The Passion of the Christ and the passion of Michael Moore were the big movies in a year when blockbusters once again clogged the multiplexes, writes Michael Dwyer

This was yet another year when Hollywood gambled on a succession of blockbusters - most with budgets well in excess of a hundred million dollars - in the increasingly fierce competition for box-office success.

Several sequels were darker in tone and even more satisfying than their predecessors (Kill Bill Vol 2, Spider-Man 2, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban), and some stylish thrillers (Collateral, The Bourne Supremacy). There were historical epics more notable for their production values than their screenplays and performances (Troy, The Last Samurai, King Arthur), and much effects-driven, overblown hokum (The Day After Tomorrow, Van Helsing, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, I, Robot) that proved instantly forgettable.

And there were some particularly wretched and pointless remakes (Wicker Park, Alfie, The Stepford Wives, Around the World in 80 Days), as well as a few welcome exceptions (an urgently topical updating of The Manchurian Candidate and the gender-switching remodelling of Big in 13 Going On 30). At the end of the year, it was an animated crowd-pleaser - Shrek 2 - that topped the box-office on both sides of the Atlantic.

However, despite the enormous budgets of all those high-profile movies, the films that generated more media coverage than any others - and surprised just about everyone by going on to achieve huge commercial success - were two low-budget independent productions that broke all the rules.

One, Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ, wasn't even in English and dared to be subtitled; the other, Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 was a documentary, a genre generally relegated to television in recent decades.Both were the subject of intense speculation and heated debate before they even opened.

These were two rare examples of movies that generated more coverage on the news and opinion platforms of the media than in the arts and entertainment sector; and as soon as they were publicly available, the debates reached fever pitch on radio and television, in newspapers and magazines, in religious and political forums, in bars and restaurants. Not to have seen either film was to be perceived as being far removed from the zeitgeist.

Just as its central character is shown no mercy whatsoever, The Passion of the Christ proved utterly unsparing of its audience. Gibson's wrenchingly visceral drama based on the last 12 hours in the life of Jesus Christ is a film of unrelenting graphic violence that rubs the viewer's nose in scenes of horrific torture, relentless cruelty and pools of blood. This is jolting screen violence that is so explicit and deeply disturbing that it firmly confounds the theory that cinema audiences may become desensitised to images of violence.

Gibson has taken the most famous story ever told and charged it with bristling anger and cinematic flair to immerse the viewer in a draining, unflinching depiction of man's inhumanity to man. It clearly was designed to provoke feelings of shock and awe - and all the controversy that has raged around it. It is bold, problematic - and undeniably fascinating.

Shot on a budget of just $25 million, The Passion of the Christ made hundreds of millions for Gibson and his production company, Icon, which released the film in most parts of the world after the major Hollywood studios nervously passed on it.

Produced for even less ($6 million), Fahrenheit 9/11 earned well over $100 million in the US alone, where Disney controversially refused to release it. That decision prompted even more coverage, and escalated the tensions between Disney and its subsidiary, Miramax, to the point where an imminent divorce seems unavoidable.

Whatever one's view of Michael Moore - maverick hero, smooth operator, manipulative opportunist, blatant self-publicist, stand-up comic, salt of the earth, a combination of some or all of these - the fact is that many people are taking him very seriously indeed since Fahrenheit 9/11 opened. Commentators on the right and left and in the centre turned out thousands upon thousands of words, pouring scorn, praise and caution on him and his raw, polemical attack on the Bush administration. The film took the premier prize, the Palme d'Or at Cannes, but it ultimately failed in its expressed intention to encourage voters to oust President Bush.

Both The Passion of the Christ and Fahrenheit 9/11 were big box-office hits in Ireland, where the decisions of the film censor yielded more controversies. There was a relatively minor fuss last month when the crude, inane and worthless Bad Santa opened with a 15PG certificate, shocking parents whose offspring were presented with a picture of Mr Claus that was closer to an anagram of his first name - Satan.

But most of the vitriol was saved for the brave decision of the censor, John Kelleher, to pass the sexually explicit new British film, 9 Songs, uncut and with an 18 certificate for cinema release in Ireland. It is undoubtedly the most sexually graphic film ever to be passed with a certificate from the Irish censor.

Not for the first time, the great majority of those exercised by the film, its content and its imminent availability to Irish audiences were people who have not seen 9 Songs. We can expect the temperature to rise when the movie opens here in March.

Meanwhile, it was quite a dismal year for film production in Ireland. That was hardly surprising, given the cloud of uncertainty that lingered over the industry last year, as the lobbying intensified to retain the Section 481 tax incentive that makes this country a competitive location for film production at a time when producers are courted by more incentive-bearing countries than ever before.

Actively supported by Minister for Arts John O'Donoghue - whose retention of his portfolio in the recent cabinet reshuffle was widely welcomed - the Section 481 scheme finally was retained in the December 2003 budget, but too late to inspire producers with the confidence to set up productions here in the first half of 2004, when not one feature film was shot in Ireland. To the great relief of Irish producers, actors and crews, there has been a significant upswing in production in the last quarter of the year.

Most of the indigenous movies released at Irish cinemas during 2004 were low-to-micro-budget productions, many of them by first-time directors. The one that attracted by far the most cinema admissions on home turf was the most critically panned indigenous production of the year, Paddy Breathnach's entertaining road movie, Man About Dog, which took over €2 million at the Irish box-office.

The other significant home-produced hit was Lenny Abrahamson's earthy, low-budget Dublin drama, Adam & Paul, which, though centred on a couple of desperate junkies that most people would cross the road to avoid, found a substantial audience.

Finally, in a year that produced so many promising newcomers on both sides of the camera, 2004 also marked the passing of many distinctive talents in world cinema: directors Theo van Gogh (who was murdered), Russ Meyer, Philippe de Broca and Brian Gibson, composers Elmer Bernstein, Jerry Goldsmith and Fred Ebb, cinematographer Carlo di Palma, screenwriter Carole Eastman, casting director Mary Selway, publicist David Freed, and actors Christopher Reeve, Alan Bates, Peter Ustinov, Spalding Gray, Fay Wray, Ann Miller, Janet Leigh, Carrie Snodgress, Jan Sterling, Mercedes McCambridge, Uta Hagen, Ingrid Thulin, and the greatest screen actor of his generation, Marlon Brando.