Thanks to NetFlix and a list of critically acclaimed films that I actually wanted to see, I managed to see quite a few films in 2009. Here’s the list of every 2009 film that I managed to see, and listed here in order. I’ve grouped them into several categories, in order to show that there were differences between the Very Successful group and the Disappointment group, for example.
Regarding my top tier, I’ve managed to see most of these a second time and they do hold up. I’d say that Inglourious Basterds is number one by a considerable margin, however. It was such an entertaining, thrilling, and suspenseful movie! It also featured my favorite performance of the year, Christoph Waltz.
The Best of the Year – Transcended their Genre:
Inglourious Basterds- Avatar
- Star Trek
- Up in the Air
- Up
- I Love You, Man
- The Hurt Locker
- Observe and Report
- Funny People
- Zombieland
- The Hangover
- Fantastic Mr. Fox
- Monsters vs. Aliens
Inglourious BasterdsVery Successful (within their Genre):
- Anvil: The Story of Anvil
- Taken
- Year One
- He’s Just Not That Into You
- State of Play
- Sunshine Cleaning
- Management
- The Blind Side
- Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian
- The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard
- Bruno
- Angels and Demons
- Extract
- Julie and Julia
- Paper Heart
- Adventureland
- Watchmen
- Sherlock Holmes
- Duplicity
- The International
Disappointments:
- Land of the Lost
- 17 Again
- Paul Blart: Mall Cop
- Terminator: Salvation
- Away We Go
- Fanboys
- The Girlfriend Experience
Just Plain Awful:
- The Marc Pease Experience
- The Proposal
- Obsessed (“very successful” if you view this as so-bad-it’s-good and love a good catfight)
- Knowing (soooo sick of end-of-the-world movies)
I like your lists. I haven’t seen all of those, but most. There are two that I have especially strong opinions about: I thought Inglourious Basterds was one of the worst, over hyped, self-indulgent, dull, pieces of schlock that I have seen in a long time. However, Christoph Waltz’s performance is the gold standard and Brad Pitt was very good. Best picture nod, my ass. 😉
As A-List movies and hype go, for me, Watchmen was the biggest disappointment of all time. Visually stunning, but that is all it had. Dull, Dull, Dull. I think there may have been more excitement in Ethan Frome. Let’s face it, at the end of the day, the plot was idiotic. Oh, it was an upgrade from the comics, that’s for sure, but still dumb-ass.
For me, Avatar and Star Trek were both worth the hype (and I wanted not to like Avatar). I just watched Sunshine Cleaning and enjoyed it very much. I will agree that the worst 2009 movie of the year that I saw had to be Knowing. It was Twilight Bad.