Literary horror genius and Entertainment Weekly columnist Stephen King revealed his Top 10 films of 2009 (well, his top 10 between December 2008 and December 2009) at the beginning of January.

King said, ‘I’d give 2009 at the movies a B overall, and that ain’t bad. It’s true that I found only nine straight-A’s when I looked back through my movie notebook (No. 10 on this list was an A–), but there wasn’t a single F, and that’s a first in my years as an EW columnist.’

The writer of classic horror novels “The Shining” and “Carrie” singled “Revolutionary Road” out in his list of disappointments however.

Amongst the films he deemed worthy of ‘A’ or ‘A+’ in his top 10 list is the Stephen Daltry-directed drama “The Reader” set in post-World War II Germany and starring Ralph Fiennes and Kate Winslet, and Wes Anderson’s highly entertaining Roald Dahl adaptation “Fantastic Mr. Fox”.

But there are a few strange choices in his list too. Not least his over-rating of “The Last House on the Left”, “Law Abiding Citizen”, and “2012”. He doesn’t do himself any favours defending his decision to list “Last House…” as the second best film of 2009 with the comment: ‘This film is on a par with Silence of the Lambs’.

He even finds space for yet another remake “The Taking of Pelham 123” which he lists at No. 8.

It is great to see “District 9” get a mention at No. 6, one of my personal favourites from 2009. The startlingly authentic and damning denouncement of racial prejudice is one of the most unique and well-made science-fiction films of recent years. King comments, ‘This quasi (not to mention queasy) documentary sci-fi pic is a clever parable about the price of racial prejudice, but what really struck me about it was how the special effects served the story, rather than the other way around. If 2012 is good cheese, then District 9 is a fine wine.’

His top 10 is rounded off with Steve Jacobs’ “Disgrace” (a film, like “The Reader”, released at the end of 2008), John Hillcoat’s “The Road”, and, listed at No. 1, Kathryn Bigelow’s “The Hurt Locker”.