I think you need to make sure that you register the jackson kotlin module which e.g. adds support for data classes.

Module that adds support for serialization/deserialization of Kotlin classes and data classes. Previously a default constructor must have existed on the Kotlin object for Jackson to deserialize into the object. With this module, single constructor classes can be used automatically, and those with secondary constructors or static factories are also supported.

With that you can create an ObjectMapper that already has this module registered using com.fasterxml.jackson.module.kotlin.ExtensionsKt#jacksonObjectMapper. (Note how you can also use one of the extensions it provides to avoid stating the payload class)

var mapper = jacksonObjectMapper()
val movie: Movie = mapper.readValue(payload)

As an alternative you can still create the object mapper and register the module using the usual API:

var mapper = ObjectMapper()
mapper.registerModule(KotlinModule())

There is no question that the future of parsing in Kotlin will be with kotlinx.serialization. It is part of Kotlin libraries. Version kotlinx.serialization 1.0 is finally released

https://github.com/Kotlin/kotlinx.serialization

import kotlinx.serialization.*
import kotlinx.serialization.json.Json

@Serializable
data class MyModel(val a: Int, @Optional val b: String = "42")

fun main(args: Array<String>) {

    // serializing objects
    val jsonData = Json.encodeToString(MyModel.serializer(), MyModel(42))
    println(jsonData) // {"a": 42, "b": "42"}
    
    // serializing lists
    val jsonList = Json.encodeToString(MyModel.serializer().list, listOf(MyModel(42)))
    println(jsonList) // [{"a": 42, "b": "42"}]

    // parsing data back
    val obj = Json.decodeFromString(MyModel.serializer(), """{"a":42}""")
    println(obj) // MyModel(a=42, b="42")
}

With Jackson Kotlin Module current versions, if you import the full module package or the specific extension function you'll have all extension methods available. Such as:

import com.fasterxml.jackson.module.kotlin.*  
val JSON = jacksonObjectMapper()  // keep around and re-use
val myList: List<String> = JSON.readValue("""["a","b","c"]""")

Therefore the Jackson Module for Kotlin will infer the the correct type and you do not need a TypeReference instance.

so your case (slightly renamed and fixed the data class, and JSON):

import com.fasterxml.jackson.module.kotlin.readValue

data class MyData(val a: String, val b: Int)
val JSON = jacksonObjectMapper()  

val jsonStr = """[{"a": "value1", "b": 1}, {"a": "value2", "b": 2}]"""
val myList: List<MyData> = JSON.readValue(jsonStr)

You can also use the form:

val myList = JSON.readValue<List<MyData>>(jsonStr)

Without the import you will have an error because the extension function is not found.