Just recently New York Times critic Manohla Dargis made some waves with an interview she gave using some salty language and calling out a few people here and there. Today she delivers a list of her favorite films of 2009.
While beating the dead horse that is the hatred for such films as G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen she also has a few kind words for some films that didn’t make her ultimate list such as Star Trek, Julie & Julia (agree keep the Julie), Duplicity, A Perfect Getaway, Up and A Single Man.
I have listed her top 13 directly below as she listed them, “in order of their domestic release” with links to my reviews where available. Following that is a list of her “other favorites.” Like I said when I linked to her interview, “I have mixed feelings when it comes to New York Times critic Manohla Dargis’s taste in films, but I always enjoy reading her reviews,” and if you have the time take a second to read her recap of 2009 right here.
- Gomorrah (Matteo Garrone, Italy)
- Tulpan (Sergey Dvortsevoy, Kazakhstan)
- Summer Hours (Olivier Assayas, France)
- The Hurt Locker (Kathryn Bigelow, United States)
- The Beaches of Agnès (Agnès Varda, France)
- Public Enemies (Michael Mann, United States)
- Beeswax (Andrew Bujalski, United States)
- Ponyo (Hayao Miyazaki, Japan)
- The Informant! (Steven Soderbergh, United States)
- Where the Wild Things Are (Spike Jonze, United States)
- Fantastic Mr. Fox (Wes Anderson, United States)
- The Sun (Alexander Sokurov, Russia)
- Avatar (James Cameron, United States)
Next is her list of runners-up:
- Of Time and the City
- Frontier of Dawn
- Tokyo Sonata
- Sugar
- Léon Morin: Priest
- Julia (the Erick Zonca with Tilda Swinton)
- Star Trek
- Anaglyph Tom
- Séraphine
- The English Surgeon
- You, the Living
- In the Loop
- Import, Export
- Lorna’s Silence
- A Perfect Getaway
- The Baader Meinhof Complex
- Big Fan
- Unmade Beds
- Crude
- A Serious Man
- Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire
- The Messenger
- Big River Man
- 35 Shots of Rum
- Up in the Air
- A Single Man
- Invictus
- Police, Adjective
I am currently compiling my top ten as well as putting together a list of most anticipated films of 2010.
