On the opening of Round One of our Movie World Cup, we see host country South Africa face off against Mexico with two strong films. District 9 is somewhat of a fanboy favorite, so it might be hard to beat, but Sin Nombre came out of the gate strong last year and impressed almost every audience it touched.

Goddamn I’m sick of making lists. Thankfully this is the last one of the year for me, and even better it’s the one I find most important.

The wonderful group of fine professional film critics and journalists known as the Austin Film Critics Association — a group that includes the membership of yours truly and FSR Managing Editor Dr. Cole Abaius — has announced its award winners for the year 2009.

Rob Hunter loves movies. He also loves training friends and strangers alike in the deadly and mystical way of Jewish martial arts. These two joys come together in the form of cash money payments that he receives every week and immediately uses to buy more DVDs. This week we have Sin Nombre, Good Dick, and Israeli Martial Artists!

I’m sure a decent number of film sites out there are going to be looking at the Best Gangster films of all time. Since we already know that Analyze This tops the list every year, we decided to do something a little different – looking at the gorgeous women that stand beside their connected men.

Sayra (Paulina Gaitan) is a teenage girl reuniting with her father to join him on a trek from Honduras to a dream life in the United States. Willy (Edgar Flores) is a member of Mara Salvatrucha, a ruthless Mexico City gang trying to escape.

Between our own scouring of the schedule and the countless emails from publicists, producers and directors, we are confident that we’ve got a handle on which films you should absolutely see at all costs should you be coming here to Austin this weekend. So here’s a list of the must sees, from us to you.

The trailer for Student Academy Award winner Cary Joji Fukunaga’s feature debut Sin Nombre, which was met with loads of critical praise during its debut at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, was sent over to us this morning by the folks at Focus Features.