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Despite a gloomy forecast and the loss of a treasure of Irish cinema, there was cause for some cheer in movieland this year, writes DONALD CLARKEand below, in his first article after a long absence from both the cinema and The Irish Times, Film Correspondent MICHAEL DWYERdelivers his verdict on the best, worst, most pretentious and most offensive films of 2009

THIS TIME last year, had you asked a movie pundit to paint a picture of the cinematic landscape in late 2009, he or she might have imagined something a little like John Hillcoat’s upcoming film version of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. Those few still living will find themselves stranded in a wretched, denuded wasteland, its greyness broken only by the bloody corpses of recently cannibalised refugees. Films cost a lot of money, you see, and, by last Christmas, there was no money left in the world.