Items24The creator’s order
  1. 1The White Ribbon (2009)The White Ribbon (2009) 7.8/10 on IMDbReleased 24 Sept 2009Michael Haneke makes an apparently orderly German village feel poisoned by what its adults refuse to name. The precise black-and-white images and unresolved acts of violence create a historical unease without offering a simple origin story for later evil.0
  2. 2A Prophet (2009)A Prophet (2009) 7.8/10 on IMDbReleased 26 Aug 2009Jacques Audiard follows a young prisoner's education in the transactions that keep an institution running. Tahar Rahim makes intelligence visible through watching and adaptation. The gangster-film momentum is gripping, but the shifting relationship between vulnerability and power gives it lasting…0
  3. 3The Secret in Their Eyes (2009)The Secret in Their Eyes (2009) 8.2/10 on IMDbReleased 13 Aug 2009Juan José Campanella joins an Argentine murder investigation to a story about memory, political protection and words left unsaid. Ricardo Darín gives the retrospective detective a useful mixture of regret and persistence. The emotional sweep is as important as the ingenuity of the mystery.0
  4. 4Up (2009)Up (2009) 8.3/10 on IMDbReleased 28 May 2009An old man's flying house is an irresistible image, but Pixar gives the adventure weight by first establishing what he cannot bear to leave behind. The odd partnership with a young wilderness explorer lets the comedy develop from competing needs rather than interchangeable jokes.0
  5. 5Fish Tank (2009)Fish Tank (2009) 7.3/10 on IMDbReleased 11 Sept 2009Andrea Arnold follows a teenage girl's restless movement through an Essex estate with a camera that feels alert to her body and surroundings. Katie Jarvis makes ambition and defensiveness coexist. The attention she receives from an older man gradually turns the apparent escape route into something…0
  6. 6Inglourious Basterds (2009)Inglourious Basterds (2009) 8.4/10 on IMDbReleased 2 Aug 2009Quentin Tarantino makes conversations about language, performance and suspicion as suspenseful as the explosions. Christoph Waltz's controlled menace gives the alternative-history fantasy its strongest antagonist. The film's pleasure in cinema's power is inseparable from its deliberately outrageous…0
  7. 7Bright Star (2009)Bright Star (2009) 6.9/10 on IMDbReleased 18 Sept 2009Jane Campion gives Fanny Brawne's relationship with John Keats a tactile world of fabric, weather and shared rooms. Abbie Cornish's performance keeps the emotion direct without modernising away the constraints. The poetry feels like an activity between people rather than a literary exhibit.0
  8. 8Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009)Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009) 7.9/10 on IMDbReleased 14 Oct 2009Wes Anderson's stop-motion animals remain visibly handmade, with bristling fur and brisk, oddly formal movement. Mr Fox's inability to settle into respectable life gives the caper a recognisable adult vanity. The miniature world is elaborate, but the comic timing keeps it light.0
  9. 9A Serious Man (2009)A Serious Man (2009) 7.0/10 on IMDbReleased 2 Oct 2009The Coen brothers turn a professor's accumulating troubles into a brilliantly controlled comedy about the hunger for explanations. Michael Stuhlbarg's bewilderment is funny because he keeps believing that the next authority will clarify matters. The film is less interested in answers than in how…0
  10. 10Dogtooth (2009)Dogtooth (2009) 7.1/10 on IMDbReleased 22 Oct 2009Yorgos Lanthimos makes a family's invented vocabulary and sealed environment look almost ordinary before their cruelty becomes inescapable. The flat delivery sharpens the absurdity. A disturbing, sexually explicit film whose formal control makes its account of indoctrination unusually difficult to…0