2009 in film. A disappointment?

[Romulus]

As a whole, compared to previous years, it doesn't seem that this year has been good for film.

I'm certainly not saying their haven't been any good movies at all. Up, Star Trek, Moon, The Hurt Locker, District 9, Inglorious Basterds, and Zombieland are the only films I feel like I can list and not have much disagreement on whether they were good or not.

It seems to me there have been more disappointments than anything. Public Enemies? This nearly bored me to tears. Terminator Salvation? Bad. Transformers 2? While no one was expecting something extraordinary, a coherent plot would have been nice. Where the Wild Things Are? Horrible. What about Watchmen and Harry Potter? While I enjoyed both of these films (Watchmen to a lesser extent), they certainly haven't been liked by everyone.

It doesn't stop their either. Usually in the fall we see the arrival of truly great films. In 2007, we got No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood. In 2008 we had Slumdog Millionaire, The Wrestler, Milk and a few others. 2006? Children of Men, Pan's Labyrinth, The Departed, etc. What about this year? The Lovely Bones looks it's going to disappoint (sitting at 56% at RT). Invictus, while I'm sure will be good, looks pretty predictable. I'm not sure anyone knows how Avatar will end up doing. I also highly doubt that Sherlock Holmes or Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus will join the elite ranks.

What about some of the smaller releases from this fall? A Serious Man looks to be the deepest Coen Brothers movie yet, but again it may polarize viewers. Precious while good, wasn't extraordinary in my eyes. I'm sure others will really like it, but is it one of the best of the decade? It's hard for me to agree. A Single Man looks like it's going to be great, but I haven't seen it yet. Crazy Heart looks like it could be this years Wrestler, whether that's good or not remains to be seen. An Education was quite good, but again, not one of the best movies I've seen this year.


To expand on my point a little bit more, here are my best films of 2008 compared with 2009.

2008

1. Slumdog Millionaire
2. The Wrestler
3. The Dark Knight
4. Milk
5. In Bruges
6. Doubt
7. Let the Right One In
8. Waltz with Bashir
9. Frost/Nixon
10. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

2009

1. District 9
2. Moon
3. Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince
4. The Hurt Locker
5. Up
6. Star Trek
7. Fantastic Mr. Fox
8. An Education
9. Inglorious Basterds
10. Zombieland

Now I know that this year isn't over, and I still have some films to see... but to me 2008 is much more stacked with quality films. I would put all 10 of the 2008 films above Fantastic Mr. Fox minimum and a bunch would be placed higher than District 9.

Does anybody else agree? Sorry for the huge wall of text. I know I'm going to get a wide variety or remarks here, agreeing and disagreeing. I just want to see how everyone stands on the issue.