My Top Eleven Films of 2009

These are my top ten films of 2009. Remember its just my personal opinions and I'm not expecting everyone to agree with me (only smart people). The only movies I haven't seen that could be on this list are The Lovely Bones, Nine, Precious, Moon, The Hangover, or An Education, so I don't have an opinion yet on those films. Hope you enjoy my list and agree with some of the stuff I put on it.


11. Drag Me to Hell

I believe that Sam Raimi's 2009 return to the horror genre was an excellent new entry in his horror repertoire. The creator of The Evil Dead has made a great gross-out horror film with tons of gore and bodily juices. Alison Lohman does an excellent job in the starring role and puts up with all kinds of abuse. This film also had a unique story and is delivered amazingly with a PG13 rating, which upon watching feels impossibly obtained. Drag Me to Hell is a fun and original horror movie which Sam Raimi has done an excellent job with.

10. Zombieland/Adventureland

These were both movies I did not expect to be good. They were both low budget films that drastically surprised me. Adventureland's Jesse Eisenburg has made a career for himself this year as a great comedy actor like and I hope to see him in more films to come. Adventureland was a heartfelt romance-drama, which caught me off guard when I went with some friends expecting a comedy, and I actually really liked it. It represented all the great parts of summer, romance and working a mindless job, which really spoke to me and represented my own experiences working over the summer. An amazing film.

Zombieland. I really didn't know what to expect with this one. Yet all the same I knew exactly what it would be about: Zombies and comedy. But it was the heart in it all that I wasn't expecting. The movie has extremely likeable characters (Jesse Eisenburg again, do I sense a pattern?) that all had perfect actors for their roles and feel like real people. An amazing celebrity cameo brings the lulz and the overall plot is simple and enjoyable (who'd have thought that Twinkies would be so hard to find?). Great movie that blew my expectations out of the water.

9. Observe and Report

Seth Rogen made this movie funny, yet the story remained quite serious and upsetting. This is not an uplifting movie at all. Actually quite the opposite. It was a great story of a man trying to be more than just a mall cop (funny that it opened around the time that the terrible Paul Blart opened) and actually brought some great comedy, yet also remained a serious film about the underdog. I loved it and hope to see Seth Rogen in more demanding roles in the future, as it showed that his acting abilities aren't just limited to comedies.

8. Paranormal Activity

This film had by far the best marketing campaign of the year (although not as creative as District 9), and really was quite scary (minus the corny ending, although I did like the original ending). This was a great example of less is more in a horror movie, as nothing happens. Its all about what the audience is waiting for. The anticipation scares the audience more than the cheap scares. However, I do have to admit that it did feel real. A lot of the special effects made you think, "How could they do that?" and I had some stupid teenagers in my theater asking if it was real. No other horror movie this year did what Paranormal did and it made a LOT of money for an independent film. Best horror movie of the year, possibly of the decade.

7. Watchmen

This was the first time that Alan Moore's graphic novel masterpiece was adapted for the big screen, and christ did Zack Snyder do a good job at it. The entire story of Watchmen was a masterpiece and Snyder does an excellent job at leaving almost nothing out of the main film, which I highly recommend getting the Ultimate Cut of the film for. Watchmen is the best adaption of a comic book ever and the set design of the film perfectly displays the mood and themes of the comic. The film is extremely well polished and looks fantastic with a gloomy lighting scheme that perfectly illustrates the dreary atmosphere of the comic. Snyder's action sequences in the film are also stylistic through his usual slow-down, speed-up editing, which works well in this film because it makes the action more passionate and closer to the viewer. I loved this film and I believe that it is the best ever comic book adaptation, which is why it deserves the spot on this list.

6. Funny People

Apatow at his best. I will start by saying that Judd Apatow is a very good producer of smart comedy films. Maybe not too smart, but I still love them. His writing is down to earth and feels like what real people might actually say. Funny People mostly has its comedy stem from the fact that the main characters are comedians, and since those main characters are played by Seth Rogen and Adam Sandler, they definitely are funny as hell. This movie also surprised me this year, like many of the others on this list, and it wasn't as funny as I thought it would be, but much more dramatic. It may have been a little long and dragged on at parts, but overall it was a great film totally deserving of one of the best films of the year.

5. Up/Monster vs. Aliens/Princess and the Frog

These were all outstanding animated films. To start with Up, I believe that this could have been number one on the list if the movies below this didn't come out. It was a perfect movie for kids and adults, and the childish parts didn't take away from the rest of the movie. It was a tearjerker of a film and the first ten minutes is some of the best work Pixar has produced. It was imaginative and funny, as well as heartbreaking and sad. Just wow...

Monster vs. Aliens was just hilarious. It wasn't much more than a kid's movie, but it has enough classic scifi references that I was greatly entertained. I loved all the characters and how they were directly taken from 50's B movies. The jokes were all very funny and relevant (maybe not for long though). I loved this film.

I don't know if Princess and the Frog will be a classic Disney movie in ten years, but sure as hell should be. It had all the makings of a classic Disney film and I definitely loved every bit of it. It had a ludicrously good story and a couple of great and likeable characters that went on a quest to have their wishes granted (Wizard of Oz, much?). The animation itself was beautiful and is probably the best reason for it to be on this list. A must see classic in the making.

4. Star Trek

How could this not be on a top ten list of this years movies? Everyone, critics and audiences, loves this film. I wasn't sure how a reimagining/prequel of the Star Trek franchise would be, but it sure as hell was good. Chris Pine was a believable Captain Kirk and the movie itself was a great introduction to the entire Star Trek universe. As a mild Star Trek fan without much knowledge of the rest of the series, this film made a believer out of me and many others, introducing Star Trek to the mainstream. Just for that, and the fact that it was a rollercoaster ride of a film, does it deserve the number four spot.

3. District 9

What could beat out a scifi film based on a hugely followed series with an outstanding fanbase? How about a film that comes out of nowhere and is hailed by critics and audiences alike? First time director Niel Blommkamp delivers an outstinding achievement in modern scifi film making by using a harsh and unforgiving political allegory to create his film's universe. With amazing special effects for a low budget film (you don't need $300 million dollars to make realistic aliens, Jim) it throws us into a world that's just too close to home. For that it deserves this spot on the list.

2. Inglourious Basterds

Quentin Tarantino. That is all I really need to say about this film, as that encompasses every great aspect of it. Beautiful direction and camerawork. The best writing we've had all year, possibly of the decade. This was a movie that portrayed how we all wish WWII could have been like, featuring cock-shooting and Hitler being blown to bits. The 'Bear Jew' sequence steals the show and the explosive finale proves that Tarantino knows how to make good movies (by that I mean he knows what the audience wants to see). Best film of the decade, maybe. Best film of the year...

Well, there is one that's better.

1. Avatar

How could this movie NOT be number one? While most of the movies on this list met my expectations or I didn't have very much to expect in the first place, Avatar met my extremely high expectations, then turned around and doubled them (more like quadrupled them). It was the grand spectacle of Cameron's achievements in film making. It wasn't just that James Cameron composed his own new technology to make this film or that it looks really really really really good. It's the fact that every detail is perfect. The CGI is the best ever and the best their ever will be (until Jackass 3D next year maybe, lol). This movie's scope is just enormous, mostly due to the fact created an entire living breathing PLANET with all its own life forms, including animals, plant life, and landscape (floating mountains are so cool). The Na'vi are so beautifully rendered that I could cry (I'm such a softy...) during some of the sequences of the film and was surprised that they were actually sexy. Not to mention that the ending battle is a 45 minute orgy of awesome. James Cameron has created his masterpiece and none of the other films on this list can recreate the shear glee I had experienced during this film. Most of the movies on this list I've only seen once, while Avatar was so good I decided to go the next day to see it again. I just hope that it makes back its budget because it's such a shame that in its opening weekend Twilight Saga: New Moon (more like New Moan, amiright?) made more money than Avatar. I urge everyone to see this masterpiece, then tell their friends to go see it. Although this film has its flaws (predictable plot, which might be a good thing at parts) it is still the best movie of the year by far!

Longest movie of the year. Most expensive movie of the year. Best movie of the year.