Top 10 Films of 2009

This is a dynamic list, so it’ll be updated each time I see a film which had its world premiere in 2009 that is better than at least one of the films already on the list.

1. Wild Grass (Alain Resnais)
2. In Comparison (Harun Farocki)
3. Dogtooth (Giorgos Lanthimos)
4. Inglourious Basterds (Quentin Tarantino)
5. Hadewijch (Bruno Dumont)
6. Police, Adjective (Corneliu Porumboiu)
7. Face (Tsai Ming-liang)
8. Happy End (Jean-Marie & Arnaud Larrieu)
9. Rapt (Lucas Belvaux)
10. Ne change rien (Pedro Costa)

My Top 10 Discoveries During 2009 (applies to films made before the 21st century; obviously, this list will remain static.)

1. Close-Up (Abbas Kiarostami, 1990)
2. Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (Chantal Akerman, 1975)
3. A Woman Under the Influence (John Cassavetes, 1974)
4. Where is the Friend’s Home? (Abbas Kiarostami, 1987)
5. Cria Cuervos… (Carlos Saura, 1976)
6. Train of Shadows (José Luis Guerín, 1997)
7. News From Home (Chantal Akerman, 1977)
8. The Nun (Jacques Rivette, 1966)
9. Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story (Todd Haynes, 1987)
10. Benilde, or The Virgin Mother (Manoel de Oliveira, 1975)

Other 2009 films I’ve seen

• Fantastic Mr. Fox (Wes Anderson) – 7.2
• Soul Kitchen (Fatih Akin) – 7.1
• Bluebeard (Catherine Breillat) – 7.0
• Ruhr (James Benning) – 7.0
• About Elly (Asghar Farhadi) – 7.0
• Irene (Alain Cavalier) – 7.0
• Everyone Else (Maren Ade) – 7.0
• Lourdes (Jessica Hausner) – 7.0
• Best Worst Movie (Michael Stephenson) – 7.0
• Eccentricities of a Blonde-haired Girl (Manoel de Oliveira) – 6.9
• P.opular S.ky (Ryan Trecartin) – 6.9
• Symbol (Hitoshi Matsumoto) – 6.9
• White Material (Claire Denis) – 6.9
• Let Each One Go Where He May (Ben Russell) – 6.8
• Mother (Bong Joon-ho) – 6.8
• A Hard Name (Alan Zweig) – 6.8
• Public Enemies (Michael Mann) – 6.8
• Humpday (Lynn Shelton) – 6.8
• Disorder (Huang Weikai) – 6.7
• Broken Embraces (Pedro Almodóvar) – 6.7
• Drag Me To Hell (Sam Raimi) – 6.7
• Chloe (Atom Egoyan) – 6.7
• Oxhide II (Liu Jiayin) – 6.6
• The White Ribbon (Michael Haneke) – 6.6
• To Die Like a Man (João Pedro Rodrigues) – 6.5
• Antichrist (Lars von Trier) – 6.5
• The Girl on the Train (André Téchiné) – 6.5
• I Am Love (Luca Guadagnino) – 6.4
• The Legacy (Bernard Émond) – 6.4
• The Informant! (Steven Soderbergh) – 6.3
• Amer (Hélène Cattet & Bruno Forzani) – 6.3
• Where the Wild Things Are (Spike Jonze) – 6.2
• Beeswax (Andrew Bujalski) – 6.2
• Henri-Georges Clouzot’s Inferno (Serge Bromberg & Ruxandra Medrea) – 6.2
• Duplicity (Tony Gilroy) – 6.1
• The Mouth of the Wolf (Pietro Marcello) – 6.1
• I Killed My Mother (Xavier Dolan) – 6.1
• Audition (Nelofer Pazira) – 6.1
• To the Sea (Pedro González-Rubio) – 6.1
• Whatever Works (Woody Allen) – 6.0
• Avatar (James Cameron) – 6.0
• Jackpot (Alan Black) – 6.0
• Eden is West (Costa-Gavras) – 6.0
• Crab Trap (Oscar Ruiz Navia) – 6.0
• The Limits of Control (Jim Jarmusch) – 5.9
• Independencia (Raya Martin) – 5.9
• No One Knows About Persian Cats (Bahman Ghobadi) – 5.9
• Kill Daddy Goodnight (Michael Glawogger) – 5.9
• A Town Called Panic (Stéphane Aubier & Vincent Patar) – 5.8
• Kinatay (Brillante Mendoza) – 5.7
• She, a Chinese (Guo Xiaolu) – 5.7/li>
• Like You Know it All (Hong Sang-soo) – 5.7
• Enter the Void (Gaspar Noé) – 5.7
• Farewell (Ditteke Mensink) – 5.7
• My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done (Werner Herzog) – 5.6
• A Serious Man (Joel & Ethan Coen) – 5.6
• Whip it (Drew Barrymore) – 5.6
• Unmade Beds (Alexis Dos Santos) – 5.6
• The Invention of Dr. NakaMats (Astrup Schröder) – 5.6
• Optical Illusions (Cristián Jiménez) – 5.6
• Milk of Sorrow (Claudia Llosa) – 5.6
• The Father of My Children (Mia Hansen-Løve) – 5.5
• Katalin Varga (Peter Strickland) – 5.5
• Eastern Plays (Kamen Kalev) – 5.5
• Eighteen (Jang Kun-jae) – 5.4
• La Danse: The Paris Opera Ballet (Frederick Wiseman) – 5.4
• Petropolis (Peter Mettler) – 5.4
• The Wolfberg Family (Axelle Ropert) – 5.3
• The Time That Remains (Elia Suleiman) – 5.3
• Nummer Twaalf, Variations On a Theme: The King’s Gambit Accepted, The Number of Stars In the Sky and Why a Piano Cannot Be Tuned or Waiting For an Earthquake (Guido Van Der Werve) – 5.2
• Ajami (Yaron Shani & Scandar Copti) – 5.2
• The Girlfriend Experience (Steven Soderbergh) – 5.1
• The Happiest Girl in the World (Radu Jude) – 5.1
• Moon (Duncan Jones) – 5.0
• City of Life and Death (Lu Chuan) – 5.0
• The Cove (Louie Psihoyos) – 5.0
• The Hole (Joe Dante) – 4.9
• The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call – New Orleans (Werner Herzog) – 4.9
• Fish Tank (Andrea Arnold) – 4.9
• Mark (Mike Hoolboom) – 4.9
• Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (David Yates) – 4.9
• The King of Escape (Alain Guiraudie) – 4.8
• The Exploding Girl (Bradley Rust Gray) – 4.8
• The Wind Journeys (Ciro Guerra) – 4.8
• Tales From the Golden Age (Hanno Höfer, Razvan Marculescu, Cristian Mungiu, Constantin Popescu, & Ioana Uricaru) – 4.8
• Women Without Men (Shirin Neshat) – 4.7
• The Road (John Hillcoat) – 4.6
• A Prophet (Jacques Audiard) – 4.6
• Around a Small Mountain (Jacques Rivette) – 4.5
• Carcasses (Denis Côté) – 4.4
• Double Tide (Sharon Lockhart) – 4.4
• Craneway Event (Tacita Dean) – 4.4
• Life During Wartime (Todd Solondz) – 4.4
• In the Loop (Armando Iannucci) – 4.3
• Karaoke (Chris Chong Chan Fui) – 4.3
• Bright Star (Jane Campion) – 4.2
• Coraline (Henry Selick) – 4.2
• Sweet Rush (Andrzej Wajda) – 4.2
• Double Take (Johan Grimonprez) – 4.1
• Disco and Atomic War (Jaak Kilmi) – 4.1
• Cat Ladies (Christie Callan-Jones) – 4.1
• The Box (Richard Kelly) – 3.9
• All Fall Down (Philip Hoffman) – 3.9
• Daniel & Ana (Michel Franco) – 3.9
• Spring Fever (Lou Ye) – 3.8
• I Love You Phillip Morris (Glenn Ficarra & John Requa) – 3.7
• Nothing Personal (Urszula Antoniak) – 3.6
• Act of God (Jennifer Baichwal) – 3.4
• The Forest (Piotr Dumala) – 3.3
• Up (Pete Docter) – 3.3
• Vision (Margarethe Von Trotta) – 3.2
• Letters to Father Jacob (Klaus Härö) – 3.2
• Lula, Son of Brazil (Fábio Barreto & Marcelo Santiago) – 3.2
• Waste Land (Lucy Walker, Karen Harley, & João Jardim) – 3.1
• After Last Season (Mark Region) – 3.1
• Precious (Lee Daniels) – 3.0
• Objectified (Gary Hustwit) – 3.0
• Kanikôsen (Sabu) – 2.9
• Lebanon (Samuel Maoz) – 2.9
• I Am Not Your Friend (György Pálfi) – 2.7
• I Went To the Zoo the Other Day (Luo Li) – 2.7
• Fig Trees (John Greyson) – 2.7
• Star Trek (J.J. Abrams) – 2.6
• Trash Humpers (Harmony Korine) – 2.5
• Greetings From the Woods (Mikel Cee Karlsson) – 2.3
• Tetro (Francis Ford Coppola) – 2.2
• General Orders No. 9 (Robert Persons) – 2.0
• Moloch Tropical (Raoul Peck) – 1.9
• Samson and Delilah (Warwick Tornton) – 1.9
• Mammoth (Lukas Moodysson) – 1.8
• Art & Copy (Doug Pray) – 1.7
• The Lovely Bones (Peter Jackson) – 0.9
• Brüno (Larry Charles) – 0.8
• Clubland (Eric Geringas) – 0.3