Good Movies of 2009 - Top 3
Here are the 3 best movies of 2009 that got our adrenaline pumping and the dynamite exploding. We love good movies and have seen hundreds in our time.
- The Messenger. You know that gut-wrenching moment in any war-related film where a mother or father or wife opens the door to find two military men on the doorstep, and their presence alone signifies that inconceivable tragedy? Oren Moverman’s powerful debut is full of them — making this drama starring Ben Foster and Woody Harrelson (in career-best performances) one of the year’s hardest films to watch. But The Messenger also one of the most rewarding, an insightful character study that’ll leave you moved.
- Coraline. Ushering in the 2009 trend of children’s movies perhaps best appreciated by adults, the stop-motion animated the movie the Coraline is dazzlingly inventive, eye-poppingly beautiful … and scary as all-get-out. Coraline’s richly strange and imaginative world gave us one of the best 3D movies ever made, and it will stay with us for a long, long time, even if that’s sometimes unfortunately manifested through horrible nightmares involving button eyes.
- The Hurt Locker. Director Kathryn Bigelow allows little breathing room in this suspense-filled war drama about a special unit (including Jeremy Renner and Anthony Mackie) tasked to defuse bombs in Iraq. The Hurt Locker tightly-shot, almost documentary feel, captures military conflict in ways that other films this decade have failed, and may go down as one of the best war movies ever made. For now, at least, it’s one of the very best of ‘09.