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2009 was another eventful year in cinema, and here is my top ten, together with those of my DVD Times colleagues, which taken together show a broad and interesting spectrum of taste. 

In response to the DVD Forums Top 100 poll, the reviewing team reveal their own favourites.  My selection is topped by a film I first saw at age seven and has since never been dislodged from its premier position.

A middle of the road year all around.  My selections are included in the above.

A fairly good year, on balance, and here is my pick.  With a couple of comedies, some sf and fantasy, a period piece, and a number of different kinds of real-life dramatizations, it's varied, and hopefully reflects the current state of artier cinema. 

An analysis of Elmore Leonard in  cinema, in the light of the release of the sequel to Get Shorty.

M. Night Shyamalan's predilection for surprise endings has come rather unstuck in his latest project. 

An overview of the writer's oeuvre, tracing the path of a career without parallel in British television.  Previously published in The Third Alternative.

Now that we can piece together all of Quentin Tarantino's epic revenge saga, what does it amount to?

This action-filled French World War II espionage thriller - in the tradition of Carve Her Name with Pride - is exciting and edgy, like the best war films, but also remains satisfying on the level of drama.  Now out on DVD.

Woody Allen returns to London and the crime genre for this re-tread of Match Point, which proves surprisingly weak - both on the story-telling and the technical levels.   Now out on DVD. 

Keira Knightley and Ralph Fiennes rub each other up the wrong way in this excellent and occasionally very gritty 18th Century costume drama.  Now out on DVD.

Optimum release two 60's classic epics featuring the legendary bald-headed actor Yul Brynner.  In this one he plays a Cossack warload, battling with Turks and Poles in a colourful adventure romp. 

Here Yul Brynner plays an Indian chief who gets involved in a culture clash with some human-sacrificing Mayan settlers in Yucatán, Mexico. 

Guillermo del Toro attempts to inject the magic of his labyrinths and his mysterious clockwork devices into the second instalment of the comic book franchise, but the result is a curious hit and miss mixture.

The most talked-about movie of 2008 proves itself worthy of the attention, fusing non-stop action with dark and twisted psychological drama.  Cesar Romero and Jack Nicholson were both superlative Jokers, but Heath Ledger is something else again.

Whilst the bigger films grab the limelight, here is the real gem of 2008, a rare triumph of gorgeous cinematic experimentalism together with a beautifully told and truly heartbreaking story of loss and incredible fortitude. 

Okay, this is grade A, copper-bottomed chick-flick territory, but the TV series had a wit and observational sharpness that appealed to many.  Its big screen equivalent preserves much of the charm in an extended but familiar story.

Daniel Day-Lewis works rarely these days, but when he does it's always an event to remember.  His portrayal of a misanthropic oilman in this excellent drama is a tour de force and almost certainly an Oscar winner.

A commendable collection of three early ITV plays from Potter - Shaggy Dog, Moonlight on the Highway and Lay Down Your Arms.  All very interesting for the ways they prefigure his later more famous works.

The second installment in Shekhar Kapur's life of the Queen of Queens is showier and more crowd-pleasing than the first, but it still remains high quality and visually rapturous drama, with Cate Blanchett as good as ever.

Viggo Mortensen and David Cronenberg team up once again in this edgy, off-beat crime drama, featuring the Russian Mafia in London and a naked fight scene that shows this now veteran director can still astonish us with his genius.

The latest Ian McEwan adaptation turns the material into an English Patient-like worn torn romance, featuring Keira Knightley and James McAvoy.  Does it do justice to the novel's depth and complexity?

David Lynch's metafilmic odyssey through Hollywood and Poland is another reality-bending, nightmare- like puzzle to rival Mulholland Drive and Lost Highway, featuring a superb performance from Laura Dern in a role of many facets.

Coming so soon after Capote, do we really need another film about the diminutive writer?  Toby Jones' portrayal is fun to watch and Daniel Craig takes on a difficult character role, showing he's keeping up the edgier work alongside Bond.

The Zoë Heller novel comes alive onscreen with some fine acting performances, but after starting well, plot fault lines and various implausibilities drag it down.

This lesser-known piece of 60's whimsy stars a young Susan George being romanced by older man Charles Bronson in a Lolita meets Breakfast At Tiffanys-like tale.

This typically British crime caper sports a great ensemble cast, including Jack Hawkins, Nigel Patrick and Richard Attenborough, and a plan to conquer the world that inevitably goes awry.

With four stories and six languages, stretching from Mexico to Japan, via Morocco, the concluding part of the  Iñárritu/Arriaga trilogy is ingenious in the way it juxtaposes disparate lives and creates threads that unexpectedly link them together.

Like a present day Goya of cinema, Guillermo del Toro pits the atrocities of the Spanish Civil War against the mythic imaginary world of a young girl, caught up in frightful circumstances.  The result is absolute pure perfection and the standout  film of the moment.

A Philip K. Dick film with a difference.  Richard Linklater uses state-of-the -art animation to paint a menacing sci fi future world of drug addiction, paranoia and psychosis, with cameras watching your every move.

Directing and acting, Tommy Lee Jones teams up with 21 Grams scriptwriter Guillermo Arriaga in this complex narrative of wrongdoing and redemption in the Mexican borderlands.

This Thames TV documentary from 1987 contains a feast of clips from Keaton's films, plus rare footage from his later life and insightful interviews with those who knew him.

Philip Seymour Hoffman's Oscar winning performance totally lives up to the hype in this excellent study of the lengths to which a writer will go for the sake of his work..

Woody Allen goes into serious mode in his latest piece, which tells a dark tale of sexual intrigue set in London, and features fine performances from Scarlett Johansson and Johnathan Rhys Meyers.

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