Best Movies of 2009
Ranked by our critic's grades, best first.
Inglourious BasterdsFive chapters of weaponized conversation, and the best opening scene of its century.Read the review
3 IdiotsA campus farce that argues with an entire education system, and wins the argument on jokes.
The HangoverA comedy built as a detective story, in which the missing person and the suspects are the same four men.
The Secret in Their Eyes (2009)Campanella braids a cold murder case, an unspoken love and Argentina's debt to its dead into a crowd-pleaser with real teeth.
Mary and MaxAdam Elliot's claymation pen-pal story is funnier and sadder than its look promises, even when the narration does too much of the work.
UpFour wordless minutes at the start rank with anything in animation, and the rest is a very good adventure.
AvatarThe most convincing imaginary place ever built, wrapped around a story you already know.
WatchmenThe most faithful adaptation possible of a book whose whole point was that it could not be adapted.
(500) Days of SummerA breakup film considerably smarter about its narrator than most of the people who quote it.
PolytechniqueVilleneuve films a real massacre in cold black and white and refuses every consolation.