Favorite Films of 2009

Yes, it's halfway through February, but of course it takes TIME to get through everything that floods the gate at the end of the year. Some of the films mentioned may not have received a domestic release yet, but I'm including them anyway: 1. A Serious Man (Joel & Ethan Coen, USA) Winking into the abyss, probably their funniest and most thought-provoking film in quite some time. 2. The White Ribbon (Michael Haneke, Germany/Austria) A disturbing work with a flawless ensemble cast that simultaneously obfuscates as it illuminates, and consequently one is left with quite a strange taste in the mouth afterwards, bitter and delicious. 3. Tetro (Francis Ford Coppola, USA/Argentina) An aging master looks energetically into the past, both personally and cinematically, with exciting nods to Fellini as well as Powell & Pressburger. 4. Bright Star (Jane Campion, Australia/UK) Restraint, delicacy, silence, textures, flora, the wind, and the word. An unfortunately overlooked flower in a year of loud spectacle. 5. Inglourious Basterds (Quentin Tarantino, USA) The sum of the parts is better than the whole, but on a scene-by-scene basis arguably the best writing and filmmaking of the year, an abundance of great acting, dialogue, and composition. 6. Thirst (Chan-wook Park, South Korea) The strangest thing I watched last year, a vampire story where the sexual and doomed romantic elements burst out of their cliched trappings to form something exciting and hilarious, and ultimately very moving. With a lot of blood. 7. Still Walking (Hirokazu Koreeda, Japan) A simple story about family, the generation gap, and the passage of time; nothing really new here but done in a classic style with the patience and attention to detail of the greats, specifically Ozu. Just about perfect. 8. Funny People (Judd Apatow, USA) Probably too long, but I wouldn't have wanted to cut any of it out, either. I laughed (harder and more often than any other time in recent memory), and I cared. 9. Avatar (James Cameron, USA) Flawed, but unforgettable nonetheless. You'd have to buy a tab of LSD to get more bang for your buck. 10. Fantastic Mr. Fox (Wes Anderson, USA) Not a diversion for Anderson but a continuation of his distinct take on dysfunctional families who put up with each other long enough to find out that they need each other. Such creativity and detail packed into every frame, beyond refreshing for the animation genre. Honorable mention: Two Lovers (James Gray, USA), The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (Niels Arden Oplev, Sweden), Broken Embraces (Pedro Almodovar, Spain), The Princess and The Frog (Ron Clements & John Musker, USA), Adventureland (Greg Mottola, USA), The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus (Terry Gilliam, UK), The Hurt Locker (Kathryn Bigelow, USA), Tokyo Sonata (Kiyoshi Kurosowa, Japan), Ponyo on a Cliff by the Sea (Hiyao Miyazaki, Japan) Acting Citations: Vera Farmiga (Orphan), Abbie Cornish and Paul Schneider (Bright Star), Jackie Earle Haley (Watchmen), Joaquin Phoenix, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Vinessa Shaw (Two Lovers), Michael Stuhlbarg and Fred Melamed (A Serious Man), Ok-bin Kim (Thirst), Kirin Kiki (Still Walking), Penelope Cruz (Broken Embraces), Noomi Rapace (The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo), Christopher Plummer (The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus), Melanie Laurent, Diane Kruger, Christoph Waltz, and Michael Fassbender (Inglourious Basterds), Zoe Saldana (Avatar), Charlotte Gainsbourg (Antichrist), Souleymane Sy Savane (Goodbye Solo)