List Nausea: 2009

Man. So many goddamn lists. And I've written about half of them, I'd say. Sorry about that. Anyhow, here's another batch. The first two are up at Indiewire with some minor variations back here at Termite Art, since I added some short films that didn't qualify for them. So now my monthly list total is up to 5,667. Approximately.

Ten Best Films 0f 2009 (released in the U.S.)

1. The Headless Woman, directed by Lucrecia Martel

2. You, the Living, directed by Roy Andersson

3. 35 Shots of Rum, directed by Claire Denis

4. Tokyo Sonata, directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa

5. Red Cliff (Parts 1 & 2, uncut version), directed by John Woo

6. The Informant!, directed by Steven Soderbergh

7. Still Raining, Still Dreaming, directed by Phil Solomon

8. The Sun, directed by Aleksandr Sokurov

9. Night and Day, directed by Hong Sang-soo

10. California Dreamin', directed by Cristian Nemescu

Honorable mentions: Orphan, Police Adjective, The Fantastic Mr. Fox, Liverpool, Summer Hours, Armored, Gamer, Crank: High Voltage, Me and Orson Welles, The Limits of Control, Invictus, A Perfect Getaway, Up, Funny People

Best of the Decade

1. Mulholland Dr., directed by David Lynch

2. Platform, directed by Jia Zhangke

3. L'intrus, directed by Claire Denis

4. Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, directed by Adam McKay

5. Goodbye, Dragon Inn, directed by Tsai Ming-liang

6. Yi Yi, directed by Edward Yang

7. Exiled, directed by Johnnie To

8. Rehearsals for Retirement, directed by Phil Solomon

9. In the Mood For Love, directed by Wong Kar-wai

10. Skagafjordur, directed by Peter Hutton

Honorable mentions: Crank, The Death of Mr. Lazarescu, Flight of the Red Balloon

Personal Discoveries of the Year

1. Me and My Gal (Raoul Walsh, 1932)

2. The Nickel Ride (Robert Mulligan, 1974)

3. Easy Living (Mitchell Leisen, 1936)

3. Firefox (Clint Eastwood, 1982)

4. Nightfall (Jacques Tourneur, 1957)

5. My Sister Eileen (Richard Quine, 1955)

*Most revelatory retrospective: "American Auteurs: Robert Mulligan" at Lincoln Center

Best Albums of 2009

1. Brad Paisley - American Saturday Night

2. Henry Threadgill Zooid - This Brings Us To, Vol. 1

3. Mastodon - Crack the Skye

4. Darius Jones Trio - Man'ish Boy (A Raw & Beautiful Thing)

5. Nellie McKay - Normal as Blueberry Pie: A Tribute to Doris Day

6. Willie Nelson and Asleep at the Wheel - Willie and the Wheel

7. Vijay Iyer - Historicity

8. Miranda Lambert - Revolution

9. Ghostface Killah - Ghostdini Wizard of Poetry in Emerald City

10. Steve Lehman Octet - Travail, Transformation, and Flow

Honorable Mentions:

Raekwon - Only Built 4 Cuban Linx 2

Matthew Shipp Trio - Harmonic Disorder

Rhett Miller - Rhett Miller

Lil Wayne - No Ceilings (mixtape)

The Thing - Bag It!

The Best of Ought-Nine by Singer

As usual, a more detailed list and a brief summation of the year in film can be found at IFC.com. I also recommend you check out our two-part podcast where Alison Willmore and I hand out year-end awards in a variety of categories ranging from the Best Fight Sequence to Best Onscreen Chemistry to the Most Purely Pleasurable Movie of '09 to the Talent Deserving of Wider Recognition.

In the interest of Termite Art completism, I'm reproducing the list here:

1. Two Lovers
2. Summer Hours
3. Drag Me to Hell
4. Up
5. Anvil! The Story of Anvil
6. The Hurt Locker
7. The Headless Woman
8. In the Loop
9. The White Ribbon
10. Crank: High Voltage

Honorable Mention (in alphabetical order): Avatar, The Box, The House of the Devil, Humpday, The Limits of Control, Police, Adjective, A Serious Man, Star Trek, Still Walking, Up in the Air

Breaking down the raw numbers, I saw 149 films released theatrically in 2009, a slight dip from my 2008 figure, but I saw over 260 older films, for a grand total of 413 movies in 2009, which is 30 movies higher than my total in 2008. As in years past, here's a list of the best older films I saw for the first time in '09:

5. The Watcher in the Woods (1980, John Hough)
4. Misery (1990, Rob Reiner)
3. Near Dark (1987, Kathryn Bigelow)
2. The Wages of Fear (1953, Henri-Georges Clouzot)
1. Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979, Werner Herzog)