The experts’ 3 Best movies of 2009

Here are the 3 best movies of 2009 that got our adrenaline pumping and the dynamite exploding. We love good movies and have seen hundreds in our time.

  • Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Harry Potter’s all grown up. The latest visually stunning installment in the series raises the dramatic stakes to frightening, life-and-death levels, as the evil Voldemort makes headway against the forces of good. Danger abounds all around, but so does love (there’s snogging everywhere!), and the main trio of Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson have blossomed into mature actors who can handle it all in Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince movie.
  • 500 Days of Summer. Tired of the same-old, run-o’-the-mill romantic comedies? Here’s the antidote — a film so solid it feels strange to group in that dubious genre. Told out of order with a kickass soundtrack, whimsical flourishes (including a fantasy sequence involving Hall & Oates), and stellar turns by leads/part-time lovers Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel, 500 Days of Summer movie is what so few love stories are these days: lovely.
  • The Fantastic Mr. Fox. Wes Anderson has never been wittier, funnier or more emotionally accessible than he is here … with a stop-motion animation movie about chicken-pilfering foxes and their animal brethren (featuring the inimitable voices of George Clooney, Meryl Streep and Jason Schwartzman). Go figure. Fantastic mr Fox download like ‘The Royal Tenenbaums’ meets ‘The Nightmare Before Christmas.’ Which, of course, is a very, very good thing.