Highlights of 2006: Movies - You may never have heard of them, but the three movies below are some of the most worthy of 2006:

Shadow Company is by no means the finestdocumentary of this or any year, but the film, which documents thepresence of private military contractors (a euphemism for mercenaries)in Iraq, remains almost necessary viewing. According to Shadow Company,there is one private contractor for every 10 soldiers in Iraq, and thecompanies employing them do not always act in the interests of theAmerican government or the Iraqi people. The film asks a variety ofimportant ethical question, most vitally: What are the consequences ofsurrendering the state monopoly on violence? The documentary's greateststrength, however, lies in its use of footage from the ground in Iraq.It shows the chaos and carnage that the U.S. media, in conjunction withthe government, has decided we ought not see.

In a break from his recent action-oriented Hero and House of Flying Daggers, famed Chinese director Zhang Yimou returns to the more personal, sentimental style of classics like Raise the Red Lantern and To Live. His newest film is Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles,the story of a Japanese fisherman, Gou-ichi Takata (Ken Takakura), who,upon learning of his estranged son's diagnosis of terminal livercancer, travels to China to film a performance of an ancient opera withwhich the younger Takata was enamored. Gou-ichi encounters a variety ofobstacles in the process, but so begins his path toward understandinghis son. The imagery is gorgeous and the acting understated buteffective. In a larger sense, the movie is a paean for reconciliationbetween China and Japan as well as an idealized vision of Chinese rurallife.

Guillermo Del Toro, brother of Benicio and director of the chilling Devil's Backbone and less enjoyable Hollywood fare such as the putrid comic adaptation Hellboy, writes and directs Pan's Labyrinth, the story of a young girl struggling through the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War.

Ivana Baquero is terrific as Ofelia, the child who attempts tocome to terms with the brutality of the fascist regime surrounding herby creating a vividly imagined fable. The artistry of the film is nighbreathtaking -- the visual effects are outstanding, but not overused asin many recent computer graphics vehicles, and the dark palate lendsthe movie a palpable air of desperation. The film is, at times,spectacularly violent.