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30 films I recommend from 2009

I considered writing a top ten list for 2009 and even started on a top ten of the last decade but kept coming back to all the problems I have with top tens and so decided I’d put together a recommendation list instead.

I’ve decided to therefore take the easy way out and not order the films (they are in alphabetical order) and have gone with 30 films instead of 10. This might seem like a high number but in 2009 I’m pretty sure I watched more than a 150 new releases so getting down to 30 recommendations was still hard.

These are not the best films of 2009 as I am sure there were some incredible films I’ve not yet had the chance to see, this is more a list of personal recommendations of the films I liked in 2009.

As with all lists I am sure there will be people who read it and have no idea what I am thinking recommending a particular film. Any feedback is appreciated and feel free to contact me on Twitter to let me know your thoughts on the list or to ask me about the logic behind any of my choices.

So here it is, my favourite 30 films from 2009.

Antichrist (Lars von Trier)

Anvil! The Story of Anvil (Sacha Gervasi)

Air Doll (Hirokazu Koreeda)

Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans (Werner Herzog)

The Brothers Bloom (Rian Johnson)

Che Parts One & Two (Steven Soderbergh)

District 9 (Neil Blomkamp)

Drag Me to Hell (Sam Raimi)

Encounters at the End of the World (Werner Herzog)

Enter the Void (Gaspar Noe)

Fantastic Mr. Fox (Wes Anderson)

The Girlfriend Experience (Steven Soderbergh)

The Hurt Locker (Kathryn Bigelow)

In The Loop (Amando Iannucci)

Life During Wartime (Todd Solondz)

The Limits of Control (Jim Jarmusch)

Moon (Duncan Jones)

My Name Is Bruce (Bruce Campbell)

Not Quite Hollywood: The Wild, Untold Story of Ozploitation! (Mark Hartley)

Ponyo on the Cliff (Hayao Miyazaki)

Une Prophete (Jacques Audiard)

Public Enemies (Michael Mann)

Rachel Getting Married (Jonathan Demme)

Red Cliff (John Woo)

Synecdoche, New York (Charlie Kaufman)

Thirst (Chan-wook Park)

Trash Humpers (Harmony Korine)

Trick ‘r Treat (Michael Dougherty)

Up (Pete Docter)

Up in the Air (Jason Reitman)

Christmas Film Choices

Unsure what to watch this Christmas? I’ve picked a few of my favourite Christmas films.

Batman Returns - Tim Burton’s vision of a Gothic Batman film, set during Gotham’s Christmas celebrations.

Gremlins - Probably my favourite Christmas film. One highlight is Kate’s (Phoebe Cates) personal Christmas story.

Tokyo Godfathers - A beautiful Christmas tale from Anime master Satoshi Kon.

Scrooged - Bill Groundhog-Day, Ghostbustin’-ass Murray! in a retelling of a very traditional Christmas story.

Silent Night, Deadly Night - Santa, slasher classic. Brutal and hilariously awful in equal measures.

The Nightmare Before Christmas - Although perhaps slightly ruined by over exposure in popular culture The Nightmare Before Christmas is still a great film with wonderful songs from Danny Elfman and incredible animation from Henry Selick.

Die Hard - “Now I have a machine gun. Ho ho ho.”

Bad Santa - Terry Zwigoff directs Billy Bob Thornton in the offensive but surprisingly touching Bad Santa.

Black Christmas - A slasher that laid a lot of the ground rules for slashers to come and a film that also makes for a damn good alternative to the usual feelgood Christmas fare.

Lady in the Lake - Perhaps an odd choice but Lady in the Lake is set on Christmas Eve and also happens to be an excellent Marlowe Film Noir shot entirely in POV.

Jack Frost - I can’t say I can particularly recommend this direct-to-video horror but if you’ve made it through all the above and you’re pretty drunk on Christmas cheer you’ll most likely get quite a good laugh out of this.

Twin Peaks - 12 Days of Christmas

A Christmas themed Twin Peaks song.