As I live in Norway, some of these films may have been released in 2008 elsewhere. And there are certainly movies which I will watch in 2010 that may have deserved a spot on this list.

District 9

Neill Blomkamp gave us a gritty and realistic science fiction film in “District 9″. Blomkamp moves away from the usual settings of Hollywood flicks, placing the action in the slums of South Africa, and the parallel it draws to the apartheid in that country is hard to miss. Mixing between shaky-cam mockumentary and traditional action/thriller  the movie goes against our expectations and provides both spectacle as well as something to ponder. Every unknown actor in the film puts in a solid performance, and the aliens, who are perfectly realized with CGI that only Blomkamp can make work with the good help of WETA, even manage to make us feel something.

For me, this movie ranks among Ridley Scott’s “Blade Runner”, John Carpenter’s “The Thing”, and James Cameron’s “Alien” in terms of vision and ambition. It’s fantastic, has a grim sense of humour, and manages to stay entertaining and thoughtful throughout the experience, which is why I rank “District 9″ as my #1 film of 2009. Read the rest of this entry »