Marcy's Top Ten Films of 2009

Wes Anderson's adaptation of Roald Dahl's classic children's story made me inordinately happy. This remained true for a second and third viewing.

Erick Zonca's's Julia, starring Tilda Swinton in a shatteringly convincing performance, is a non-stop, disturbing, exhilarating, all-engrossing experience.

Francois Ozon's Ricky contains moments of true grit, but also a dose of otherworldly magic that only cinema can provide. Like Fantastic Mr. Fox, the film has a memorable scene set in the most ordinary of places: under the bright fluorescent lights of a supermarket.

Agnès Varda's The Beaches of Agnès offers an intimate look at the filmmaker's remarkable career. It's rare that I use this word and mean it: Varda's unusual documentary is inspirational.

Jesse Eisenberg starred in two wonderful coming of age films in 2009. To my surprise, I preferred him killing zombies to his dazed worship of Kristen Stewart in Greg Mottola's Adventureland. Plus, there's a terrific Bill Murray cameo.

In a year of financial crisis, the talk has been Up In The Air, but this Japanese film Toyko Sonata by Kiyoshi Kurosawa really gets to the heart of how unemployment can touch a family.

Another adaptation of a children's story makes my list. Henry Selick did a gorgeous job bringing Neil Gaiman's modern fairytale to the big screen. There is so much to love in Coraline: her distracted writer parents, her second scary parents with the button eyes, the eleven-year-old-girl, bored and unhappy, searching for wonder.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt's ebullient song and dance number to an old Hall and Oates song was one of my favorite moments in film in 2009. Marc Webb's debut film is a "romantic comedy" I can stand by. I always like looking at Zooey Deschanel and her terrific bangs.

Kathryn Bigelow is earning critical acclaim and countless awards for The Hurt Locker, but I preferred Oren Moverman's quiet and harrowing film. Ben Foster and Woody Harrelson are American soldiers who share the unfortunate mission of telling immediate family that their loved ones have been killed.

I've never liked Nicolas Cage better -- except perhaps in Valley Girl -- than in Werner Herzog's frenetic, fantastic Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans. The end comes together with a dazzlingly satisfying confluence of wondrous events.