Richard Suchenski's Best of 2009 & the Decade

Around a Small Mountain

Best of 2009

1. Around a Small Mountain (Jacques Rivette, France/Italy)
2. Wild Grass (Alain Resnais, France/Italy)
3. Le streghe, femmes entre elles (Jean-Marie Straub, France/Italy)
4. The White Ribbon (Michael Haneke, Austria/Germany/France/Italy)
5. Antichrist (Lars von Trier, Denmark/Germany/France/Sweden/Italy/Poland)
6. White Material (Claire Denis, France)
7. Vincere (Marco Bellocchio, Italy/France)
8. Villa Amalia (Benoît Jacquot, France/Switzerland)
9. Police, Adjective (Corneliu Porumboiu, Romania)
10. Eccentricities of a Blond Hair Girl (Manoel de Oliveira, Portugal/Spain/France)

Runners-Up (Alphabetical): The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans and My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done? (Werner Herzog) [Diptych], Bright Star (Jane Campion), La danse: Le ballet de l’Opéra de Paris (Frederick Wiseman), Everyone Else (Maren Ade), Fantastic Mr. Fox (Wes Anderson), In Comparison (Harun Farocki), Journal and Remarks (David Gatten), A Letter to Uncle Boonmee (Apichatpong Weerasethakul), The Limits of Control (Jim Jarmusch), Ne Change Rien (Pedro Costa)

In Praise of Love

Best of the Decade

1. Eniaios [Orders 1-5] (Gregory Markopoulos, 1947-2004/2008, USA/Greece)*
2. The God of Day Had Gone Down Upon Him (Stan Brakhage, 2000, USA)
3. In Praise of Love (Jean-Luc Godard, 2001, France/Switzerland)
4. My Hand Outstretched to the Winged Distance and Sightless Measure (Robert Beavers, 1966-2002/2005, Greece/Switzerland/Italy/USA)*
5. In the Mood for Love (Wong Kar-Wai, 2000, Hong Kong/France)
6. Yi Yi (Edward Yang, 2000, Taiwan/Japan)
7. Werckmeister Harmonies (Béla Tarr, 2000, Hungary/Italy/Germany/France)
8. Platform (Jia Zhang-ke, 2000, China)
9. Colossal Youth (Pedro Costa, 2006, Portugal/France/Switzerland)
10. [Three-way tie] Syndromes and a Century (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, 2006, Thailand/France/Austria) / These Encounters of Theirs (Jean-Marie Straub and Danièle Huillet (2006, Italy/France) / Russian Ark (Aleksandr Sokurov, 2002, Russia/Germany)

*These are cycles rather than individual films, but since they were first screened publicly this decade, I think they deserve their place on this list even if they were started many years ago. To balance the list out, I have provided a three-way tie for the bottom slot.

Richard is a joint PhD candidate in Film Studies and History of Art at Yale University