there are some funny bits. Amanda Bynes doesn't pull of "dude" so much as "obvious lesbian," but if you're willing to overlook that She's the Man is OK.
It's difficult, however, not to compare this movie to the much earlier Just One of the Guys. Just One of the Guys wasn't, um... Shakespeare either, but I think it's a better film nonetheless. "Where do you get off having tits?" is a funnier line than anything you'll see in She's the Man.
10. Memory (2006)
Billy Zane, that movie star that almost was, stars as a doctor who relives his parent's memories after coming into contact with a South American powder that's definitely not cocaine. I have the feeling that the script was very good, but it was indifferently directed, with several tonal shifts that don't accommodate the story it's trying to tell. In better hands this movie could have been a hit, but as it is it's a watchable film in which good ideas are squandered.
Fun Fact: Anne-Margret is in this.
11. Just My Luck (2006)
On par with She's the Man above. Lindsay Lohan stars as a New York girl with good luck, with Chris Pine as a New York boy with bad luck. OMG they kiss and their luck switches! You may be able to anticipate the rest.
12. Watching the Detectives (2007)
Cillian Murphy stars as a straitlaced video rental store owner with Lucy Liu as his quirky if manipulative love interest. They should have cast Murphy's costar Jason Sudeikis in the lead, and as it is this movie goes nowhere fast.
Watching the Detectives went straight to DVD after a a screening at the Tribeca Film Festival. It is in some ways an interesting failure, but a failure nonetheless.
13. Fun with Dick and Jane (2005)
Jim Carrey tones himself down too much while the rest of the cast desperately tries to make up the difference. It's a remake of a much better 1977 movie about a husband and wife who turn to crime after losing their jobs. I laughed maybe twice and kept checking the timer to see how much more of the film remained.
14. Man of the House (2005)
Texas ranger Tommy Lee Jones watches over a house full of cheerleaders for reasons that are never made clear. The best thing I can say about this movie is that the black and Latina cheerleaders are hot. I could see it going down better in Texas, but the rest of the country was probably wondering why they bothered.
Just about any gag or joke in this film will have been seen in some other, better film long before.
Fun Fact: One of the writers, Scott Lobdell, is the same Scott Lobdell who wrote all those X-Men comics in the 90s.
15. Peaceful Warrior (2006)
Chicken soup for the soul meets men's gymnastics. Not sure why men's gymnastics is so particularly meaningful at the protagonist's university but whatever. Once this movie advanced into astral projection and telepathy I had difficulty taking it seriously.
My dad was a big fan of Way of the Peaceful Warrior, the book that inspired this film. I haven't read the book, but I have the feeling I'd have a hard time relating to it.
16. Flicka (2006)
If you're the kind of person who grew up (or who is growing up) in the kind of place where people consider cowboy boots, where people deal with livestock, and where people attend rodeos you might relate to this movie. If you're not then you probably won't.
Maria Bello, who plays the mom in Flicka, also stars in The Dark above.
Fun Fact: This movie has a long, long history. The film My Friend Flicka was released in 1943, and was based on a novel published in 1941. The film spawned a TV show which ran from 1956-57.
17. Deepwater (2005)
Movies like this always prove to be the end of someone's career. In this case it was the end of the line for director David S. Marfield, who doesn't even have his own Wikipedia page.
It was amusing to see the guy from Friday Night Lights and Tokyo Drift (Lucas Black) in another movie, but he struggles against his Alabama drawl and this attempt at film noir is way, way off the mark. By the time the plot twist came around I couldn't have cared less.
18. I'll Always Know What You Did Last Summer (2006)
...and I've already forgotten what they did last summer, even though I just finished the movie.
"The Fisherman" strikes again. I guess. It's worth noting that the fourth installment in the series completely ignores this one.
19. The Sandlot 2 (2005)
A sequel to a movie I never liked. Even so the original is much better than this aborted attempt to recap whatever "magic" the first one had. James Earl Jones aside, the cast needed a few more acting classes before stepping in front of a camera. Some of them perform so badly they take you right out of the movie.
For 1972 the soundtrack is a bit off. "Taking Care of Business?" Wasn't a hit until the following year. That kid in the "Sweet" shirt? Assuming it's a reference to (The) Sweet, they were nowhere near popular enough in the States to warrant a T-shirt at the time.
If you've got kids into baseball just show them The Benchwarmers instead. It's way sillier, but satisfyingly so.
20. The Man (2005)
Anyone else remember that movie in which Sam Jackson and Eugene Levy starred together? The one that somewhat resembled 48 Hrs.? Anyone? Anyone?
The Man is a trainwreck from start to finish - the single, solitary laugh being the scene where Levy farts in the car. There are unfunny comedies, there are less than funny comedies, and then there's The Man, which Samuel L. Jackson probably wishes we could all forget.
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