1. I Killed My Mother/J'ai Tué Ma Mère - Xavier Dolan
2. Avatar - James Cameron
3. Coraline - Henry Selick
4. City Island - Raymond De Felitta
5. The Cove, documentary - Louie Psihoyos
6. I Love You, Phillip Morris - Glenn Ficarra, John Requa
7. A Serious Man - Ethan Coen, Joel Coen
8. Drag Me to Hell - Sam Raimi
9. The Informant! - Steven Soderbergh
10. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo/Män Som Hatar Kvinnor - Niels Arden Oplev
Other great movies of 2009 (in alphabetic order):
(500) Days of Summer - Marc Webb
Adventureland - Greg Mottola
An Education - Lone Scherfig
Broken Embraces/Los Abrazos Rotos - Pedro Almodóvar
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs - Phil Lord, Christopher Miller
Fish Tank - Andrea Arnold
The Good Heart - Dagur Kári
The Hangover - Todd Phillips
In the Electric Mist - Bertrand Tavernier
It's Complicated - Nancy Meyers
Good, recommendable movies of 2009 (in alphabetic order):
17 Again - Burr Steers
A Single Man - Tom Ford
Antichrist - Lars Von Trier
Applause - Martin Zandvliet
Away We Go - Sam Mendes
The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans/Bad Lieutenant - Werner Herzog
The Blind Side - John Lee Hancock
Brotherhood/Broderskab - Nicolo Donato
Camping - Jacob Bitsch
Change of Plans/Le Code a Changé - Danièle Thompson
Cold Souls - Sophie Barthes
Crazy Heart - Scott Cooper
Dead Snow/Død Snø - Tommy Wirkola
Dogtooth/Κυνόδοντας (Kynodontas) - Yorgos Lanthimos
Funny People - Judd Apatow
The Haunting in Connecticut - Peter Cornwell
The House of the Devil - Ti West
Hung - season 1 - Colette Burson, Dmitry Lipkin
In the Loop - Armando Iannucci
Inglorious Basterds - Quentin Tarantino
(Untitled) - Jonathan Parker
The Worst of 2009:
1. The Fourth Kind - Olatunde Osunsanmi
2. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince - David Yates
3. G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra - Stephen Sommers
4. Fast & Furious - Justin Lin
5. Mr. Nobody - Jaco Van Dormael
6. District 9 - Neill Blomkamp
7. The Box - Richard Kelly
8. Get Low - Aaron Schneider
9. Harry Brown - Daniel Barber
Other less than good movies of the year (in alphabetic order):
Black Dynamite - Scott Sanders
Confessions of a Shopaholic - P.J. Hogan
Enter the Void - Gaspar Noé
Fantastic Mr. Fox - Wes Anderson
The Human Centipede (First Sequence) - Tom Six
[56 titles in total]
Notes:
The first tentative summary of the year 2009 in films and TV-series has already 5 masterpieces on the top 10: Canadian prodigy Xavier Dolan's amazing indie youth debut I Killed My Mother, James Cameron's worldwide sci-fi adventure smash Avatar, Henry Selick's fantastically realized dark family adventure stop-motion animation Coraline, Raymond De Felitta's terrifically constructed Long Island-set dramedy City Island and finally Louie Psihoyos' shocking and devastating dolphin slaughter documentary The Cove.
The top 10 also includes great films from Glenn Ficarra and John Requa (incredible true-story romcom I Love You, Phillip Morris), Ethan and Joel Coen (poignant and hilarious serio-comedy A Serious Man), Sam Raimi (superior and zany horror-comedy entertainer Drag Me to Hell), Steven Soderbergh (Matt Damon-vehicle true-crime laugh riot The Informant!) and finally Niels Arden Oplev (trilogy-starting Scandinavian noir thriller The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.)
Truly delightful and great are also films of the year by Andrea Arnold (Fish Tank), Lone Scherfig (An Education), Pedro Almodóvar (Broken Embraces), Greg Mottola (Adventureland), Christopher Miller and Phil Lord (Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs) and others. The year offered shocking European movies (Lars Von Trier's Antichrist, Yorgos Lanthimos' Dogtooth, and, though to a lesser degree shocking, Tommy Wirkola's Dead Snow) and some American genre pleasures (Burr Steers' 17 Again, Ti West's The House of the Devil and Quentin Tarantino's Inglorious Basterds).
In the other end of the spectrum, Wes Anderson made his career's most negligible film to date with Fantastic Mr. Fox. But it isn't bad per se, and can therefore not mingle with the worst of 2009:
Olatunde Osunsanmi's mockumentary sci-fi-horror The Fourth Kind is without question the worst of the year seen so far, and far 'ahead' of the 8 other films on the Worst of 2009 list. It is followed by some big-buck tentpoles that lack originality, logic, humor or just a narrative worth a couple of hours time: David Yates' Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Stephen Sommers' G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra and Justin Lin's Fast & Furious are all dismal experiences; big, loud and altogether forgettable. They are followed by a smaller, pretentious, overlong art film, Jaco Van Dormael's Mr. Nobody with Jared Leto, Neill Blomkamp's hugely overrated, unpleasant District 9, Richard Kelly's second post masterpiece Donnie Darko (2001) disappointment, Twilight Zone-inspired The Box and two films with respected veteran star actors, Aaron Schneider's Get Low with Robert Duvall, Bill Murray and Sissy Spacek and Daniel Barber's Harry Brown with Michael Caine, which fail for different reasons.
The lists will increase in films and TV-series (only Hung season 1 is reviewed from 2009 so far) in the following months with the next, larger, updated version coming in December 2017. So keep checking in at Film Excess and leave your opinions about the list and 2009's best and worst in a comment. Thank you
2009 titles still on the watchlist:
The Loved Ones, Undertow, The String, About Elly, From Beginning to End, Giallo, Motherhood, The Descent: Part 2, The Maid, Eastbound & Down - season 1, Tetro, Pandorum, Agora
Previous annual lists:
2016 in films - according to Film Excess
2015 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
2015 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess
2014 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2014 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
2014 in films - according to Film Excess
2013 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
2013 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2013 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
2013 in films - according to Film Excess
2012 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
2012 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2012 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
2012 in films - according to Film Excess
2011 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2011 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
2011 in films - according to Film Excess
2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess
What do you think of the 2009 lists?
Which 2009 films are your favorites and the worst of the year in your opinion?
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