You may have seen the five worst films of 2009, but I did my best to avoid them. Instead, at year’s end, I’d rather recap my five biggest disappointments – movies that promised the world and delivered a fraction of their potential.  To me, that’s far more upsetting than a bad movie, because they’ve squandered the opportunity, and now no one can go back and do it right. You probably won’t agree with my choices (maybe you went into Where the Wild Things Are expecting to be annoyed and came out enraptured – that actually happened to me with co-writer Dave Eggers’ other 2009 release, Away We Go). These picks were meant to be personal, but I’d love to hear what you think. Feel free to share your biggest let-downs after the list, which you’ll find just after the jump…

A rough year, you say? Maybe for your 401(k). Hollywood raked it in, enjoying record box office numbers, while the indie and foreign lineup (though spread between fewer companies perhaps) yielded an unprecedented number of treasures. To be honest, I can’t remember the last time I had such a hard time cutting my best-of list off at 10. Surveying my choices, I’m hard-pressed to find a common theme. In fact, if I didn’t know better, I might even wonder what kind of critic can love a G-rated Japanese-animated cartoon and Lars von Trier’s genital-mutilation opus in the same breath, or reconcile the esoteric with the popcorn populism of James Cameron’s Avatar. But there you have it. Of the 274 first-run and festival films I saw last year (that’s as many movies as qualified for Oscar consideration in 2009 – though not the same ones), the 10 best are listed after the jump: