AFI Announces Their List of Ten Best Movies of 2009
You may find a few things surprising...
The AFI has announced their selection of the best films of 2009 and there are a few surprises such as the inclusion of Sugar and Coraline. I guess you could look at The Hangover as a surprise addition and the absence of films such as Nine, Inglourious Basterds and Invictus (An Education is ineligible because it isn't American) could be looked at as a surprise.
Personally, I think the test of time will be to see where Avatar ends up in the world of film. Will audiences slobber all over it or just look at it as another big action film? Will we be talking about it in ten years or will it just be that big year end film of 2009?
Perhaps some of you look at the inclusion of The Hangover and the exclusion of Star Trek as noteworthy. Any thoughts on the list below? Remember, they are simply in alphabetical order.
- Coraline
- The Hangover
- The Hurt Locker
- The Messenger
- Precious
- A Serious Man
- A Single Man
- Sugar
- Up
- Up in the Air
Remember, you can stay up to date with all the year end award lists in my "The Contenders" section right here.
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great day for the hurt locker
Haha, isn't the name repetition funny? "A Single Man" "A Serious Man" and "Up" "Up in the Air". :D
Personally, I like this list. "The Hangover" is currently very high on my Top 10 list for the year (#3, actually, which means it won't be kicked off). Of course, like all Top lists, some movies I wanted to see didn't make it, and some I have no interest in did make it. But that's the fun of all Top lists–they're slightly unpredictable. The predictable Top 10 list is the one I do not want to see.
Some very overrated films here (A Serious Man, The Hurt Locker, Coraline) and a big overlooking of Inglourious Basterds and District 9. This just continues to prove how overrated the AFI is.
Inglorious Basterds should be in every top ten list of the year, next to The Hurt Locker. I'm dispointed with the AFI.
And The Hangover to me is highly overrated.
I love how they included "Sugar"!
Underrated movie of the year!
The Hangover? Automatically this list is laughable to me. I liked The Hangover. But in the top ten? Its not even in the top 25 of the year.
@cress: Probably not top 10. But I wouldn't go as far as to say that it isn't top 25.
i could change "the hangover" for "district 9" and "coraline" for the Spike Jones movie
Not feeling An Education being left out.
switch coraline with inglorious basterds and i completely agree. up deserves to be on this list 100%. Star trek is my #11 on the year
I'm pleasantly surprised about Coraline. I saw it a couple of times. A stop-motion masterpiece, shot in 3D. Fantastic.
I didn't even find Hangover funny though. Up is wonderful and it does define 2009 so well deserved.
Lack of Basterds is unforgivable though. Utterly unforgivable.
…and the list certainly lacks the award-contenders that have just been or haven't been released yet which makes one think that they could have assembled a top 20 (to account for more of the great movies) in January. At the moment, it looks like they just wanted to throw some noteworthy movies together just before the holiday.
A Serious Man is a masterpiece and I'm glad its being noticed. Second best of the year. INglourious Basterds is even more of a masterpiece and I'm disappointed that its not listed.
The only omission here that somewhat irks me is "Inglourious Basterds". However, I absolutely love the inclusion of "Coraline", a film which was released quite some time ago and consequently has been overlooked by many "best of" lists. I didn't have the good fortune to see that film in it's theatrical 3D release, but I nonetheless marveled at the beauty of the animation on DVD. Once that film reaches more people (via it's inevitable cable/broadcast debut) I think that it could reach classic status eventually.
A good list, with some distinctive style. Really, any year-end list is so "of the moment" that it's not worth complaining about what is there or forgotten. The ones that will stand the test of time will eventually surface. I like lists that push readers to give a film a second look or make a case for a film that others might dismiss too quickly.
And on a personal opinion, Coraline was a gorgeous artistic achievement… Glad to see it getting some love.
What if The Hangover was nominated for Best Picture? With 10 slots and more than likely no rival comedies in the running that might sneek in.
Afterall The Full Monty nearly won until that Titanic shit stole one.
Basterds was hyped and over rated. Although Christopher Waltz was excellent.
I don't get it – The Hangover as one of the films of the year? What the hell kind of world do we live in where a nothing dumbass comedy like The Hangover is among the top films of the year? Depressing.
i agree Basterds was hyped – but certainly not overated – and yea waltz deserves serious recognition for his role. spectacular.
I am not seeing the buzz for NINE like I thought I would at this point.
And I like list that are a bit different from everyone else, makes me more confident voters actually saw the movies they are voted on
@PinstripedJon:
Agreed!
Glad to see that Inglorious Basterds didn't make the list.