The year was filled with many spectacular mainstream films, but the art houses had their share of great films, too. Here are my picks for the top independent films and documentaries in 2006.

Top 5 Independent Films

5. "Hollywoodland" -- Don't you dare lump this in with the year's other bland police procedural, "Black Dahlia." "Hollywoodland" is a vibrant, intriguing, genre-bending private-eye caper, about the infamous murder of the man who played Superman, and the way one investigator is changed forever by a case that becomes far more than just another job.

4. "Flannel Pajamas" -- The key to "Flannel Pajamas" is to be found in its silence, as director Jeff Lipsky offers up one of the most realistic, sobering and unsentimental romances in years. About a couple trying to wish their flaws away, and an acknowledgement of the way lovers can grow apart while still yearning to be together, its final moments cut through to the bittersweet contradictions that lie at the center of this thing called love.

3. "A Prairie Home Companion" -- One of the year's best films even before Robert Altman's death, "Companion" now serves as a lasting, crowning achievement for one of cinema's most remarkable pioneers. A movie about art and commerce, about a radio show out of synch with these profit-oriented times, Altman evokes life as a stage show, and art as our only source of transcendence.

2. "Marie Antoinette" -- Sofia Coppola, who vividly brought to life the isolation of two Americans caught overseas in "Lost In Translation," weaves a similar yarn with this infamous young queen who was separated from her Austrian family and thrust into power as a nation watched skeptically. Brought to life by a lively Kirsten Dunst, "Antoinette" is less a historical drama than a contemporary reimagining of history, observing a brave but scared, an innocent but elitist, queen who proves to be less simple or sordid than text books would have you believe.

1. "The Fountain" -- Still showing in a handful of theaters across the country, "The Fountain" will likely hit DVD this spring and continues to stand as one of the most polarizing films of the year. Spanning a thousand years, and jumping between stories of a 16th-century conquistador seeking the biblical tree of life, a modern-day scientist seeking the scientific cure for death and a futuristic, meditating man in outer space searching for answers among the stars, it's one of the boldest, and bravest, movie experiments of the year.

Top 5 Documentaries

5. "The Bridge" -- We watch as people commit suicide in "The Bridge," a documentary that solemnly keeps watch over the Golden Gate Bridge for an entire year and re-traces the final steps of several men and women who chose to end their lives in the bay. Majestic and haunting, it's a film made with equal parts fascination, terror and affection, exploring the cause, effect and meaning of suicide.

4. "The Devil and Daniel Johnston" -- Another of the year's documentaries that proves that life can be far more fascinating than fiction, "Daniel Johnston" tells the story of a mentally unstable performer whose rough, early basement cassette recordings led some to believe he was the next great visionary of music. The music so bizarre, and the man so peculiar, this engrossing film traverses the decades, examining that fine line that separates genius from madness.

3. "Our Daily Bread" -- While the far-too-tame "Fast Food Nation" got all the press, this lesser-known, near-silent documentary is the real McCoy -- a scathing observation of the industrial farming industry, the way we eat and just how disconnected we have become from the chemicals, machines and inhuman environments now required to support our ever-multiplying society.

2. "Street Fight" -- It was one of the nominees that no one knew at last year's Academy Awards -- a documentary about a local election that turned out, upon hitting theaters months later, to be a jaw-dropping, shell-shocking political thriller. Focusing on the mayoral election of Newark, N.J., and the battle that erupted in this famously crooked town between the newcomer and the old guard, it's an account of urban political warfare that must be seen to be believed.

1. "Deliver Us From Evil" -- The most shocking documentary in years -- and a compelling argument that recent sex scandals within the Catholic church may stand as the most profound scandal of our lifetime -- "Deliver Us" focuses on one horrifying story of a priest in Northern California who was shipped from town to town without a word of warning about his history as a sexual predator. He's living free today -- on the church's dime no less -- and we are confronted with how much pain this institution and this one man (one in a sea of hundreds, if not thousands) has wrought on the once-faithful.

MORE: Special Section: 2006 Year In Review