Commentary: The Top Films of 2009

Here are the ten movies from 2009 that I liked the best:

#10: Summer Hours
This unpretentious, quiet drama from France depicts the tribulations of a family when they must settle the estate of their recently deceased patriarch.

#9: Bright Star
Jane Campion’s film about the Romantic poet John Keats and his almost-lover embodies the oft-quoted line from Keats’ verse: “Beauty is truth, truth is beauty.”

#8: World’s Greatest Dad
This may be the strangest film of 2009, but it’s also one of my favorites. This underrated gem starring Robin Williams as a high school English teacher trying to cover up the less-than-flattering conditions of his son’s suicide is a pitch dark satire about our culture’s obsession with death and celebrity.

#7: Up
Pixar did it again! The first 20 minutes alone make this film worth watching again and again. I will openly admit to having cried while watching this film.

#6: An Education
Actress Carey Mulligan is an absolute revelation as a British teenager torn between the jazz-soaked, swinging London world offered by a suave older man and the academic banalities of Oxford.

#5: Brothers
The most surprising film of the year. By some miracle, veteran director Jim Sheridan gets brilliant performances out of Natalie Portman, Jake Gyllanhaal, and Tobey Maguire. A true “veteran’s picture” in the tradition of The Best Years of our Lives and Coming Home.

#4: Up in the Air
A screwball comedy for our current age. George Clooney proves once again that he is worthy of the much-repeated title of “Cary Grant of our times.” This film strikes the perfect balance between witty dialogue and the dark realities of our troubled economic times.

#3: Inglourious Basterds
Quentin Tarantino wears his love for movies on his sleeve. His geeky cinematic worldview would become annoying if he didn’t execute this film so dang well. At least three scenes in this film are among the best of the past ten years. They will be remembered and studied closely for generations to come.

#2: The Hurt Locker
The most patriotic film I have recently seen, because it tells the story of our men and women in uniform with beauty, simplicity, and truth. This film makes the soldiers’ story come alive by focusing on three men in uniform and the daily confrontation with death they face in an IED squad.

#1: A Serious Man
The Coen Brothers have emerged as the filmmakers of the decade. They repeat the artistic success of No Country for Old Men with this modern-day retelling of the story of Job. Everything falls apart for a suburban physics professor, played with incredible acuity by the stage actor Michael Stuhlberg. Hopefully he becomes a household name someday soon.