The Best Films of 2009

‘Avatar’

A sensory spectacular. To quote a colleague, ‘a masterpiece, if the most flawed movie ever to get such acclaim.’

‘The Hurt Locker’

Kathryn Bigelow returns from the wasteland with a meticulous unpacking of the twenty-first century American military psyche. It’s the modern-day ‘Platoon’, only well written.

‘In The Loop’

Whether Armando Iannucci is aware that his teetering-on-the-borderline-of-immaturity satire ends up compartmentalising the blame for the Iraq war to an out-of-control spin doctor, thus for the most part excusing the (here unseen) world leaders from blame, is immaterial: well-made, caustically written, and always on the move, ‘In The Loop’ was an outright success.

‘The International’

While other films of its ilk are happy to rest on the sobriquet ‘70s-style’, this precise but invested thriller managed to be both of its time (a banking crisis!) and timeless (how does the individual function within the system?) in its concerns.

‘Public Enemies’

In an example of superlative filmmaking, if not run-away entertainment, Michael Mann somehow marries the men-with-guns pomposity of his digital crime thrillers with the spooky existentiality of ‘Manhunter’.

Honorary mentions:

‘The Taking of Pelham 123’ (played to my fondness for New York-based heist thrillers), ‘The Hangover’ (a welcome tonic from the Apatow-domination of bromances), ‘Rachel Getting Married’ (bravely down-to-earth cinema about the dawn of responsibility), ‘Duplicity’ (not so much about the art of conning as the art of film-making, and how god-awfully repetitive and meaningless it becomes after a while), and ‘Let The Right One In’ (cool, stylish, scary, and very well made).