DVD Times Top 10 Films of 2009
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23-12-2009 00:00 | 56287 views
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Noel Megahey
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DVD Times Reviewers Top 10 Films 2009
Once again, despite the great variety in tastes and viewing habits, a number of films released in 2009 received wide acclaim and favour among the DVD Times contributors. The totals have been added up and this year there’s one clear outright winner. The Top 5 films as voted for by the DVD Times team are listed below, followed by the individual Top 10 lists of each of the contributors.
1. Inglourious Basterds (7 votes)
A tribute to the war movie and to movies in general, for better or worse, Inglourious Basterds was a film that no-one else but Quentin Tarantino could have made and a welcome return to form for him. While it was generally recognised that there were some minor flaws in the casting and pacing, these were more than compensated for by revelatory performances elsewhere, the unmistakable stamp of Tarantino’s tense riveting dialogue and the sheer bravado of the edge-of-your-seat screenplay.
2. Let The Right One In (5 votes)
Almost as highly regarded by the DVD Times contributors, remaining long in the mind and thus still highly placed despite its release at the start of the year, Tomas Alfredson’s dark and snowy Swedish locations proved to be an atmospheric setting for the remarkable warmth and sensitivity of an unusual but mutually supportive coming-of-age story of love and friendship ...as a vampire tale.
3. Up (4 votes)
The obligatory Pixar entry in the DVD Times Top 5 saw the undisputed world’s greatest animation studio reach new heights and much critical acclaim, delivering the usual fun and adventure, but also finding time to touch on other aspects of growing up and growing old, and not necessarily gracefully either.
4. The Hurt Locker (4 votes)
The combination of intense action sequences, perceptive character study and an insightful examination of the nature of men at war proved to be a winning combination in Kathyrn Bigelow’s film about the activities of a bomb disposal squad in Iraq.
5. The Wrestler (4 votes)
Darren Aronofsky confounded many fans of his highly stylised work by venturing into the more conventional arena of the sports drama, but the real surprise of the film was the return of Mickey Rourke, giving the film a powerful human dimension that saw it placed highly on a number of DVD Times contributor’s lists.
Individual Lists
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Once again, despite the great variety in tastes and viewing habits, a number of films released in 2009 received wide acclaim and favour among the DVD Times contributors. The totals have been added up and this year there’s one clear outright winner. The Top 5 films as voted for by the DVD Times team are listed below, followed by the individual Top 10 lists of each of the contributors.
A tribute to the war movie and to movies in general, for better or worse, Inglourious Basterds was a film that no-one else but Quentin Tarantino could have made and a welcome return to form for him. While it was generally recognised that there were some minor flaws in the casting and pacing, these were more than compensated for by revelatory performances elsewhere, the unmistakable stamp of Tarantino’s tense riveting dialogue and the sheer bravado of the edge-of-your-seat screenplay.
2. Let The Right One In (5 votes)
Almost as highly regarded by the DVD Times contributors, remaining long in the mind and thus still highly placed despite its release at the start of the year, Tomas Alfredson’s dark and snowy Swedish locations proved to be an atmospheric setting for the remarkable warmth and sensitivity of an unusual but mutually supportive coming-of-age story of love and friendship ...as a vampire tale.
3. Up (4 votes)
The obligatory Pixar entry in the DVD Times Top 5 saw the undisputed world’s greatest animation studio reach new heights and much critical acclaim, delivering the usual fun and adventure, but also finding time to touch on other aspects of growing up and growing old, and not necessarily gracefully either.
4. The Hurt Locker (4 votes)
The combination of intense action sequences, perceptive character study and an insightful examination of the nature of men at war proved to be a winning combination in Kathyrn Bigelow’s film about the activities of a bomb disposal squad in Iraq.
5. The Wrestler (4 votes)
Darren Aronofsky confounded many fans of his highly stylised work by venturing into the more conventional arena of the sports drama, but the real surprise of the film was the return of Mickey Rourke, giving the film a powerful human dimension that saw it placed highly on a number of DVD Times contributor’s lists.
Individual Lists
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Originally posted by bburdett
Only one I haven't seen from the top 5 is Up but am seriously considering pre-ordering the steelbook blu-ray, absolutely loved the other 4.
I have the Region A and the picture is just perfect. The film thankfully matches the visual feast.
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4&5 were both superb, The Hurt Locker in particular was far more worthy as the best film of 2009 than Tarantino’s latest overated effort which I regret paying to see in the cinema.
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Also Moon deserves a mention for being old school science fiction, I see it's in some lists already :)
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I couldn't help noticing how you guys voted for your top 10 films of 2009 is simply flawed. No matter what position the film is, it gets a vote and Inglorious Basterds topped the list because it is the most mentioned film of all your lists. I've devised an alternate voting system in which your number 1 choice gets 10 points, number 2 gets 9 points and so on right down to number 10 which receives 1 point.
e.g
1. Film X (10 points)
2. Film Y (9 points)
....and so on....
Using the existing critic's list (Gary Couzens is excluded because he did not put any film in a particular order as evident by the = sign), here's what your top 5 would actually look like under the alternative voting system.
1. Inglorious Basterds (28 points)
2. Red Cliff (27 points)
3. Up (24 points)
4. Hurt Locker (23 points)
5. The Good, The Bad, The Weird (21 points)
As you can see, Basterds still topped the list and what's even more fascinating (or odd) is that Up and The Hurt Locker remain unchanged.
On Red Cliff, it is number 2 on the alternative list with some caveats. I made the decision to include international AND the full 4 hour version hence why it is on number 2. If it is just the vote for the International version, the points would be split to 16 for the international and 9 for the 4 hour version. This would mean Ponyo would be on number 5 with 20 point. My alternative voting systemcould be seen as flawed too but I would like to hear your say on the matter. 
To summarise it all: The new list would look nearly the same as yours except Red Cliff and The Good, The Bad, The Weird are on the no 2 and 5 spot respectively.
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As for Red Cliff - I think you'll find we all voted for/prefer the 2 film version, it's certainly the only version I've seen. But Matt was the only one actually made the disctinction ;)
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The actual method of voting chosen here was by votes, with the points system used only to separate between films with equal votes. The points only system was offered as an alternative, but when I ran both past the other contributors, it was agreed that the final 5 arrived at by the votes system was more representative of the overall tastes - and ultimately that's what counts.