10 Movies From 2009 That Are Now Considered Classics

At the time, 2009 felt like a transitional moment: the last gasp of mid-budget adult dramas, the peak of studio comedies that could still dominate pop culture, and the dawn of a new era for franchise filmmaking as a permanent, industrial force. What’s striking in hindsight is how many films from that year have gained lasting rewatch value, surviving shifting tastes, changing technologies, and a radically altered theatrical landscape.

The Hangover sends four friends to Las Vegas for a bachelor party and wakes them into a reverse mystery: no memory, a trashed suite, and a missing groom. Todd Phillips keeps the comedy grounded in character reactions, and the chemistry among Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, and Zach Galifianakis helped mark the end of an era for big R-rated studio comedies.

Michael Haneke’s The White Ribbon, by contrast, is austere and unsettling, set in a pre–World War I German village where cruelty and repression ripple through a tightly controlled society. Other 2009 films proved similarly durable for different reasons.

2009 films, the hangover, the white, todd phillips, michael haneke, bradley cooper, zach galifianakis, ed helms, las vegas, franchise filmmaking