By Cheryl Eddy

THERE WAS A whole lot of testosterone at the multiplex in 2004, and not just up on the screen. In Ann Arbor, Mich., two middle-aged men got into a brawl after one shushed the other during a screening of – get this – The Triplets of Belleville. Seems the shushee (who had entered the theater late and had been talking loudly) terrorized the shusher throughout the film – kicking his seat, lobbing popcorn at him, and muttering, "Should I bitch-slap this guy?" to his wife, according to the Detroit Free Press.

The altercation reached a full boil when the lights came up, at which time the shushee booted the shusher down several flights of stadium-seating stairs. The end result? Six months in jail and anger-management classes for the loudmouth; a collapsed lung, fractured ribs, and a nine-day hospital stay for the guy who was just trying to enjoy a night out at the movies in peace.

If this kind of melee can break out during Belleville, a weirdly wonderful animated oddity, it's amazing more punches weren't thrown amid this year's bumper crop of movies about spandex-clad crusaders, historical celebrities, sports figures, and occasional "girlie men" (to borrow a phrase from a certain action star turned lawmaker). Though 2004 saw the passing of manly icons Marlon Brando and Russ Meyer, there was no discernible cosmic shift. Movies carved from the craggy rocks of dude-dom still managed to hog the lion's share of marquee space.

Superhero movies are so popular nowadays that Hollywood's scrambling to turn any fool with powers into big-screen gold (hellooo, Green Lantern!). Fortunately, the best superhero movie of the year was also one of the best movies of the year, and you know I don't mean Catwoman. Exciting, poignant, funny, and a tad offbeat, Spider-Man 2 was everything the first Spider-Man should've been; it also introduced the concept of a superhero who has trouble keeping whites and brights separate at the Laundromat and whose crime-fighting ways compromise his sorely needed job delivering pizzas. Less successful, but decidedly omnipresent, were films like Hellboy (actually pretty enjoyable), The Punisher (unremarkable, save for star Thomas Jane's carb-deprived abs), The Chronicles of Riddick (Vin Diesel's next movie, The Pacifier, involves an ex-Navy SEAL and a pack of unruly kids; it reeks of Kindergarten Cop meets Mr. Nanny), and the abominable Van Helsing.

The everyguy stars of Shaun of the Dead and Super Size Me might not have the arsenal of high kicks seen in Blade: Trinity, but they still fought adversaries as formidable as any vampire, intergalactic evildoer, or overstyled John Travolta villain. What could be more triumphant than facing a pack of zombies – or an errant hair swirled into a McDonald's yogurt parfait – and living to tell about it? Jesus had it bad in The Passion of the Christ, but at least He got to go to heaven without having to eat a month's worth of Big Macs.

The Passion was by far 2004's most controversial period piece. It was also the goriest. But there was plenty more history being splashed across screens, including The Alamo (forgettable, to use the obvious punch line); King Arthur (as dour and unmagical as a King Arthur picture could possibly be); Troy and Alexander (in hindsight, rather too similar); and National Treasure (inhaled by crowds hopped up on The Da Vinci Code). For fans of more recent eras (and more lighthearted takes on masculinity), flicks like Starsky and Hutch and Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy added notches on the wide, 1970s-style leather belts of Ben Stiller, Will Ferrell, Vince Vaughn, and Owen Wilson.

Members of that boys' club also surfaced in Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story, a surprisingly huge hit in a genre that'll never die: the sports movie. Audiences have no saturation point when it comes to rousing halftime speeches, athletics-as-life metaphors, training sequences, nail-biting overtimes, and David-Goliath matchups. In 2004, adrenaline surged (Riding Giants), commies were spanked (Miracle), and small-town dreams almost came true (Friday Night Lights). The wonders of Dodgeball aside, though, the best sports movie of the year was probably Million Dollar Baby – a late arrival most folks won't get to see until 2005. Granted, it's about a female boxer (Hilary Swank, who in some scenes looks like she could take Oscar de la Hoya without loosening any hair from her braids), but the story's heart lies with the bitter coach (original tough guy Clint Eastwood) whose crusty soul begins to mend after he reluctantly agrees to help her become a champ.

See, even Dirty Harry has feelings these days. Blame Dr. Phil if you want, but several 2004 releases (including the top money-grubber, Shrek 2) dealt with conflicted men, men (and C.G. animated ogres) with identity problems, and men having trouble figuring out their place in the world. Alfie, The Brown Bunny, Metallica: Some Kind of Monster, Garden State, and, uh, Napoleon Dynamite all explored various touchy-feely issues, with far-ranging degrees of success (and wildly divergent approaches to fashion, hairstyle, and soundtrack selection).

The most obvious signifier that 2004 was the Year of the Man was not the presidential election (and all the Dubya docs that preceded it), or the pro-sports steroid scandal, or the movie theater scuffles that never hit the A.P. wire (and you know there were plenty). It's all the biopics – The Motorcycle Diaries, Ray, Beyond the Sea, Kinsey, The Aviator, et al – that were somehow zodiacally engineered to hit screens within months, even weeks, of each other. And not a single female subject among them – wives and girlfriends technically don't count, even if they do earn Best Supporting Actress nominations.

Next year the battle of the sexes – and for audience favor – may rage with a little more fairness; Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous looks like a good bet to smack down Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo. But the big tent poles – Batman Begins, Star Wars III: The Revenge of the Sith, War of the Worlds, Fantastic Four, and hell, even Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – indicate it'll be raining men all over again. Hollywood may claim to be exponentially more liberal than Washington, D.C., but as long as we're a country at war, with an old-fashioned cowboy yee-hawin' in the White House and conservatives clamping down on anything vaguely controversial, expect mainstream movies to keep big, safe themes revolving around menfolk – good guys, wiseguys, jocks, freedom fighters, you name it – at the front of the popcorn line.

Top five

1. Shaun of the Dead (Edgar Wright, U.K.)

2. Million Dollar Baby (Clint Eastwood, USA)

3. The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (Wes Anderson, USA)

4. Mean Girls (Mark S. Waters, USA)

5. In the Realms of the Unreal (Jessica Yu, USA)

Bottom five

1. The Village (M. Night Shyamalan, USA)

2. Van Helsing (Stephen Sommers, USA/Czech Republic)

3. King Arthur (Antoine Fuqua, USA/Ireland)

4. The Chronicles of Riddick (David Twohy, USA)

5. The Exorcist: The Beginning (Renny Harlin, USA)

Favorite movie line

"Matt Damon!" – Team America: World Police (Trey Parker, USA)

Finally on DVD

1. 3 Women (Robert Altman, USA, 1977)

2. Paris, Texas (Wim Wenders, U.K./France/West Germany, 1984)

3. "VIP Limited Edition" of Showgirls (Paul Verhoeven, France/USA, 1995)