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Landon Palmer
Columnist, Austin

The Headless Woman (La mujer sin cabeza) // Argentinean filmmaker Lucrecia Martel’s hypnotic tale of a socialite trying to make sense of her life after an unusual car accident is the most convincing cinematic manifestation of what it would be like to experience memory loss since Memento. Calculated and accomplished in its daring experimentation as well as haunting in its meditative beauty, The Headless Woman immersed me in the subjective experience of a fictional character like no other film this year.

The Hurt Locker // There’s nothing more I can say about this film than reverberate the heaps of well-deserved praise it’s been getting since the festival circuit. Kathryn Bigelow (who I would love to see become the first female Best Director Oscar recipient) knows how to control suspense like no other living American filmmaker, showing a firm understanding that plot-moving narrative action and thorough character development never have to be mutually exclusive. It’s just damn good filmmaking.

Inglourious Basterds // QT has always made movies about cinephilia and for cinephiles, but Inglourious Basterds finds him finally reigning his indulgences in (for the most part) and delivering a movie not meant simply as an homage to movies, but an ode to the incredibly powerful manipulative influence of the big screen. Further divulging into themes of power, Inglourious Basterds also fascinatingly explores the tenuous structures of language(s), rhetoric, and “passing,” and the wealth they can bestow onto those who wield them with care – but, most importantly, it’s easily the most entertaining two and a half hours to be had at your local 350-seat movie theater this year.

A Serious Man // The Coen brothers give us a characteristically odd, pitch-black funny, head-scratching story about the worst two weeks of any man’s life and, in the process, deliver what is possibly their most personal film to date as well as their most accomplished character study since Barton Fink. It’s a formally complex and thematically dense film that adamantly refuses to give easy solutions to complicated problems, the kind of film that generously rewards revisitation. A Serious Man features the Coens working joyfully on all cylinders, and the “goy’s tooth” sequence alone is incredible enough for this gem to make a my list.

Hunger // Between District 9 and A Single Man, 2009 was an unusually strong year for first-time directors, but no debut impressed me more than Irish video installation artist Steve McQueen’s Hunger, a pristine work of pure, assured cinematic artistry chronicling the 1981 hunger strike led by IRA icon Bobby Sands as embodied in a remarkably transformative performance by Michael Fassbender. The film is neither biopic nor history lesson, but a profoundly affecting marriage of beautiful and challenging imagery. It’s the closest thing I endured this year to the perfect cinematic experience.

Robert Levin
Critic, New York

Up in the Air // Jason Reitman’s observant, empathetic masterpiece enthralls on a deep, human level and as a microcosmic depiction of the times we live in.

A Serious Man // The Coens’ most personal film brilliantly subverts cinematic conventions as it tells a story rooted in complex philosophy, with a realistic rendition of the tight-knitted insularity that so often permeates Midwestern Jewish life.

The Hurt Locker // A movie about the current war in Iraq that’s not concerned with politics and not interested in sermonizing. Kathryn Bigelow’s film conveys the profound existential torment of the soldier on the front lines, when mere seconds determine life and death.

Of Time and the City // Terrence Davies’ remarkably personal documentary combines found footage, a wide-ranging soundtrack and the filmmaker’s reflections in a nostalgic look back at the Liverpool of his youth and the much changed city of today.

Avatar // James Cameron’s pet project, years in the making, is every bit the game-changing 3D epic spectacle it was cracked up to be. The dialogue might be silly and the story a bit trite, but it’s a grand entertainment if ever there was one.

Kevin Carr
Critic, Columbus

Star Trek // I have very fond memories of watching the original Star Trek series on the weekends while I was a kid. Sure, it doesn’t totally hold up today, but it is a fantastic chapter in cinematic (or at least television) science fiction. But what J.J. Abrams and company did was, to quote Mr. Spock, fascinating. They managed to make a brand new movie with a young, hip cast that was more-or-less consistent with the original series without alienating its fan base. When the biggest complaint Trekkers have is that they don’t build ships on the ground, you’ve got a four-quadrant, widely-appealing film that rocked the hell out of science fiction action. What a fantastic reboot!

District 9 // Forget that other Oscar-bait South Africa movie. This is where it’s at. Like good speculative fiction, District 9 was able to take real-world issues of racism, classism, segregation, corporate greed and moral relativism and put it into a more digestible context. District 9 wasn’t just a kick-ass action film with big frakking robots, lethal aliens and wicked-cool boom sticks. It was also a mirror for us to look into as human beings so we can consider our actions against one another. Easily one of the most impressive and surprising movies of the year.

Fantastic Mr. Fox // As a die-hard Wes Anderson fan and also as someone who read Roald Dahl’s books as a kid, Fantastic Mr. Fox was a giant bundle of friendly fun for myself to enjoy. It managed to capture the flavor of both Dahl’s book and Anderson’s quirky filmmaking style. The voice cast was amazing, and the retro stop-motion look of the film gave it an endearing quality that was fresh and nostalgic at the same time. Fantastic Mr. Fox works both as a kids film and as something grown-ups can love, and it’s one of the best feel good movies of the year.

Coraline // Coraline represented another home run for the stop-motion animation artistry, which seemed to have all-but-disappeared after CG animation took over the industry. But thanks to the visionary brilliance of Henry Selick, we were given a fascinating look into an alternate reality. Like last year’s Spiderwick Chronicles, Coraline was a bit too dark to be a widely successful kids’ movie, but it was a unique movie all to itself because it had such heart and art to its formulation. And let’s not forget about the brilliant use of stereoscopic 3D in its initial release.

Up // I know. This is just too easy. Who doesn’t want to put Pixar’s latest film as their favorite movie of the year – or at least somewhere in the top five. However, I refuse to grade this movie down because Pixar has done so many fantastic films over the years. Up had a lot of hurdles, being Pixar’s tenth outing and the first one in 3D as well as the fact that it had some very non-traditional story elements to it. But Pete Docter and the Pixar team did an amazing job telling a story that tugs at the heart strings and is infinitely optimistic as well. It was a love story, a jungle adventure, a touching story about a boy needing a father and a silly film about talking dogs. What’s not to love about that?

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