Best Movies of 2009

Editor: Piero Scaruffi
Best movies of all time | Back to the Cinema page
Best of the decade | Best of 2008 | Best of 2010
The following list averages the opinions of my favorite critics plus mine.

Foreign movies show sometimes a year later, so if you can't find a title, check last year's ratings.

This page is obsolete. Please check this list: Best of the 2000s
7.8 Gaspar Noe: Soudain Le Vide/ Enter the Void
7.5 Joon-ho Bong: Mother
7.4 Asghar Farhadi: Darbareye Elly/ About Elly
7.4 Quentin Tarantino: Inglorious Basterds
7.3 Corneliu Porumboiu: Police Adjective
7.3 Michael Haneke: Das Weisse Band/ The White Ribbon
7.3 Claire Denis: White Material
7.2 Jacques Audiard: Un Prophete/ A Prophet
7.2 Sophie Barthes: Cold Souls
7.2 Vimukthi Jayasundara: Between Two Worlds
7.2 Giorgos Lanthimos: Kynodontas/ Dogtooth
7.2 Pietro Marcello: The Mouth of the Wolf
7.1 Andrea Arnold: Fish Tank
7.1 Claudia Llosa: La Teta Asustada/ The Milk Of Sorrow
7.1 Samuel Maoz: Lebanon
7.1 Adam Elliot: Mary & Max
7.1 Giuseppe Capotondi: The Double Hour
7.1 Veiko Ounpuu: The Temptation of St. Tony
7.1 Paul McGuigan: Push
7.1 Shane Acker: 9
7.1 Fatih Akin: Soul Kitchen
7.1 Caroline Bottaro: Queen to Play
7.0 Arnaud & Jean-Marie Larrieu: Les Derniers Jours du Monde/ Happy End
7.0 Neill Blomkamp: District 9 (2009)
7.0 Radu Jude: The Happiest Girl in the World (2009)
7.0 Rajkumar Hirani: 3 Idiots (2009)
7.0 Conor Horgan: One Hundred Mornings
7.0 Takeshi Koike: Redline
7.0 Peter Strickland: Katalin Varga
7.0 Xiaolu Guo: She, a Chinese
7.0 Pema Tseden: The Search
7.0 Jessica Hausner: Lourdes
7.0 Natalia Smirnoff: The Puzzle
7.0 Ivan Engler: Cargo
7.0 Alejandro Amenabar: Agora
7.0 Raya Martin: Independencia
7.0 Xavier Dolan: I Killed My Mother
7.0 Patric Chiha: Domain
7.0 Claude and Nathan Miller: I'm Glad My Mother Is Alive
7.0 Stephane Brize: Mademoiselle Chambon
7.0 Bui Thac Chuyen: Adrift
7.0 Harmony Korine: Trash Humpers
7.0 Rodrigo Garcia: Mother and Child
7.0 Benny and Josh Safdie: Daddy Longlegs
7.0 Pedro Gonzalez-Rubio: Alamar
7.0 Christophe Honore: Making Plans for Lena
7.0 Jan Hrebejk: Kawasaki's Rose
7.0 Anocha Suwichakornpong: Mundane History
7.0 Bruno Dumont: Hadewijch
7.0 Andrew Bujalski: Beeswax
7.0 Noah Buschel: The Missing Person
7.0 Scott McGehee and David Siegel: Uncertainty
7.0 Henry Selick: Coraline
7.0 Michael Mann: Public Enemies
7.0 Marc Webb: (500) Days of Summer
7.0 Lu Chuan: City Of Life And Death
7.0 Jonathan Parker: (Untitled)
7.0 Christian Alvart: Pandorum
7.0 Sandra Nettelbeck: Helen
7.0 Duncan Jones: Moon
7.0 Maren Ade: Alle Anderen/ Everyone Else
6.9 Mia Hansen-Love: The Father of My Children
6.9 Jan Troell: Everlasting Moments
6.9 Joel & Ethan Coen: A Serious Man
6.9 Srdjan Spasojevic: A Serbian Film
6.9 Bryan Poyser: Lovers of Hate
6.9 Adam Salky: Dare
6.9 Jim Jarmusch: The Limits of Control
6.9 Jonathan auf der Heide: Van Diemen's Land
6.9 Rian Johnson: The Brothers Bloom
6.9 Pablo Trapero: Lion's Den
6.9 Armando Iannucci: In the Loop
6.9 Rajkumar Hirani: Idiots
6.8 Francis Ford Coppola: Tetro
6.8 C.W. Winter and Anders Edstrom: The Anchorage
6.8 Alain Guiraudie: The King of Escape
6.8 Alain Resnais: Wild Grass
6.8 Sebastian Silva: The Maid
6.8 Niki Caro: The Vintner's Luck
6.8 John Hillcoat: The Road
6.8 Emily Abt: Toe to Toe
6.8 Tony Gilroy: Duplicity
6.8 Roland Emmerich: 2012
6.8 Daniel Monzon: Celda 211
6.8 Wes Anderson: Fantastic Mr Fox
6.8 Joji Fukunaga: Sin Nombre
6.8 Luca Guadagnino: I Am Love
6.8 Kathryn Bigelow: The Hurt Locker
6.8 Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne: Lorna's Silence
6.8 David Twohy: A Perfect Getaway
6.8 Neill Blomkamp: District 9
6.8 Lars von Trier: Antichrist
6.7 Yang Ik-Joon: Ddongpari
6.7 Jordan Scott: Cracks
6.7 Sam Raimi: Drag Me to Hell
6.7 Tom Ford: A Single Man
6.6 Atom Egoyan: Adoration
6.6 Johnny To: Vengeance
6.6 Michael Aimette and John Hofmann: Turning Green
6.6 Richard Kelly: The Box
6.6 Tao Ruspoli: Fix
6.6 Scandar Copti: Ajami
6.5 Danis Tanovic: Cirkus Columbia
6.5 Lee Daniels: Push
6.5 Brillante Mendoza: Kinatay/ Slaughter
6.5 Jan Kounen: Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky
6.5 Shirin Neshat: Women Without Men
6.5 Giuseppe Tornatore: Baaria
6.5 Elia Suleiman: The Time That Remains
6.5 Andre' Techine': The Girl on the Train
6.5 Pedro Almodovar: Broken Embraces
6.5 James Cameron: Avatar
6.5 Athina Rachel Tsangari: Attenberg
6.5 Craig Baldwin: Mock Up on Mu
6.5 Uruphong Raksasad: Agrarian Utopia
6.5 Frazer Bradshaw: Everything Strange and New
6.5 Lou Ye: Spring Fever
6.5 Ken Loach: Looking for Eric
6.5 John Polson: Tenderness
6.5 Rich Lee: Sincerely Yours
6.5 Lukas Moodysson: Mammoth
6.5 Richard Curtis: Pirate Radio
6.5 Antonio Campos: Afterschool
6.5 Jane Campion: Bright Star
6.5 Doris Dorrie: Cherry Blossoms
6.5 Ole Bornedal: Just Another Love Story
6.5 Teresa Prata: Sleepwalking Land
6.5 Andrzej Wajda: Katyn
6.5 Astra Taylor: Examined Life
6.5 John Maybury: The Edge of Love
6.5 Anna Broinowski: Forbidden Lies
6.5 Gotz Spielmann: Revanche
6.5 Mary Haverstick: Home
6.5 Carlos Sorin: The Window
6.5 Steven Soderbergh: The Girlfriend Experience
6.5 Harold Ramis: Year One
6.5 Max Farberbock: A Woman in Berlin
6.5 Park Chan-wook: Thirst
6.5 Li Ying: Yasukuni
6.5 Richard Loncraine: My One And Only
6.5 Cherien Dabis: Amreeka
6.5 Karyn Kusama: Jennifer's Body
6.5 Steve Jacobs: Disgrace
6.5 Cedric Klapisch: Paris
6.5 Lone Scherfig: An Education
6.5 Oren Peli: Paranormal Activity
6.5 Spike Jonze: Where the Wild Things Are
6.5 Adolfo Borinaga Alix: Adela
6.5 Paul Weitz: Cirque Du Freak - The Vampire's Assistant
6.5 Jason Reitman: Up In The Air
6.5 Cheryl Hines: Serious Moonlight
6.5 Adrian Biniez: Gigante
6.5 Scott Cooper: Crazy Heart
6.5 Shimit Amin: Rocket Singh Salesman of the Year
6.5 Nancy Meyers: It's Complicated
6.5 Terry Gilliam: The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus
6.5 Alexis Dos Santos: Unmade Beds
6.5 Steven Soderbergh: The Informant
6.4 Grant Heslov: The Men Who Stare at Goats
6.3 Oren Moverman: The Messenger
6.3 Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra: Delhi-6
6.3 Todd Phillips: The Hangover
6.3 Manoel DeOliveira: Singularidades de uma Rapariga Loura/ Eccentricities of a Blond Haired Girl
6.2 Pete Docter: Up
6.2 Ming-Liang Tsai: Visage/ Face
6.2 Richard Linklater: Me and Orson Welles
6.2 Werner Herzog: Bad Lieutenant - Port of Call New Orleans
6.2 Sam Mendes: Away We Go
6.2 Jonas Pate: Shrink
6.1 Jia Zhang-ke: 24 City
6.1 Ang Lee: Taking Woodstock
6.1 Robert Guediguian: The Army of Crime
6.0 John Lee Hancock: The Blind Side
6.0 Todd Solondz: Life During Wartime
6.0 Hong Sang-soo: Like You Know It All
6.0 Niels Arden Oplev: The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
6.0 Denis Villeneuve: Polytechnique
6.0 Neil Jordan: Ondine
6.0 Juan Jose Campanella: The Secret in their Eyes
6.0 Jodie Markell: The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond
6.0 Gyorgy Palfi: Nem Vagyok a Baratod / I Am Not Your Friend
6.0 Lee Yoon-ki: My Dear Enemy
6.0 Scott Teems: That Evening Sun
6.0 Michael Bay: Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
6.0 Ricky Gervais and Matthew Robinson: The Invention of Lying
6.0 Michel Scott: The Horse Boy
6.0 Nick Cassavetes: My Sister's Keeper
6.0 George Gallo: Local Color
6.0 Martin Provost: Seraphine
6.0 Brillante Mendoza: Serbis
6.0 Nikhil Advani: Chandni Chowk to China
6.0 Olly Blackburn: Donkey Punch
6.0 Thor Freudenthal: Hotel for Dogs
6.0 Zoya Akhtar: Luck by Chance
6.0 Josh Fox: Memorial Day
6.0 Will Gluck: Fired Up
6.0 Edward Zwick: Defiance
6.0 Wayne Kramer: Crossing Over
6.0 Christophe Honore: La Belle Personne
6.0 Carlos Saura: Fados
6.0 Philippe Garrel: Frontier of Dawn
6.0 Kiyoshi Kurosawa: Tokyo Sonata
6.0 Roger Tucker: Waiting for Dublin
6.0 John Hamburg: I Love You, Man
6.0 Rob Letterman: Monsters vs. Aliens
6.0 Bohdam Slama: The Country Teacher
6.0 Mark Brokaw: Spinning Into Butter
6.0 Emmanuel Mouret: Shall We Kiss?
6.0 Greg Mottola: Adventureland
6.0 Matt Aselton: Gigantic
6.0 Rupert Wyatt: The Escapist
6.0 Eran Riklis: Lemon Tree
6.0 Burr Steers: 17 Again
6.0 Dito Montiel: Fighting
6.0 Carlos Cuaron: Rudo y Cursi
6.0 Erick Zonca: Julia
6.0 Christian Petzold: Jerichow
6.0 Ken Jacobs: Anaglyph Tom
6.0 Damien Dante Wayans: Dance Flick
6.0 Navigating Ramallah: Laila's Birthday
6.0 Stephane Gauger: Owl and the Sparrow
6.0 Tony Scott: The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3
6.0 Anne Fontaine: The Girl From Monaco
6.0 Simon Brand: ParaĦso Travel
6.0 Judd Apatow: Funny People
6.0 Christian Madsen: Flame & Citron
6.0 Andreas Dresen: Cloud 9
6.0 Bobcat Goldthwait: World's Greatest Dad
6.0 Uli Edel: The Baader Meinhof Complex
6.0 Melvin Van Peebles: Confessions of a Ex-Doofus-Itchy Footed Mutha
6.0 Karl Skogland: Fifty Dead Men Walking
6.0 Robert Siegel: Big Fan
6.0 Jeremy Davidson: Tickling Leo
6.0 Michael Mahonen: Sandstorm
6.0 Edwin: Blind Pig Who Wants to Fly
6.0 Bob Byington: Harmony and Me
6.0 Scott Hicks: The Boys Are Back
6.0 Anne Fontaine: Coco Before Chanel
6.0 Tom Hooper: The Damned United
6.0 Jeff Stilson: Good Hair
6.0 Gary Gray: Law Abiding Citizen
6.0 Udayan Prasad: Opa
6.0 Prem Soni: Main Aur Mrs. Khanna
6.0 Ti West: The House of the Devil
6.0 Hans-Christian Schmid: Storm
6.0 Amitabh Bachchan: Paa
6.0 Clint Eastwood: Invictus
6.0 Peter Jackson: The Lovely Bones
6.0 Francois Ozon: Ricky
5.9 Jean-Marc Vallee: The Young Victoria
5.8 Robert Zemeckis: Disney's A Christmas Carol
5.5 Bill Duke: Not Easily Broken
5.5 Robert Celestino: Yonkers Joe
5.5 Kyle Newman: Fanboys
5.5 Tony Stone: Severed Ways: The Norse Discovery of America
5.5 Mary Stuart Masterson: The Cake Eaters
5.5 Jody Hill: Observe and Report
5.5 Tim Disney: American Violet
5.5 Paul Morrison: Little Ashes
5.5 Ron Howard: Angels & Demons
5.5 Bruce McDonald: Pontypool
5.5 Woody Allen: Whatever Works
5.5 Lynn Shelton: Humpday
5.5 Rowan Woods: Fragments
5.5 Nora Ephron: Julie & Julia
5.5 Neal Brennan: The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard
5.5 Gerardo Naranjo: I'm Gonna Explode
5.5 Jim Sheridan: Brothers
5.5 Michael Hoffman: The Last Station
5.5 John Musker and Ron Clements: The Princess and the Frog
5.5 Jorge Blanco: Planet 51
5.5 Kevin Heffernan: The Slammin' Salmon
5.0 Mark Webber: Explicit Ills
5.0 Dong-hoon Choi: Jeon Woo-chi - The Taoist Wizard (2009)
5.0 Andre Techine: La Fille du RER/ The Girl on the Train
5.0 Mira Nair: Amelia
5.0 David Bowers: Astro Boy
5.0 Ruben Fleischer: Zombieland
5.0 Gary Winick: Bride Wars
5.0 Ken Kwapis: He's Just Not That Into You
5.0 Tom Tykwer: The International
5.0 PJ Hogan: Confessions of a Shopaholic
5.0 Vicente Amorim: Good
5.0 William Sten Olsson: An American Affair
5.0 Christine Jeffs: Sunshine Cleaning
5.0 Alexandre Aja: The Last House on the Left
5.0 Sean McGinly: The Great Buck Howard
5.0 Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck: Sugar
5.0 John Crowley: Is Anybody There
5.0 Slava Tsukerman: Perestroika
5.0 Gregor Jordan: The Informers
5.0 Joe Wright: The Soloist
5.0 Stephen Belber: Management
5.0 Stephan Elliott: Easy Virtue
5.0 Shawn Levy: Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian
5.0 Karey Kirkpatrick: Imagine That
5.0 Alain Cavalier: Le Combat dans l'Ile
5.0 Francois Velle: The Narrows
5.0 Stephen Frears: Cheri
5.0 Larry Charles: Bruno
5.0 Shane Meadows: Somers Time
5.0 Franny Armstrong: The Age of Stupid
5.0 John-Luke Montias: Off Jackson Avenue
5.0 John Hindman: The Answer Man
5.0 Hoyt Yeatman: G-Force
5.0 Robert Luketic: The Ugly Truth
5.0 Nick Jasenovec: Paper Heart
5.0 Dani Levy: My Fuhrer
5.0 Oliver Hirschbiegel: Five Minutes of Heaven
5.0 Spike Lee: Passing Strange
5.0 Robert Rodriguez: Shorts
5.0 Giancarlo Esposito: Gospel Hill
5.0 Dominic Sena: Whiteout
5.0 Laura Gabbert: No Impact Man
5.0 Richard Eyre: The Other Man
5.0 Bob Gosse: I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell
5.0 Stanley Tucci: Blind Date
5.0 Nicolas Winding Refn: Valhalla Rising
5.0 Lewis Black: Stark Raving Black
5.0 Jiang Wen: New York, I Love You
5.0 Scott Sanders: Black Dynamite
5.0 Katherine Dieckmann: Motherhood
5.0 Rohit Shetty: All the Best
5.0 Andrzej Krakowski: Looking for Palladin
5.0 Jared Hess: Gentlemen Broncos
5.0 Richard Temtchine: How to Seduce Difficult Women
5.0 Anthony Fabian: Skin
5.0 Kirk Jones: Everybody's Fine
5.0 Brant Sersen: Splinterheads
5.0 Chris Weitz: The Twilight Saga - New Moon
5.0 James McTeigue: Ninja Assassin
5.0 Lee Daniels: Precious
5.0 Olatunde Osunsanmi: The Fourth Kind
5.0 Windy Jo Carlton: Hannah Free
5.0 Rob Marshall: Nine
5.0 Marc Lawrence: Did You Hear About the Morgans
5.0 Julie Davis: Finding Bliss
5.0 Zhang Yimou: A Woman, a Gun and a Noodle Shop
4.9 Zack Snyder: Watchmen
4.5 David Goyer: The Unborn
4.5 Daniel Barnz: Phoebe in Wonderland
4.5 Andy Fickman: Race to Witch Mountain
4.5 Christophe Barratier: Paris 36
4.5 Kevin Macdonald: State of Play
4.5 Aristomenis Tsirbas: Battle for Terra
4.5 Jonathan Glatzer: What Goes Up
4.5 Aaron Woodley: Tennessee
4.5 Anne Fletcher: The Proposal
4.5 Nia Vardalos: I Hate Valentine's Day
4.5 Chris Columbus: I Love You Beth Cooper
4.5 Jaume Collet-Serra: Orphan
4.5 Glenn McQuaid: I Sell the Dead
4.5 Todd Graff: Bandslam
4.5 David Mackenzie: Spread
4.5 Mike Judge: Extract
4.5 Peter Hyams: Beyond a Reasonable Doubt
4.5 Brandon Camp: Love Happens
4.5 Jameel Khan: The Strip
4.5 Werner Herzog: My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done
4.5 Guy Ritchie: Sherlock Holmes
4.0 Jeff Celentano: Breaking Point
4.0 Betty Thomas: lvin and the Chipmunks - The Squeakquel
4.0 Casper Andreas: Between Love & Goodbye
4.0 Donald Petrie: My Life In Ruin
4.0 David Ondaatje: The Lodger
4.0 Emily Hubley: The Toe Tactic
4.0 George Tillman: Notorious
4.0 Georgiana Nestor: The Sublet
4.0 Guard Brothers: The Uninvited
4.0 Iain Softley: Inklet
4.0 Jonas Elmer: New In Town
4.0 Pierre Morel: Taken
4.0 Steve Carr: Paul Blart
4.0 Vadim Jean: The Color of Magic
4.0 Richard Ledes: The Caller
4.0 Marcus Nispel: Friday the 13th
4.0 Prachya Pinkaew: Chocolate
4.0 Zach Cregger: Miss March
4.0 Alex Proyas: Knowing
4.0 Justin Lin: Fast and Furious
4.0 R. W. Goodwin: Alien Trespass
4.0 Rawson Thurber: The Mysteries of Pittsburgh
4.0 Gavin Hood: X-Men Origins - Wolverine
4.0 Mark Waters: Ghosts of Girlfriends Past
4.0 Tennyson Bardwell: The Skeptic
4.0 Lindsey Christian: Jazz in the Diamond District
4.0 Jennifer Lynch: Surveillance
4.0 Chris Nahon: Blood - The Last Vampire
4.0 JJ Abrams: Star Trek
4.0 David Yates: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
4.0 Morgan Freeman: Homecoming
4.0 Eileen Yaghoobian: Died Young, Stayed Pretty
4.0 Jorge Ameer: Sabor Tropical
4.0 Robert Schwentke: The Time Traveler's Wife
4.0 Phil Traill: All About Steve
4.0 Jonathan Mostow: Surrogates
4.0 Drew Barrymore: Whip It
4.0 James Mottern: Trucker
4.0 Peter Billingsley: Couples Retreat
4.0 Tony Jaa and Panna Rittikrai: Ong Bak 2
4.0 Bo Zenga: Stan Helsing
4.0 Troy Duffy: The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day
3.5 McG: Terminator Salvation
3.5 Carlos Saldanha: Ice Age - Dawn of the Dinosaurs
3.5 Brad Silberling: Land of the Lost
3.5 Walt Becker: Old Dogs
3.0 Harald Zwart: The Pink Panther 2