2009 in film


The year 2009 saw the release of many films. Seven made the top 50 list of highest-grossing films. Also in 2009, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced that as of that year, their Best Picture category would consist of ten nominees, rather than five.

Evaluation of the year

Film critic Philip French of The Guardian said that 2009 "began with the usual flurry of serious major movies given late December screenings in Los Angeles to qualify for the Oscars. They're now forgotten or vaguely regarded as semi-classics: The Reader, Che, Slumdog Millionaire, Frost/Nixon, Revolutionary Road, The Wrestler, Gran Torino, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. It soon became apparent that horror movies would be the dominant genre once again, with vampires the pre-eminent sub-species, the most profitable inevitably being New Moon, the latest in Stephenie Meyer's Twilight saga, the best the subtle Swedish Let the Right One In and the worst the British horror spoof Lesbian Vampire Killers. Documentaries continued to flourish, introducing us to fascinating new worlds: Afghan TV talent shows, Australian exploitation cinema, haute couture. Animation thrived, the 3-D comeback threatened to become permanent rather than a gimmick, and the two were conjoined in a dozen 3-D animated features, the finest being DreamWorks Animation's Monsters vs. Aliens and Pixar's Up. Remakes and sequels abounded, none of any merit. The same went for films based on comic strips and graphic novels. British cinema generally bubbled in the doldrums. The well-acted Fish Tank was overrated, as was the dull costume drama The Young Victoria. The best films by native directors were fuelled by our obsession with soccer or directed by foreigners. The most original British film was Christine Molloy and Joe Lawlor's low-key, low-budget Helen, a formally innovative look at provincial life. 2009 was a mostly undistinguished year for Hollywood, with indifferent films from Woody Allen, Michael Mann and others, and deadly blockbusters such as Angels & Demons and 2012. The Coen brothers, however, were on form, examining their midwestern Jewish roots in A Serious Man, and Kathryn Bigelow's The Hurt Locker was the best film yet about Iraq. From Europe we had several striking revisionist accounts of violent resistance to Nazi occupation in the second world war: Flammen & Citronen, Max Manus: Man of War and The Army of Crime. But they were drowned in the tsunami of Quentin Tarantino's lunatic second world war fantasy Inglourious Basterds. The most likable European picture was the Italian Mid-August Lunch, the directorial debut of 60-year-old Gianni Di Gregorio, and the three most memorably argumentative and provocative were Paolo Sorrentino's Il Divo, Lars von Trier's Antichrist and Michael Haneke's The White Ribbon. The performances I most enjoyed were impersonations: Meryl Streep's Julia Child and Christian McKay's Orson in Me and Orson Welles."

Highest-grossing films

The top 10 films released in 2009 by worldwide gross are as follows:
RankTitleDistributorWorldwide gross
1Avatar20th Century Fox$2,743,577,587
2Harry Potter and the Half-Blood PrinceWarner Bros.$933,959,197
3Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs20th Century Fox$886,686,817
4Transformers: Revenge of the FallenParamount$836,303,693
52012Sony$769,679,473
6UpDisney$735,099,082
7The Twilight Saga: New MoonSummit$709,827,462
8Sherlock HolmesWarner Bros.$524,028,679
9Angels & DemonsSony$485,930,816
10The HangoverWarner Bros.$469,328,079

Avatar surpassed Titanic as the highest-grossing film of all time on January 25, 2010. Avatar then became the first film to earn more than $2 billion at the box office on January 31, 2010. Avatar was surpassed by Avengers: Endgame as the highest-grossing film of all time on July 21, 2019. Due to a re-release, Avatar retook the title from Endgame on March 13, 2021.

Events

Awards

Palme d'Or :
Golden Lion :
Golden Bear :
'''People's Choice Award :'''

2009 films

By country/region

MonthDateNameAgeCountryProfessionNotable films
January1Edmund Purdom84UKActor
January2Steven Gilborn72USActor
January3Pat Hingle84USActor
January3Olga San Juan81USActress, Dancer
January5Robert F. Brunner70USComposer
January5Ned Tanen77USProducer, Executive
January6John Scott Martin82UKActor
January8Don Galloway71USActor
January12Claude Berri74FranceDirector, Producer, Screenwriter
January12Russ Conway95CanadaActor
January13Patrick McGoohan80IrelandActor
January14Ricardo Montalbán88MexicoActor
January14Angela Morley84UKComposer
January15Chuck Gaspar70USSpecial Effects Artist
January17Susanna Foster84USActress, Singer
January18Kathleen Byron88UKActress
January21Charles H. Schneer88USProducer
January26Darrell Sandeen78USActor
January31Clint Ritchie70USActor
February6Philip Carey83USActor
February6James Whitmore87USActor
February7Molly Bee69USSinger, Actress
February7Lesley Brook91UKActress
February9Robert Anderson91USScreenwriter
February13Dilys Laye74UKActress
February19Oreste Lionello81ItalyActor
February20Robert Quarry83USActor
February21Howard Zieff81USDirector
February23Laurence Payne89UKActor
February24Edward Judd76UKActor
February27John Alvin91USActor
March3Sydney Chaplin82USActor
March4Horton Foote92USScreenwriter
March7Tullio Pinelli100ItalyScreenwriter
March13Betsy Blair85USActress
March14Millard Kaufman92USScreenwriter
March15Ron Silver62USActor
March18Natasha Richardson45UKActress
March21John Cater77UKActor
March21John Franklyn-Robbins84UKActor
March25Steven Bach70USStudio Executive
March29Monte Hale89USActor, Singer
March29Maurice Jarre84FranceComposer
April1Lou Perryman67USActor
April1Miguel Ángel Suárez69Puerto RicoActor
April3Tom Smith88UKMakeup Artist
April4Jody McCrea74USActor
April5Wouter Barendrecht43NetherlandsProducer
April8Jane Bryan90USActress
April9Michael N. Harbour63UKActor
April9Shakti Samanta83IndiaDirector, Producer
April11Simon Channing Williams63UKProducer
April12Marilyn Chambers57USActress
April18Peter Dennis75UKActor
April22Ken Annakin94UKDirector
April22Jack Cardiff94UKCinematographer, Director
April25Bea Arthur86USActress
April27Feroz Khan69IndiaActor
May1Marc Rocco46USDirector, Screenwriter
May4Dom DeLuise75USActor
May4Jane Randolph93USActress
May15Bud Tingwell86AustraliaActor
May18Wayne Allwine62USVoice Actor
May20Lucy Gordon28UKActress
May28Mort Abrahams93USProducer
May28Terence Alexander86UKActor
June3David Carradine72USActor
June3Shih Kien96ChinaActor
June6Mary Howard96USActress
June9Michael Roof32USActor
June21Lorena Gale51CanadaActress
June23Ed McMahon86USActor
June25Farrah Fawcett62USActress
June25Michael Jackson50USSinger, Actor
June27Gale Storm87USSinger, Actress
June29Jan Rubeš89Czech RepublicSinger, Actor
June30Harve Presnell75USActor, Singer
July1Karl Malden97USActor
July4Brenda Joyce92USActress
July10Zena Marshall83UKActress
July13Beverly Roberts95USActress
July14Dal McKennon89USActor
July24Harry Towb83IrelandActor
July26Clayton Hill78USActor
July29Joanne Jordan88USActress
July31Jean-Paul Roussillon78FranceActor
August4Blake Snyder51USScreenwriter
August5Budd Schulberg95USScreenwriter
August6John Hughes59USDirector, Screenwriter, Producer
August9John Quade71USActor
August12Ruth Ford98USActress
August13John Bentley92UKActor
August15Carlos Gómez92ParaguayActor
August16Richard Moore83USCinematographer, Director
August21Gordon Daniel86UKSound Engineer
August26Sadie Corré91UKActress, Dancer
August26Dominick Dunne83USProducer
August28Wayne Tippit76USActor
September3Caro Jones86CanadaCasting Director
September4Iain Cuthbertson79UKActor
September4Carl Reindel74USActor
September7Frank Coghlan, Jr.93USActor
September8Ray Barrett82AustraliaActor
September11Zakes Mokae75South AfricaActor
September12Larry Gelbart81USScreenwriter
September13Paul Burke83USActor
September13Arnold Laven87USDirector
September14Henry Gibson73USActor
September14Patrick Swayze57USActor
September15Troy Kennedy Martin77UKScreenwriter
September16Timothy Bateson83UKActor
September16Luciano Emmer91ItalyDirector, Screenwriter
September17Dick Durock72USActor, Stuntman
September18Pearl Hackney92UKActress
September20John Hart91USActor
September20Katherine Parr88UKActress
September21Robert Ginty60USActor, Director
September30Robert S. Baker92UKProducer, Director, Cinematographer
October3John Peverall77-78UKProducer
October6Pamela Blake94USActress
October10Sean Lawlor55IrelandActor
October13Al Martino82USActor, Singer
October13Daniel Melnick77USProducer, Executive
October14Lou Albano76ItalyActor, Wrestler
October14Collin Wilcox74USActress
October17Douglas Blackwell85UKActor
October17Vic Mizzy93USComposer
October17Rosanna Schiaffino69ItalyActress
October19Joseph Wiseman91CanadaActor
October20Hubert Rees81UKActor
October23Lou Jacobi95CanadaActor
October26Yoshirō Muraki85JapanProduction Designer, Costume Designer
October27John David Carson57USActor
November4David Tree94UKActor
November6Derek Brechin57UKFilm Editor
November12Paul Wendkos84USDirector
November16Edward Woodward79UKActor
November17Tony Kendall72ItalyActor
November28Gilles Carle81CanadaDirector, Screenwriter
December3Nat Boxer84USSound Engineer
December3Richard Todd90IrelandActor
December4Bryan O'Byrne78USActor
December5Garfield Morgan78UKActor
December8Joan Bridge97UKCostume Designer
December9Gene Barry90USActor
December12Val Avery85USActor
December15Peter Murton85UKProduction Designer, Art Director
December15Robert Turturice60USCostume Designer
December16Roy E. Disney79USStudio Executive
December17Alaina Reed Hall63USActress
December17Jennifer Jones90USActress
December17Dan O'Bannon63USScreenwriter, Director, Actor
December19Donald Pickering76UKActor
December20Brittany Murphy32USActress
December20Shari Rhodes71USCasting Director
December20Arnold Stang91USActor
December21Marianne Stone87UKActress
December22Michael Currie81USActor
December24Giulio Bosetti78ItalyActor
December30Perry Wilson93USActress
December31Glauco Onorato73ItalyActor