An annual list of top 10 movies is, by nature, arbitrary and capricious, but you gotta draw the line somewhere. We only have 10 fingers with which to point—or gesture. Ten is a nice round number anyway, although a top nine wouldn't have been remiss this year, given the number of movies with the number in the title.

Our top 10 list is based on movies that have played in Honolulu. Thanks to Consolidated's art-house venue at Kahala Mall, that number includes some foreign and independent films that might have slipped through the cracks.

But first, let's get sidetracked.

“;Avatar”; is not on the list. It's just too big, more of an event than a film. Yes, the plot is basically “;Dances With Wolves”; shotgun-married to “;Ferngully,”; but everything you've heard about this blockbuster is true. “;Avatar”; is a triumph of shared imagination, with an involving story line, in-depth characters and a freshly conjured world that's right out of a Roger Dean YES album cover.

The aliens look positively anamorphic. It's also a technological jump. For the first time, the “;animated”; characters seem to actually be the actors, wearing newfangled makeup constructed of digital bits instead of slathered greasepaint and rubber noses. And yes, the 3-D will still give you an eye ache. But it's worth it.

And “;Nine”; is not on the list, because the highly anticipated Rob Marshall musical is the reekingest flop and biggest disappointment of the year. Based on the Broadway show inspired by Fellini's film “;8 1/2,”; the plot involves a movie director who's bummed out because he's run out of movie ideas, and all he has left is power, money and women. And cigarettes. (Those cigarettes will kill ya, man!)

Hard to work up much sympathy, eh? He's played by Daniel Day Lewis, whose idea of being Italian is to go hunchback and mutter like Chef Boyardee. The theme—well hidden in plain sight, the film is that muddled—is that Italian men are befuddled by the conflicted desires of flesh and the spirit. The movie encapsulates that deep thought with several shots of a crucifix nestled in Sophia Loren's still-lovely Grand Tetons, but then there's another two hours of dreary music and stale dancing to wiggle through impatiently. A horror.

AND SO, here are our top 10 movies to have played Honolulu in 2009. They're strictly in alphabetical order:

» ”;Away We Go”;
Sam Mendes' version of a road movie, with progressive parents-to-be John Krasinski and Maya Rudolph trying to get their lives organized enough to settle down. Quirky, observant, funny and clear-eyed about how home—eventually—is where the heart is, with tremendous bubbling chemistry between sourpuss Rudolph and man-adolescent Krasinski.

» ”;Coraline”;
This stop-motion animated film, directed by Henry Selick from the illustrated book by Neil Gaimen, is both sweet and downright creepy, the best kind of a children's fantasy, the kind that makes adults feel like kids again, open to all the possibilities in the universe—or behind hidden doors.

» ”;Departures”;
Called “;Okuribito”; in Japan, Yojiro Takita's amusing meditation on death, and the way the living deal with it, is so warmhearted and lyrical that it is actually a celebration of life. Like many things thoroughly Japanese, it's also equal parts cultural tradition and bawdy humor, an exhilarating mix.

» ”;District 9”;
A technical wonder and an emotional slam-dance. Science fiction, used properly, is a cultural scalpel slicing away at the mores of modern times, exposing themes running under the surface. Neill Blomkamp's independent, low-budget take on xenophobia, racism and the role of multinational corporations performing government business is an eye-opening mix of jittery docudrama, horror film and rambunctious adventure, a blast that left viewers wondering about the hidden nature of our own world, not those of aliens. As low-level corporate functionary Wikus van de Merwe, unknown actor Sharlto Copley gives the year's best freak-out performance.

» ”;An Education”;
A classic coming-of-age drama concerning a public-school girl falling for an older chap who just might be up to no good. Set firmly in the suburban London culture of the early '60s—not just in the facades of the era—the film is clever in unanticipated ways, thanks to Neil Hornby's canny script from Lynn Barber's memoirs, but also to a breakout performance by Carey Mulligan. As the cad with a guilty conscience, Peter Sarsgaard is an early lock for an Oscar pick.

» ”;The Hurt Locker”;
Although there aren't many movies that have “;Hurt Locker's”; sense of foreboding and jangling nerves, Kathryn Bigelow's take on the “;drug”; of combat experience hits you right on target. It concerns the day-to-day, casual bravery of soldiers unplugging deadly IEDs in Iraq, where you're either quick or dead. Some soldiers can't get enough of it; others can't handle it. Bigelow's guerilla-filming technique captures the dirty, tense toughness of the situation with a story arc that is nearly perfect in its ferocity.

» ”;Paul Blart, Mall Cop”;
Say what? Isn't this a cheap comedy programmer? Absolutely. However, it's genius at what it achieves, ranging from the lunacy of acrobatic mall thieves, to a fawnish, big-eyed dream-girl performance by Jayma Mays, to Segway stunt driving. However, it's the breakthrough comic performance by Kevin James that lifts this overlooked, silly little film out of the bargain bin. James is simply brilliant as an average Joe who dreams big, that is, if scoring a date with the fake-nails salesgirl is the big time. But what about high-minded, grim parables like “;The Road”;? Hey, it's harder to make a souffle than a bowl of gruel.

» ”;Red Cliff”;
John Woo understands that movies are supposed to move, and he might be the best action director currently available. That's all on a grand stage here as Woo tackles the legendary Chinese battle of Red Cliff, which signaled the end of the Han Dynasty. Originally filmed in two parts for Chinese audiences who made it a great hit, the Americanized version has combined the two films and cut out the talky bits, you know, the stuff that establishes character. Doesn't matter. Long or short, this is the stuff of epic filmmaking, made in the only country where you can actually have a cast of thousands instead of a cast of pixels.

» ”;Star Trek”;
A smart reboot of the moldering franchise, JJ Abrams cherry-picked only those elements that made “;Star Trek”; into America's modern mythology, and he gleefully core-dumped the rest of the luggage into deep space. “;Star Trek”; matters again.

» ”;Up”;
Is Pixar the only movie company that tweaks scripts into perfection before committing to film? Here's an animated fable about a grumpy old man, a schlubby Boy Scout and a flying house that has terrific humor, action sequences, insight into the human condition, plus brilliant music by Michael Giacchino. Disney considered the film so special they didn't sell franchises to toy-makers. Imagine that.