UPDATED: I thought I'd throw together a list of my favorite movies that were released in 2009. A lot of people do this, so I figured I'd share mine as well. These may not be what I thought were the "best" movies, but only my favorites; feel free to disagree.

Honorable mentions: Up, Taken, District 9, Coraline, Adventureland, Drag Me To Hell

6. Avatar
It's hard not to form an opinion about a movie before it comes out; I told myself that there was too much hype surrounding this and it wasn't going to be that good. However, Avatar did manage to impress me. It definitely wasn't great - too many stereotypical characters and the plot was amazingly familiar (can you say Dances With Wolves?) - but it still managed to captivate my attention and keep me interested. Plus, the use of 3-D was very good; definitely worth the extra price for seeing it in that format.

5. Sunshine Cleaning
This was a well-made film that was funny and yet heartfelt. It's hard to really pin down why I liked it so much, but it's one of those movies that just grabs you and makes you care about what happens to the characters.

4. Up In The Air
George Clooney absolutely nails his performance (as does the rest of the cast) in this amazing film. A great script, great direction, and great acting really puts this movie ahead of a lot of other favorites.

3. (500) Days of Summer
An absolutely charming film, this is an original spin on the classic boy-meets-girl movie. Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel are outstanding as the boy and girl, and the script is sweet, touching, funny, and emotional. This is a great film - if this was a "Best Of" list, this and Up In The Air would be vying for the top spot.

2. The Hangover
Simply the funniest movie I've seen in the past couple of years, much less this one. The actors were superb, and the story and jokes were funny and entertaining. I'm looking forward to watching it again.

1. Star Trek
When I first heard that J.J. Abrams was taking Star Trek and casting new actors to play younger versions of the original characters, I was very skeptical. I figured it was going to all action-oriented and become just another unnecessary retread. I was way wrong. Abrams did kick up the action, but still managed to retain much of the Star Trek essence. The actors he chose for the roles were all great - Chis Pine as Kirk was exceptional. Plus, he managed to use time travel - which is very difficult to make work in a movie - in a way that didn't seem contrived or stupid.
I rewatched it last week and am actually looking forward to seeing it again; there aren't too many movies that I can say that with, so that's why this is my favorite movie of the year.

Of course, this list would almost feel incomplete if I didn't pick a few bombs; movies that I would tell anyone to avoid at all costs:

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
Utter trash. Between the horrible script, terrible acting (the robots seemed more real than most of the humans), and stereotypical characters, this was easily the worst film of the year. The Blu-ray is a good demo disc for your home theater; that is, if you can stand watching more than five minutes of this garbage.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine
Everything - the plot, the characters, and the action - felt way too crammed and brought this movie down. I like the Wolverine character, but I felt like this movie tried too hard and it just became a mess.

Crank 2: High Voltage
What was the reason for this sequel? The first Crank felt fresh and fun; this one felt like a complete retread of the first. Nothing original, and nothing to make it worth watching.