Save object to file - What are common alternate serialization methods?

Edit: The original question was made out of a misunderstanding, and has been updated.

Coming from other languages it seems odd that C# does not seem to have a simple way to dump things like objects and components straight to file.

Lets take java as an example, where I can dump any object to file and load with no apparent restrictions:

  //Save object to file:
  FileOutputStream saveFile = new FileOutputStream(---filePath---);
  ObjectOutputStream save = new ObjectOutputStream(saveFile);
  save.writeObject(---YorObjectHere---);

  //Load object from file
  FileInputStream saveFile = new FileInputStream(---filePath---);
  ObjectInputStream save = new ObjectInputStream(saveFile);
  ---ObjectType--- loadedObject = (---ObjectType---) save.readObject();

Can this sort of thing be easily achieved in C#?

I have tried the standard method of serialization:

  //Save object to file:
  IFormatter formatterSave = new BinaryFormatter();
  Stream streamSave = new FileStream(---filePath---, FileMode.Create, FileAccess.Write, FileShare.None);
  formatterSave.Serialize(streamSave, ---ObjectToSave---);

  //Load object from file
  IFormatter formatterLoad = new BinaryFormatter();
  Stream streamLoad = new FileStream(---filePath---, FileMode.Open, FileAccess.Read, FileShare.Read);
  ---ObjectType--- ---LoadedObjectName--- = (---ObjectType---)formatterLoad.Deserialize(streamLoad);

While this method is quite simple to do, it does not always work with existing or locked code because the [serializable] tag cannot always be added.

So what is the best alternate for serialization?

Thanks to comments I tried the XML method, but it did not work either because it cannot serialize an ArrayList as shown on MSDN

  //Save object to file:
  var serializerSave = new XmlSerializer(typeof(objectType));
  writer = new StreamWriter(filePath, append);
  serializerSave.Serialize(writer, objectToWrite);

  //Load object from file
  var serializerLoad = new XmlSerializer(typeof(objectType));
  reader = new StreamReader(filePath);
  return (T)serializerLoad.Deserialize(reader);

It looks like JSON is the only way to do it easily, or is there another alternate way to serialize with normal C# libraries without needing massive amounts of code?