Skip to content

Top Navigation

EW.com EW.com
    • All TV
    • TV Reviews
    • TV Reunions
    • Recaps
    • What to Watch
    • Animated
    • Comedy
    • Crime
    • Drama
    • Family
    • Horror
    • Reality
    • Sci-fi
    • Thriller
    • All Movies
    • Movie Reviews
    • Trailers
    • Film Festivals
    • Movie Reunions
    • Movie Previews
    • All Music
    • Music Reviews
    • All What to Watch
    • What to Watch Podcast Episodes
    • TV Reviews
    • Movie Reviews
    • All BINGE
    • EW's Binge Podcast Episodes
    • Recaps
    • Survivor
    • This is Us
    • RuPaul's Drag Race
    • Stranger Things
    • The Boys
    • The Blacklist
    • The Walking Dead
    • Better Call Saul
    • All The Awardist
    • The Awardist Podcast Episodes
    • Oscars
    • Emmys
    • Golden Globes
    • SAG Awards
    • Grammys
    • Tony Awards
    • All Books
    • Book Reviews
    • Author Interviews
    • All Theater
    • Theater Reviews
  • Podcasts
  • Gaming
    • All Events
    • Comic-Con
  • Celebrity
  • Streaming

Profile Menu

Your Profile

Account

  • Join Now
  • Email Preferences
  • Newsletter
  • Manage Your Subscription this link opens in a new tab
  • Give a Gift Subscription this link opens in a new tab
  • Logout
Login
Subscribe

Explore EW.com

EW.com EW.com
  • Explore

    Explore

    • Comic-Con 2022: Stars strike a pose in EW's photo studio

      Comic-Con 2022: Stars strike a pose in EW's photo studio

      From the casts of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever  and The Walking Dead  to Chris Pine and Regé Jean-Page, see who dropped by EW's Comic-Con headquarters at the Hard Rock Hotel in San Diego. Read More
    • Power players: Inside The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power

      Power players: Inside The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power

      Go behind the scenes of Amazon Prime Video’s ambitious fantasy epic, which hopes to introduce J.R.R. Tolkien to a new generation. Read More
    • Biggest bombshells in unsealed Johnny Depp v. Amber Heard court docs: Erectile dysfunction, nude photos, and Marilyn Manson

      Biggest bombshells in unsealed Johnny Depp v. Amber Heard court docs: Erectile dysfunction, nude photos, and Marilyn Manson

      Just when you thought there couldn't possibly be more to learn about the high-profile defamation trial, more than 6,000 pages of court docs were released over the weekend. Read More
  • TV

    TV

    See All TV
    • TV Reviews
    • TV Reunions
    • Recaps
    • What to Watch
    • Animated
    • Comedy
    • Crime
    • Drama
    • Family
    • Horror
    • Reality
    • Sci-fi
    • Thriller
  • Movies

    Movies

    See All Movies
    • Movie Reviews
    • Trailers
    • Film Festivals
    • Movie Reunions
    • Movie Previews
  • Music

    Music

    See All Music
    • Music Reviews
  • What to Watch

    What to Watch

    See All What to Watch
    • What to Watch Podcast Episodes
    • TV Reviews
    • Movie Reviews
  • BINGE

    BINGE

    See All BINGE
    • EW's Binge Podcast Episodes
    • Recaps
    • Survivor
    • This is Us
    • RuPaul's Drag Race
    • Stranger Things
    • The Boys
    • The Blacklist
    • The Walking Dead
    • Better Call Saul
  • The Awardist

    The Awardist

    See All The Awardist
    • The Awardist Podcast Episodes
    • Oscars
    • Emmys
    • Golden Globes
    • SAG Awards
    • Grammys
    • Tony Awards
  • Books

    Books

    See All Books
    • Book Reviews
    • Author Interviews
  • Theater

    Theater

    See All Theater
    • Theater Reviews
  • Podcasts
  • Gaming
  • Events

    Events

    See All Events
    • Comic-Con
  • Celebrity
  • Streaming

Profile Menu

Subscribe this link opens in a new tab
Your Profile

Account

  • Join Now
  • Email Preferences
  • Newsletter
  • Manage Your Subscription this link opens in a new tab
  • Give a Gift Subscription this link opens in a new tab
  • Logout
Login
Sweepstakes

Follow Us

  1. Home
  2. Gallery
  3. Stephen King: Top 10 films of '09

Stephen King: Top 10 films of '09

EW's pop culture columnist lists his favorites from the past year, featuring disaster, aliens, and war
By Stephen King Updated December 30, 2009 at 09:00 PM EST
Skip gallery slides
FB

1 of 11

FB
Tweet Pinterest Email Send Text Message

1

I'd give 2009 at the movies a B overall, and that ain't bad — it is, in fact, about as good as it gets. It's…
Credit: Gina James/Retna Ltd.

I'd give 2009 at the movies a B overall, and that ain't bad — it is, in fact, about as good as it gets. It's true that I found only nine straight-A's when I looked back through my movie notebook (No. 10 on this list was an A?), but there wasn't a single F, and that's a first in my years as an EW columnist. Either I chose more wisely or the quality was better than last year's B?. I prefer to believe the latter, though there were a few disappointments along the way; the trudging Revolutionary Road was the worst of them. With that said, my list of the 10 best follows.

1 of 11

Advertisement
Advertisement

2 of 11

FB
Tweet Pinterest Email Send Text Message

2

2012, Amanda Peet, ... | 10. 2012 No filmgoing diet is complete without some cheese, and this throwback to the great disaster movies of the '70s ( Earthquake , The…

10. 2012
No filmgoing diet is complete without some cheese, and this throwback to the great disaster movies of the '70s (Earthquake, The Towering Inferno) amply filled the bill. It's staffed by solid actors having fun, and stuffed with eye-popping special effects — you got a problem with that?

2 of 11

3 of 11

FB
Tweet Pinterest Email Send Text Message

3

Fantastic Mr. Fox | 9. FANTASTIC MR. FOX A screwball comedy that just happens to be animated. More for adults than for children, actually, but when Mr. Fox (George…

9. FANTASTIC MR. FOX
A screwball comedy that just happens to be animated. More for adults than for children, actually, but when Mr. Fox (George Clooney) and his devoted missus (Meryl Streep) put aside their sophisticated banter long enough to gobble their dinner — in about four seconds — both the kids and the grown-ups in my audience screamed with delighted laughter.

3 of 11

Advertisement
Continued on next slide.
Advertisement

4 of 11

FB
Tweet Pinterest Email Send Text Message

4

John Travolta, The Taking of Pelham 123
Credit: Stephen Vaughan

8. THE TAKING OF PELHAM 1 2 3
Director Tony Scott's most lucid and suspenseful movie. Denzel Washington is terrific in the part originated by Walter Matthau, but the real pleasure here is watching John Travolta's balls-to-the-wall star turn as the villainous Ryder (called Mr. Blue and played by Robert Shaw in the 1974 version). This makes Public Enemies look pretty tame.

4 of 11

Advertisement

5 of 11

FB
Tweet Pinterest Email Send Text Message

5

Law Abiding Citizen, Gerard Butler, ... | 7. LAW ABIDING CITIZEN The outraged husband and father decides to punish the baddies himself when the wimpish legal system won't: Yeah, yeah, we've seen…
Credit: John Baer

7. LAW ABIDING CITIZEN
The outraged husband and father decides to punish the baddies himself when the wimpish legal system won't: Yeah, yeah, we've seen it all before, but this version's script is wound tight and clever enough to draw blood. All of which would mean little if not for the standout performances by Gerard Butler and Jamie Foxx, who turns prosecutor Nick Rice into a morally ambiguous antihero.

5 of 11

6 of 11

FB
Tweet Pinterest Email Send Text Message

6

District 9, Sharlto Copley | 6. DISTRICT 9 This quasi (not to mention queasy) documentary sci-fi pic is a clever parable about the price of racial prejudice, but what really…

6. DISTRICT 9
This quasi (not to mention queasy) documentary sci-fi pic is a clever parable about the price of racial prejudice, but what really struck me about it was how the special effects served the story, rather than the other way around. If 2012 is good cheese, then District 9 is a fine wine.

6 of 11

Advertisement
Advertisement
Continued on next slide.
Advertisement

7 of 11

FB
Tweet Pinterest Email Send Text Message

7

, Kate Winslet
Credit: Melinda Sue Gordon

5. THE READER
I know, it was released in 2008, but my lists go from December to December, and it would be criminal to leave out this wrenching exploration of guilt and atonement. Kate Winslet's Hanna Schmitz was the best performance I saw all year.

7 of 11

Advertisement
Advertisement

8 of 11

FB
Tweet Pinterest Email Send Text Message

8

Disgrace, John Malkovich | 4. DISGRACE John Malkovich shines as an arrogant Cape Town professor who exiles himself to his daughter's farm rather than apologize for his sexual excesses…
Credit: Paladin

4. DISGRACE
John Malkovich shines as an arrogant Cape Town professor who exiles himself to his daughter's farm rather than apologize for his sexual excesses with a student. He is forced to reevaluate his behavior after his daughter is raped. The scenery is gorgeous, and the story — sorrowful but never sentimental — is hypnotic.

8 of 11

Advertisement

9 of 11

FB
Tweet Pinterest Email Send Text Message

9

The Road, Viggo Mortensen | 3. THE ROAD Cormac McCarthy's novel of the apocalypse comes to the screen with all its spare and deadly beauty intact. It's often painful to…
Credit: Macall Polay

3. THE ROAD
Cormac McCarthy's novel of the apocalypse comes to the screen with all its spare and deadly beauty intact. It's often painful to watch (at my screening I actually heard the projectionist sobbing as the film neared its end), but Viggo Mortensen's performance as the dedicated father is Oscar bait.

9 of 11

Advertisement
Advertisement
Continued on next slide.
Advertisement

10 of 11

FB
Tweet Pinterest Email Send Text Message

10

The Last House on the Left | 2. THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT Easily the most brilliant remake of the decade, and not just because the 1972 original was such a…
Credit: Lacey Terrell

2. THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT
Easily the most brilliant remake of the decade, and not just because the 1972 original was such a crapfest. This beautifully photographed — but hard to watch — movie is the standard by which all horror/suspense films should be judged: The acting is superior (Breaking Bad's Aaron Paul is especially fine), the story makes sense, and, most importantly, Last House's moral compass points to true north. We don't want these creeps back for six or eight sequels; they are monsters, and we want them dead. This film is on par with The Silence of the Lambs.

10 of 11

Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement

11 of 11

FB
Tweet Pinterest Email Send Text Message

11

The Hurt Locker, Jeremy Renner | 1. THE HURT LOCKER Bomb disposal is one of the great staples of war movies, but it has never been depicted in such terrifying detail…
Credit: Jonathan Olley

1. THE HURT LOCKER
Bomb disposal is one of the great staples of war movies, but it has never been depicted in such terrifying detail as it is here. Locker is more than suspenseful, however. Director Kathryn Bigelow (Point Break), who has explored the destructive impulses of young men before, outdoes herself in this perfectly honed drama that speaks to the addictive attractions of risk and violence. Want to know why it's so easy for the pols to feed the war machine? Look here for answers.

11 of 11

Advertisement
Advertisement
Replay gallery

Share the Gallery

Pinterest Facebook

Up Next

By Stephen King

    Share the Gallery

    Pinterest Facebook
    Trending Videos
    Advertisement
    Skip slide summaries

    Everything in This Slideshow

    Advertisement

    View All

    1 of 11 1
    2 of 11 2
    3 of 11 3
    4 of 11 4
    5 of 11 5
    6 of 11 6
    7 of 11 7
    8 of 11 8
    9 of 11 9
    10 of 11 10
    11 of 11 11

    Share & More

    Tweet Pinterest Email Send Text Message
    EW.com

    Magazines & More

    Learn More

    • Subscribe this link opens in a new tab
    • Advertise this link opens in a new tab
    • Content Licensing this link opens in a new tab
    • Accolades this link opens in a new tab

    Connect

    Subscribe to Our Newsletter
    Meredith© Copyright 2022 Meredith Corporation. Entertainment Weekly is a registered trademark of Meredith Corporation All Rights Reserved. Entertainment Weekly may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website. Offers may be subject to change without notice. Privacy Policythis link opens in a new tab Terms of Servicethis link opens in a new tab Ad Choicesthis link opens in a new tab California Do Not Sellthis link opens a modal window Web Accessibilitythis link opens in a new tab
    © Copyright EW.com. All rights reserved. Printed from https://ew.com

    View image

    Stephen King: Top 10 films of '09
    this link is to an external site that may or may not meet accessibility guidelines.