The 10 Most Depressing Films of 2009

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5. 'The Road'
A bleak portrait of a father and son's grim struggle to survive after an unnamed apocalypse causes society to collapse, leaving behind only ashes of the world we know. Without food, running water or electricity, the two slowly make their way to the coast, all the while trying to stay alive and preserve what's left of their own humanity. Based on Cormac McCarthy's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, this film's as emotionally devastating as it is completely terrifying.

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4. 'Where The Wild Things Are'
This live-action children's book adaptation took director Spike Jonze's usual themes of repressed emotions and existential angst and ratcheted-up the stakes by threading them all through a child's eyes. As Max (Max Records) leaves his mother and sister behind in a fit of rage, he finds a new family of monsters, but quickly learns how hard it is to be in charge of those you care about. Through extended exchanges with wild things around him, Max seeks answers to life's hardest questions, but finds that he's just as lonely and angry as he was before.

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3. 'A Single Man'
Without careening head-long into Spoilerville, let's just say that this character study of a gay literature professor (Colin Firth) in the 1960s is dark, probing and exquisitely melancholy. Beautifully rendered by first time director and fashion designer Tom Ford, this film artfully captures the alienation of one man in mourning, and the lengths he's willing to go to escape his own emotional turmoil.

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2. 'The Messenger'
A political film that doesn't take sides, this one chronicles, in heart-wrenching detail, the emotional and ethical struggle of two military officers (Woody Harrelson and Ben Foster) whose job it is to inform families that their loved ones have died at war. Between the talented cast, the timely topic and the obvious s**** employed by first-time director Oren Moverman, you'll be moved to tears without feeling manipulated.

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1. 'Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire'

Some critics called it "A great American film," others labeled it "poverty ****," but whichever way you slice it, Lee Daniels' 'Precious' is nothing short of a total bummer. Terrorized by her abusive mother, repeatedly ****d by her father and pregnant with her second child (the first of which has Down's Syndrome), morbidly obese and nearly illiterate 16-year-old Precious' (Gabourey Sidibe) life is unimaginably bleak, and watching it unfold in unflinching detail onscreen is nothing short of an excruciating emotional endurance trial. And yet, as depressing as 'Precious' is (and man, it's a doozy) there's an upside: by the time it's over, it will likely make your own problems seem absolutely minuscule in comparison.