The Most Anticipated Fall Movies

Man, this summer movie season was a dud, no?

In the country's independent movie theatres, there was no shortage of four-star movies over the last three months, with excellent flicks like Short Term 12, Ain't Them Bodies Saints, and Drinking Buddies reminding cinephiles why they love moviemaking in the first place. But in the bigger multiplexes across the nation? It was, to put it lightly, mostly a shit-show. Save for the occasional winner, like This Is the End and The Conjuring, Hollywood's big-studio fare degenerated summer 2013 into one of the lamest blockbuster seasons in decades. Yes, we're looking at you, clowns who made The Long Ranger, R.I.P.D., and Grown-Ups 2. May you choke on your rotten popcorn.

Serious movie lovers deserve better—much, much better. Fortunately, hope's on the horizon. From now through New Year's Day, the year's most prestigious and award-seeking films will crowd movie-houses big and small. The coast isn't totally clear, though—for example, the suckers who couldn't resist the lowest-common-denominator allure of The Internship will be subjected to further temptation via Vince Vaughn's latest step toward complete audience contempt, Delivery Man, scheduled for a late November release. You've been warned.

For everyone else, we present the fall's most anticipated movies. It's time to alleviate that summertime sadness.

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Director: Brad Furman
Stars: Justin Timberlake, Gemma Arterton, Ben Affleck, Anthony Mackie
Release date: September 27

Starring Justin Timberlake and Ben Affleck, and produced by Leonardo DiCaprio, Runner, Runner is sure to be a box office hit when it's released in theaters. Timberlake plays Richie, a Princeton student swindled out of his tuition money through online poker. He travels to the island where the site is hosted to confront Ivan Block (Affleck), the site's less-than honorable-owner. Instead, he's seduced by power and money to become Block's protege. Combing gambling, danger, and the FBI and you've got yourself an entertaining crime thriller. —TA

Director: Peter Segal
Stars: Sylvester Stallone, Robert De Niro, Kevin Hart, Alan Arkin, Kim Basinger, Jon Bernthal, Joey Diaz
Release date: December 25

Nobody is going to confuse Grudge Match with Rocky or Raging Bull, its stars Sylvester Stallone and Robert De Niro’s respective boxing classics, but the sports comedy about two geriatric former pro boxers lured out of retirement by a promoter (Kevin Hart) to settle a score in one final fight has the potential for hard-hitting humor.

Not primarily considered comedic actors, Stallone (as Henry "Razor" Sharp) and De Niro (Billy "The Kid" McGuigan) nonetheless fit this project well. Hell, most of Stallone’s action movies feature as many one-liners as punches, and De Niro has been most on point recently in flicks with a comedic bent, like Machete, Silver Linings Playbook, and the Fockers franchise. With bonafide funnyman Alan Arkin joining the fun as Razor’s old trainer, who’s grateful to be freed from life in a nursing home, Grudge Match looks likely to jab the hell out of funny bones. —JM

Director: Peter Jackson
Stars: Martin Freeman, Ian McKellen, Cate Blanchett, Hugo Weaving, Christopher Lee, Sylvester McCoy, Mikael Persbrandt, Lee Pace, Benedict Cumberbatch, Orlando Bloom, Evangeline Lilly, Luke Evans, Stephen Fry
Release date: December 13

The second installment of Peter Jackson's three-movie adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkein's single part children's novel The Hobbit covers the business with the dragon. Smaug, a dragon with plenty treasure to his name (voiced by Star Trek's Benedict Cumberbatch), woke from his sleep in the final moments of An Unexpected Journey and he won't be going back to bed anytime soon.

Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman), Gandalf (Ian McKellen), and the team of dwarves will have to do battle with more than just a dragon this time around—and all at an uncanny 48 framers per second. Like the first film, The Desolation of Smaug crams more photographic information for your eyeballs in each second. Presumably complaints about the look of the film will continue as this series reaches another of its many climaxes. —RS

Director: John Lee Hancock
Stars: Tom Hanks, Emma Thompson, Paul Giamatti, Bradley Whitford, Colin Farrell, B.J. Novak, Ruth Wilson, Victoria Summer
Release date: December 20

Oh, the glory days of childhood. The time when we'd pop in our VHS copy of the Disney classic musical Mary Poppins, watch with cheese grins spread across our faces, sing along to jams like "Chim Chim Cher-ee" and "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious," and crush hard on radiant actress Julie Andrews. What? You didn't do that a kid? OK, never mind. Moving on…

Actually, screw that—Mary Poppins is a great movie, and we're not ashamed to admit to obsessing over it as kids. Which is why Saving Mr. Banks qualifies as a must-see around here.

The "based on a true story" drama stars Emma Thompson as P.L Travers, the author behind the original Mary Poppins children's book series. Tom Hanks plays Walt Disney, and director John Lee Hancock's (The Blind Side) sure-to-be pleasant and charming flick shows how Disney convinced Travers to let him turn her books into a movie, and the production that ensued. And, since we know you're wondering (OK, maybe it's just us wondering), British up-and-comer Victoria Summer plays Julie Andrews. We approve. —MB

Director: Ron Howard
Stars: Chris Hemsworth, Daniel Bruhl, Olivia Wilde, Alexandra Maria Lara, Natalie Dormer
Release date: September 20

Ron Howard's anticipated Forumal One biopic, Rush, centers around the legendary rivalry between drivers James Hunt (Hemsworth) and Niki Lauda (Bruhl) during the 1976 Formula One season. But it isn't just meant to rev you up for a good two hours, only to have you forget about the movie by the time you get home. Rather, it wants to tell you a remarkable little known true story you can enthrall your friends with over dinner.

Back from an almost fatal crash that left him severely scarred, notoriously risky driver Niki Lauda, much to his wife's chagrin, gears up to reclaim the Wolrd Championship only six weeks after the accident, continuing his to claw at his already life-changing duel with driver James Hunt. The ending is one for the history books. —TA

Director: Carl Rinsch
Stars: Keanu Reeves, Tadanobu Asano, Rinko Kikuchi, Hiroyuki Sanada, Kou Shibasaki
Release date: December 25

You know how your eyes are to train wrecks? It may be similarly difficult to peel them off of 47 Ronin. Some facts about the movie: 1) It’s about real-life 18th-century Japanese samurai who avenged the death of their master at the cost of their own lives, becoming societal examples of loyalty and honor, only it has Lord of the Rings fantasy elements like witches and giants thrown in. 2) It stars Keanu Reeves, for whom the role of a super important half-Japanese, half British outcast slave who joins the Ronin’s mission was created. 3) Universal gave unproven first time director Carl Erik Rinsch an astonishing $170 million production budget. 3) Universal has pushed the film back. Twice.

Now, this may not all add up to a colossal oof, but if the ooze from the CGI-stuffed trailer is any indication, 47 Ronin could be the most unintentionally hilarious disaster of the year. —JM

Director: Jason Reitman
Stars: Kate Winslet, Josh Brolin, Gattlin Griffith, Tobey Maguire, James Van Der Beek, Clark Gregg, Maika Monroe
Release date: December 25

Jason Reitman doesn't seem to settle for anything less than a career's-best performance from his leading actors. That's what he got from Aaron Eckhart in Thank You for Smoking (2005), Ellen Page in Juno (2007), and what he nearly got from a stellar Charlize Theron in 2011's underrated Young Adult, had it not been for Theron's untouchable work in Monster (2003).

But can Reitman yield the same results from Kate Winslet and Josh Brolin in Labor Day? It's not as if either star has a shortage of excellent performances. Thus, Reitman's got his work cut out for him here, but he also has some rather strong source material, Joyce Maynard's novel Labor Day, at his disposal.

Taking place over one weekend, Labor Day is seen through the eyes of teenager Henry Wheeler (newcomer Gattlin Griffith) and follows the drama that ensues when an escaped convict (Brolin) hides out in the youngster's house, along with his mother (Winslet). And yes, that is James Van Der Beek's name in the "Stars" field above. And fuck if we know how the hell that happened. —MB

Director: Randy Moore
Stars: Roy Abramsohn, Elena Schuver, Katelynn Rodriguez, Jack Dalton
Release date: October 11

It's the movie that the Walt Disney corporation doesn't want you to see, because, well, it makes them look like a bunch of fools. Escape from Tomorrow, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January to much ballyhoo and critical enthusiasm, taps into the black-and-white psychological disintegration seen in Roman Polanski's Repulsion and Darren Aronofsky's Pi, only, here, it's a father battling against ghoulish hallucinations while trying to get through a family vacation at the Walt Disney World theme park.

The rub here, though, is that writer-director Randy Moore actually shot the entire film on location at both Walt Disney World and Disneyland. What's so impressive, and audacious, about that? He did so without any permits, since, to protect the company's intellectual property, the Disney brass don't allow filmmakers to shoot on their grounds.

Escape from Tomorrow is guerrilla filmmaking at its craziest; even if it's ultimately not that a four-star movie, its back-story is worthy of applause. With rubber Mickey Mouse hands. —MB

Director: Olivier Dahan
Stars: Nicole Kidman, Tim Roth, Frank Langella, Milo Ventimiglia, Parker Posey, Derek Jacobi, Paz Vega
Release date: November 27

Grace of Monaco follows the life of Hollywood star Grace Kelly, who gave up her career, and, essentially, her identity to marry Monaco's Prince Rainier III. A comeback vehicle for Nicole Kidman, the biopic enlists the Aussie actress as Princess Grace, a woman who was seemingly living a fairy tale come true. However, the film will tell you that her tale isn't a bedtime story for your daughter. Rather, it revolves around a crisis in her marriage to the prince, Monaco's conflict with France over its tax policies, and the public outcry that forced Kelly not to take the starring role in Hitchcock's Marnie and, ultimately, never appear onscreen again. —TA

Director: Alan Taylor
Stars: Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Tom Hiddleston, Christopher Eccleston, Stellan Skarsgard, Idris Elba, Ray Stevenson, Kat Dennings, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Zachary Levi, Jaimie Alexander
Release date: November 8

Unless your last name is Hemsworth, chances are you don’t rate 2011’s Thor as the best movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Gods are not for everyone, but even those of us who prefer more relatable comic book heroes have to admit that director Kenneth Branagh, who has a lot of experience with Shakespearean themes, did a good job finding the humanity in the hammer-wielding crown prince of Asgard (played with Chris Hemsworth with excellent stature and ego) and his jealous adopted brother, Loki (the stellar Tom Hiddleston), and created a vision of the godly realm that was appropriately breathtaking.

The Irish director is not back for the sequel, which picks up a year after Thor kicked alien ass and saved/destroyed much of New York City with the Avengers. In his stead is Alan Taylor, who hasn’t adapted a bunch of Shakespeare but has overseen plenty of heavy dramatic material on Mad Men and a slew of high-quality HBO shows (Oz, The Sopranos, Six Feet Under, Rome, Boardwalk Empire, Game of Thrones). He seems a smart pick to further explore the sibling rivalry and Thor’s love for human scientist Jane Foster (Natalie Portman), as well as the new challenges of sitting on a throne and preventing a supervillain Malekith (Christopher Eccleston) from turning the lights out on the universe. Seriously, if Taylor’s television credits don’t make you tingle a bit down there thinking about The Dark World, you need to get off that Honey Boo Boo crack rock and try using your brain occasionally. —JM

Director: Jeff Tremaine
Stars: Johnny Knoxville, Jackson Nicoll
Release date: October 25

There's not much of a sales pitch needed here: You're either on Team Jackass or you're not. Fortunately for the makers of Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa, we're all about it.

The premise is simple. Johnny Knoxville returns as Irvng Zisman, the old geezer who's prone to acting like a crotchety asshole in public and catching real-life bystanders off-guard, usually by pissing them off through insults or acts of indecency. Here, Zisman and his grandson, Billy (Jackson Nicoll), go on a Borat-like road trip across the United States.

One look at the scene in the film's trailer, in which Billy dresses in little girl's clothing, goes on stage for a Toddlers & Tiaras-esque pageant, and lets Zisman "make it rain" on him with dollar bills, should let you know if you're excited about Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa or not. As for us, we've already got our opening night tickets on hold. —MB

Director: Bill Condon
Stars: Benedict Cumberbatch, Daniel Bruhl, Laura Linney, Stanley Tucci, Anthony Mackie, David Thewlis, Peter Capaldi, Carice van Houten, Alicia Vikander
Release date: October 18

Based on former WikiLeaks spokesman Daniel Domscheit-Berg's book Inside WikiLeaks: My Time with Julian Assange and the World's Most Dangerous Website, and David Leigh and Luke Harding’s WikiLeaks: Inside Julian Assange's War on Secrecy, The Fifth Estate purports to tells the true story of the controversial transparency-seeking news website founded by Julian Assange. Whether you think the white haired Australian activist is a thief and traitor who puts lives at risk with leaks or a champion of the truth who empowers individuals and prevents corporations and governments from cheating people, there’s no denying that the fascinating Assange (played by the always trustworthy Benedict Cumberbatch, of Sherlock and Star Trek Into Darkness fame) changed the way information travels in the modern era and profoundly affected all of humanity.

Fittingly, Assange has claimed that the film is slander and propaganda intended to drum up support for war with Iran, but if he’s taught us anything it’s that it’s wise to gather all available information and consider the sources before determining where the truth lies, so don’t mind if we watch and decide for ourselves. —JM

Director: Robert Rodriguez
Stars: Danny Trejo, Michelle Rodriguez, Jessica Alba, Amber Heard, Charlie Sheen, Mel Gibson, Sofia Vergara, Lady Gaga, Demian Bachir, Cuba Gooding Jr., Antonio Banderas, Zoe Saldana, Alexa Vega, William Sadler
Release date: October 11

Everything you need to know about Machete Kills—the sequel to Robert Rodriguez's tongue-deeply-in-cheek exploitation action flick Machete (2010)—can be extracted from this: Charlie Sheen plays the President of the United States.

Still want to know more? Well, in addition to having Danny Trejo back as the world's most badass ex-Federale, you've also got the busty Sofia Vergara as a villainess who fire bullets from her brassiere, Lady Gaga playing a character named La Chameleón, Cuba Gooding Jr. playing her counterpart, El Chameleón, and Mel Gibson as a criminal mastermind. Wave goodbye to subtlety and embrace the absurdities, like Machete tossing a bad guy into a helicopter to make it explode. Just because. —MB

Director: Jim Mickle
Stars: Julia Garner, Ambyr Childers, Bill Sage, Michael Parks, Wyatt Russell, Kelly McGillis
Release date: September 27

Another American remake of a memorable foreign horror flick? The knee-jerk reaction here should be one of disgust, but We Are What We Are is the rare exception to the rule. That's because its director/co-writer, Jim Mickle, is one of the genre's most gifted and promising up-and-comers. Just see his bold, imaginative, and elegantly crafted 2012 vampire film Stake Land for evidence of his skills.

In We Are What We Are, Mickle and his writing partner Nick Damici have refashioned Mexican filmmaker Jorge Michel Grau's bleak 2011 cannibal film of the same name into something that's all their own. Grau's film is urban, oppressive, and sharply downbeat; Mickle's, on the other hand, while still dark as can be, is slightly brighter with its picturesque, rural Upstate New York setting. And it's richer in mythology.

Ambyr Childers (The Master) and Julia Garner (Martha Marcy May Marlene) star as teenage sisters forced into ritualistic flesh-eating by their idealistic, stern father (Bill Sage), a longstanding family tradition that gets drastically shaken up once their mother dies in a freak accident. Though there's gore and horrific imagery aplenty here, We Are What We Are is horror of the more mature and artistic kind. It's one for stuffy critics and Leatherface action figure collectors alike. —MB

Director: John Wells
Stars: Meryl Streep, Julia Roberts, Ewan McGregor, Chris Cooper, Benedict Cumberbatch, Abigail Breslin, Juliette Lewis, Margo Martindale, Dermot Mulroney, Julianne Nicholson, Sam Shepard
Release date: December 25

Every December, the studios roll out at least one boozy, darkly funny family dramas in hopes of Oscar gold. More often than not, these movies are bad (see: Everything's Fine). Do not let this keep you from seeing August: Osage County, adapted from the Pulitzer Prize-winning play by playwright Tracy Letts, a member of the acclaimed Chicago theater group, Steppenwolf. His play takes place over the course of a few weeks at the home of Beverly and Violet Weston near Pawhuska, Oklahoma. Beverly has died, and the Weston children are returning home to mourn.

Director John Wells must be nervous. Up until this point, Letts has worked with veteran director William Friedkin very succesfully; both Bug and Killer Joe are funny, fucked up, and tight cinematic adaptations of disturbing stage dramas. Now, Wells has to adapt what's considered to be Letts' masterpiece, and a play that runs for nearly four hours at that.

Thankfully Letts penned the screen adaptation, and the cast is full of talent: Sam Shepard, Meryl Streep, Julia Roberts, Ewan McGregor, and Chris Cooper all have top billing. This holiday season, when you're ready to kill your family, come spend time with a bunch of people who know how to hurt each other with words. Take notes. —RS

Director: George Clooney
Stars: George Clooney, Matt Damon, Cate Blanchett, Bill Murray, Jean Dujardin, John Goodman, Bob Balaban, Hugh Bonneville
Release date: December 18

George Clooney, Matt Damon, and beloved old men like Bill Murray and John Goodman in a movie about the importance of art in the face of the horror that was WWII and the Holocaust? We're in this like grandmothers getting elbow deep at a salad bar.

An adaptation of the non-fiction work The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History, Clooney's latest looks to a neglected chapter of World War II history, the part about the preservation of all the great art Hitler wanted to either a) horde, or b) destory. The Allies gathered a team of older aesthetes to go behind the front lines and save the art.

Again, a movie with a brilliant cast fixed around the radical idea that art isn't a disposable commodity but instead something special and important and worth fighting for? Yes, please. —RS

Director: Paul Greengrass
Stars: Tom Hanks, Catherine Keener, Max Martini, Yul Vasquez, Chris Mulkey
Release date: October 11

If the mere mention of pirates gives you unsettling memories of an undying Disney franchise, have no fear. Speech-slurring Captain Jack Sparrow is nowhere to be found in this biopic, based on A Captain's Duty: Somali Pirates, Navy SEALs, and Dangerous Days at Sea, Captain Richard Phillips’ 2010 account of being taken hostage during an attempted hijacking of the cargo ship MV Maersk Alabama in 2009.

Spoiler alert: Phillips obviously lived to tell his story, but thanks to two important players that knowledge shouldn’t prevent Captain Phillips from being an effective action thriller. Star Tom Hanks shined in Philadelphia, Saving Private Ryan, and Cast Away, previous efforts about worn-down men coping with leadership roles, loneliness, and the possibility of imminent death. Director Paul Greengrass has phenomenal genre credits (The Bourne Supremacy, The Bourne Ultimatum) but, more importantly, demonstrated with 2006’s United 93, about the hijacking and heroics on the ill-fated airplane that was intended to strike the Capitol during the 9/11 attacks but went down in Pennsylvania when passengers fought back, that he could make tense, compelling cinema out a real-life story with a known outcome. —JM

Director: Peter Berg
Stars: Mark Wahlberg, Taylor Kitsch, Ben Foster, Emile Hirsch, Alexander Ludwig, Sammy Sheik, Ali Suliman
Release date: December 27

In order to make Lone Survivor, a wartime action drama based on former Navy SEAL Marcus Luttrell’s 2007 non-fiction book Lone Survivor: The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of SEAL Team 10, Peter Berg had to agree to direct Battleship. Realize how much this story means to him that the man behind the Friday Night Lights movie and television series would suffer through the making and selling of a sci-fi adaptation of a board game, and find forgiveness in your heart.

Lone Survivor follows Luttrell (Mark Wahlberg) and the three other members of the Afghanistan-based SEAL Team 10 on a mission to capture or kill a Taliban leader linked to Osama bin Laden. After encountering unarmed civilians while in hiding, the SEALs release them and are compromised, pursued by an overwhelming force of Taliban fighters. As the title indicates, Luttrell is the only American who survives the subsequent escape and rescue attempts.

A movie like this could be terribly morbid if it rolled along toward anticipated death scenes but Berg and Luttrell’s investment in the film as a means to honor the men who lost their lives suggests that viewers will come to know and respect the SEALs and others who fell and will feel their sacrifice. Berg is comfortable in the macho world of men, but also with tough men showing emotion, and in Wahlberg and actors Eric Bana, Taylor Kitsch, Emile Hirsch, and Ben Foster he has a cast that can handle the weight of their predicament, from the decision to let possible scouts live (rather than kill unarmed innocents) to fighting until their last breaths. —JM

Director: Bennett Miller
Stars: Steve Carell, Mark Ruffalo, Channing Tatum, Anthony Michael Hall, Sienna Miller, Vanessa Redgrave
Release date: December 20

Steve Carell's about to have one hell of a fourth quarter. Firstly, there's the surefire box office smash Anchorman: The Legend Continues, which should keep the funnyman's pockets nice and fat, but there's also a film that represents his best chance for movie awards consideration to date: Foxcatcher, from Moneyball director Bennett Miller.

In the latter, based on a true story, Carell plays John Eleuthère du Pont, a multimillionaire who opened a facility for Olympic athletes and was convicted of murdering Olympic freestyle wrestling champion David Schultz (Mark Ruffalo) in 1997. Sporting a wicked-looking prosthetic nose (see above), Carell left the comedy behind to inhabit a strange, cold-hearted character, and the Oscar community could very well take notice. —MB

Director: Spike Lee
Stars: Josh Brolin, Sharlto Copley, Elizabeth Olsen, Samuel L. Jackson, Michael Imperioli, Richard Portnow, Lance Reddick, Max Casella, James Ransone, Hannah Ware
Release date: November 27

Who can blame folks for vehemently decrying the existence of an Oldboy remake? The 2003 original, directed by the excellent South Korean filmmaker Park Chan-wook, is a masterwork of unbridled violence and twisty, elegant storytelling. Watching it, one can't help but think that Hollywood would never have the proverbial balls to execute such a raw, uncompromising character study.

So why are we so excited about an American Oldboy? Because its director just so happens to be one of Hollywood's bravest filmmakers. Though he's certainly not an obvious choice for the gig, Spike Lee's involvement with Oldboy bodes well for the producers' desires to not take the easy, predictable way out. They've also cast a fully capable leading man in Josh Brolin, who'll drop bodies and (possibly) self-mutilate as a wrongly imprisoned man who's now free and looking to destroy those responsible for ruining his life.

Still not happy? Consider this: Before Lee and Brolin, the Oldboy remake team consisted of the much safer pairing of Steven Spielberg and Will Smith. —MB

Director: Scott Cooper
Stars: Christian Bale, Casey Affleck, Woody Harrelson, Zoe Saldana, Forest Whitaker, Willem Dafoe, Sam Shepard
Release date: November 27

No wonder Christian Bale doesn't want to play Batman anymore—dude seems to be on a mission to establish himself as Hollywood's best actor.

In addition to the amazing-looking American Hustle (more on that later), Bale will muscle his way into Academy Award conversations via Crazy Heart director Scott Cooper's thriller Out of the Furnace. It's reportedly a robust Bale showcase, in which he plays a blue collar ex-con living in the Rust Belt who goes on a one-man mission to rescue his younger brother (Casey Affleck) from the clutches of a crime syndicate.

Few actors working today can do combustible intensity quite like Christian Bale, and it sounds like Out of the Furnace will have a ton of that. Saying goodbye to his Bruce Wayne doesn't seem so bad after all. —MB

Director: Bong Joon-ho
Stars: Chris Evans, Song Kang-ho, Go Ah-sung, Jamie Bell, John Hurt, Tilda Swinton, Octavia Spencer, Ed Harris, Alison Pill
Release date: To be determined

One of the few Korean directors to find success in the States, Bong Joon-ho (The Host, Mother) has one crazy movie for 2013—a crazy train movie. Snowpiercer is set in a dystopian future where all of the world lives on a very long train that powers the planet. Like the Titanic, a rigid class structure divides the society of the train, with Tilda Swinton playing the Thatcher-esque figure in charge. Chris Evans plays Curtis, the leader of the train's lowest class, the class that will rise up to stop the train.

Judging by the imagery of the trailer, which freely draws on Orwell, German Expressionism, and The Polar Express, we won't get a more imaginative movie this year. In fact, there's no guarantee that we'll even get this movie. The Weinstein Company, which has acquired the film for American distribution, has said that it may cut as many as 20 minutes from the movie so it can be "understood by audiences in Iowa...and Oklahoma." The film's international running time is just over two hours, making 20 minutes a substantial amount of time. Please, Harvey, stay the hell away from this movie. —RS

Director: Kimberly Peirce
Stars: Chloe Grace Moretz, Julianne Moore, Gabriella Wilde, Judy Greer, Alex Russell, Portia Doubledat, Ansel Elgort
Release date: October 18

There's an immediate problem that fans of Stephen King's debut novel, Carrie, will need to look past in order to accept the idea of this Kimberly Peirce (Boys Don't Cry) adaptation: Chloe Grace Moretz is too damn cute to play Carrie White. In both King's novel and director Brian De Palma's original 1976 movie version, Carrie's a socially awkward, timid ugly duckling, one who's intimidated by the much-prettier girls in her high school, and who, of course, uses her telekinetic powers to fight back against bullying. Moretz isn't that.

How Peirce handles that kink to Carrie's character arc is just one of the several questions we've got about Hollywood's latest horror remake. Supposedly this film will adhere closer to King's source material, which largely viewed Carrie White's nightmarish incident through the eyes of her peers. One thing's for sure, though: If the finished product overdoes it with the cheesy-looking CGI that hinders its trailer, Carrie 2013 will be about as welcome as a bucket of pig's blood. —MB

Director: Francis Lawrence
Stars: Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Woody Harrelson, Elizabeth Banks, Lenny Kravitz, Philip Seynour Hoffman, Toby Jones, Stanley Tucci, Sam Claflin, Amanda Plummer, Jena Malone, Donald Sutherland, Jeffrey Wright
Release date: November 22

You've seen the posters, you've watched the teasers, and you've read every Jennifer Lawrence interview you could get your hands on. That's a natural consequence of having seen The Hunger Games, the mega-successful adaptation of the first book of Suzanne Collins' dystopian YA trilogy. More than just a less-embarrassing-to-like answer to Twilight, The Hunger Games is an exciting series with depth, edge, and a message that doesn't revolve around vampires dousing their libidos. It's about the brutality of war and desensitization to violence as much as it about love conquering all.

Catching Fire kicks off Katniss (Lawrence) and Peeta's (Hutcherson) victory tour after winning the 74th Hunger Games, a fight to the death meant to reward a victor's district with food for an entire year. Sensing a rebellion brewing among the districts thanks to Katniss and Peeta's unorthodox victory, Capitol president Snow must find a way to obliterate the two winners to maintain control over the dictatorship society of Panem. Enter: the 75th Hunger Games. —TA

Director: Justin Chadwick
Stars: Idris Elba, Naomie Harris
Release date: November 29

Could this be the year that the entire world wakes up and acknowledges Idris Elba's greatness?

If it's ever going to happen, this is certainly the time. Having gone from the critical acclaim of The Wire to numerous scene-stealing performances in major Hollywood movies (Prometheus, Pacific Rim) and playing the lead in a superb BBC drama series (Luther), the British actor is now one of Harvey Weinstein's golden gooses.

The super-producer has a lot riding on Elba this years thanks to Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom, one of The Weinstein Company's Academy Awards hopefuls. Elba stars as Nelson Mandela in a film based on the South African President's 1994 autobiography. Will it most likely follow the usual biopic tropes? Most likely, yes. But, nevertheless, we're all for Elba finally receiving his all-eyes-on-him moment. —MB

Director: Jean-Marc Vallée
Stars: Matthew McConaughey, Jared Leto, Jennifer Garner, Dallas Roberts, Steve Zahn, Denis O'Hare, Griffin Dunne
Release date: December 6

Since he ceased making rom-com trash following 2009’s Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, Matthew McConaughey has been on an absolute tear. The Lincoln Lawyer, Magic Mike, Killer Joe, and Mud were all interesting choices that displayed actual acting chops. That roll continues in the Dallas Buyers Club, a drama loosely based on the life of Ron Woodroof.

McConaughey plays the Texas electrician who, upon contracting HIV in the mid '80s and discovering that AZT, the only FDA-approved drug at the time, is harsh and ineffective, teams with an HIV-positive transsexual woman (played by Jared Leto) to smuggle alternative medicines into the U.S. and eventually form a “buyers club,” from which members can access the non-toxic treatments. The film also focuses on Woodroof’s public fight for life against U.S. medical and pharmaceutical companies, which lasted until his death in 1992, a staggering six years after doctors initially told him he had 30 days to live.

There is already awards buzz surrounding McConaughey, who lost 38 pounds to play the important pioneer in the fight against HIV/AIDS. It’s hard to believe this is the same guy who used to ease in and out of junk like How To Lose a Guy In 10 Days and Failure to Launch, but thankfully he’s found better loftier goals for his work than simply fulfilling fantasies with his shirt off. —JM

Director: Denis Villeneuve
Stars: Hugh Jackman, Jake Gyllenhaal, Viola Davis, Paul Dano, Maria Bello, Terrence Howard, Melissa Leo
Release date: September 20

It's about time Hugh Jackman abandoned those Wolverine claws and stopped singing. In what looks to be the Academy Award nominee's grittiest film to date, Jackman stars in Prisoners as an Average Joe carpenter whose six-year-old daughter and her friend get abducted on Thanksgiving. Thinking he knows who's taken the little girls, Jackman's character oversteps the case's detective's (Jake Gyllenhaal) authority, kidnaps the guy whom he suspects (Paul Dano), and gets to torturing.

Indeed, it's a far cry from Jean Valjean. Backed by a tense, highly promising first trailer, Prisoners might not be the feel-good movie of the fall, but the potential for serious, profound audience trauma is there. Plus, it's the stateside debut of Canadian director Denis Villeneuve, whose 2011 film festival darling, and Oscar nominee for Best Foreign Language Film, nominee Incendies is a must-see for fans of dark psychological dramas. —MB

Director: Alexander Payne
Stars: Will Forte, Bruce Dern, June Squibb, Bob Odenkirk, Stacy Keach
Release date: November 22

Alexander Payne has proven his ability to make compelling movies out of peculiar stories with movies like Sideways and About Schmidt. The 2011 Oscar-winning hit The Descendants only solidified that fact. And Nebraska is no different: It's about an aging alcoholic father who visits his estranged son in order to claim a million-dollar sweepstakes prize.

Shot in black and white, the film, a breakthrough vehicle for Saturday Night Live alum Will Forte, premiered at the Cannes Film Festival this year, to much critical acclaim. Critics have called it "whimsical," "poignant," and "bittersweet." It sounds like Payne's got another classic on his hands. —TA

Director: J.C. Chandor
Stars: Robert Redford
Release date: October 25

Like Cast Away, but on a boat, All Is Lost is a one-man showcase for a adored American actor squaring off against merciless nature. Robert Redford plays a nameless man piloting a small boat. He wakes one morning to find that his boat has sprung a leak and the incoming seawater has damaged his electronic communication devices. A storm is approaching. Prognosis: All is gonna be lost.

Cast Away, though there are long stretches with little dialogue, is still a crowd-pleaser full of FedEx product placement, a volleyball friend, and Tom Hanks. All Is Lost, director J.C. Chandor's follow-up to the chilly and excellent finanical-crisis drama Margin Call, is a more demanding film. Aside from a monologue in voiceover, there is practically no dialogue. This is cinema of the moving image and the sounds that result from the objects the camera passes over. Pure cinema, some will call it. At 77, Redford has the kind of weathered, expressive face that can carry an entire movie, and from the sound of it, Chandor has committed so totally to this extreme feature, you have to marvel at the simple audacity of the undertaking. —RS

Director: Hayao Miyazaki
Stars: Hideaki Anno, Miori Takimoto, Hidetoshi Nishijima, Masahiko Nishimura
Release date: To be determined

A new Miyazaki is always an event, The Wind Rises even more so. Why? Because this movie, a historical epic about Jiro Horikoshi, the designer of a plane used by the Japanese during World War II, is being release in Japan at a time when the Prime Minister is trying to amend the constitution so that a the country can once again have a complete military—something that hasn't been possible since the very war that Miyazaki's film engages with. Because The Wind Rises is anti-war, he's been called a traitor. On top of that, he's written an essay coming out against the Prime Minister's plan.

That's the background on what is, from the trailer, clearly an outlier for the acclaimed animator best known for fantasies like My Neighbor Totoro and Spirited Away. The Wind Rises, which looks like Spielberg at his best, might even succeed on a level that places it in the pantheon of great anti-war movies like Grand Illusion and Paths of Glory. The shots in the trailer of the the plane Horikoshi designed cut against drops of blood (or paint) raining down a canvas are striking enough to let you know that this may be yet another masterpiece for Japan's most adored animator. —RS

Director: Ridley Scott
Stars: Michael Fassbender, Penelope Cruz, Javier Bardem, Cameron Diaz, Brad Pitt, Dean Norris, John Leguizamo, Natalie Dormer, Rosie Perez
Release date: October 25

What is anything? The trailer for The Counselor doesn't seem real. What's going on with Javier Bardem's hair? Why is Cameron Diaz crawling on a car like this is a remake of that White Snake video instead of a movie scripted by Cormac McCarthy, one of the most respected living American authors? What is happening?

Here's what we know: The Counselor is based on an original screenplay fomr McCarthy, the man behind undisputable classic novels like All the Pretty Horses and Blood Meridian, and who's very good No Country for Old Men was adapted into something even stronger by the Coens. Ridley Scott, of Alien and Blade Runner, is directing (as if the glossy metal sheen of everything in the frame hadn't already told you that). Michael Fassbender plays an attorney—counselor in McCarthy's unusual diction—dug into some very deep shit with some kind of Javier Bardem/Scott Rudin mash-up, a psycho who probably ghostwrote all of Drake's "Versace" remix. Oh, and there are women talking to other women in the trailer, indicating that McCarthy is truly on some next-level (for him) gender-studies shit. Nothing about this seems real, which is why we all so desperately need to see it. —RS

Director: Abdellatif Kechiche
Stars: Léa Seydoux, Adèle Exarchopoulos, Salim Kechiouche, Jeremie Laheurte
Release date: October (exact date to be determined)

The winner of the Cannes Film Festival grand prize, the Palme d'Or, Blue Is the Warmest Colour is a sexually frank look at the unraveling of an intense relationship between two young women (Seydoux and Exarchopoulos). Adapted from the French graphic novel by Julie Maroh, Blue Angel, the film's already been surrounded with controversy thanks to its explicit nature—it landed an NC-17 rating—and criticism that its shot through with director Abdellatif Kechiche's male gaze.

Regardless of critics, if there's anything that the NSFW English-subtitled trailer promises, it's a love story that will make you rethink conventional coming-of-age love stories. —TA

Director: Spike Jonze
Stars: Joaquin Phoenix, Amy Adams, Rooney Mara, Olivia Wilde, Scarlett Johansson
Release date: December 18

Spike Jonze does weird well. He's the guy that brought you Being John Malkovich, Adaptation., Where the Wild Things Are, and a bunch of Jackass segments. Which is why we're confident he can make a story about a lonely guy who falls in love with a Siri-type operating system work in his latest film, Her.

Said lonely guy is played by Joaquin Phoenix, whose character is a divorced writer who develops a relationship with a cognizant voice on his phone (played by Scarlett Johansson). How Rooney Mara, Amy Adams, and Olivia Wilde factor into the story remains to be fleshed out, so to speak, but considering their caliber, we can't wait to find out. —TA

Director: Joel and Ethan Coen
Stars: Oscar Isaac, Carey Mulligan, John Goodman, Garret Hedlund, Justin Timberlake, F. Murray Abraham, Stark Sands, Adam Driver, Max Casella, Alex Karpovsky
Release date: December 6

Keep your eyes on Oscar Isaac, because he's your next favorite actor. The little known actor, whose known for playing threatening roles in Sucker Punch and Drive, is showcasing his natural talent as a singer-songwriter that he first put on display in the Channing Tatum-led reunion flick, 10 Years.

The guy's got a gift, which makes him the perfect man to take on the titular role in the Coen Brother's Cannes Film Festival pleaser, Inside Llewyn Davis, about a folk singer trying to make it big in '60s New York City. Rounded out by a cast that includes Carrie Mulligan, Justin Timberlake, and John Goodman, and original songs co-produced by T-Bone Burnett and Marcus Mumford, Inside Llewyn Davis is a love letter to folk music. —TA

Director: Steve McQueen
Stars: Chiwetel Ejiofor, Michael Fassbender, Benedict Cumberbatch, Paul Dano, Paul Giamatti, Brad Pitt, Alfre Woodard, Sarah Paulson, Scoot McNairy, Adepero Oduye, Garret Dillahunt, Michael K. Williams, Dwight Henry, Quvenzhané Wallis
Release date: October 18

With his debut feature Hunger, British visual artist turned director Steve McQueen immediately became part of the conversation. His movie looked like precious few other narrative features out, privileging visuals as the means to tell his story over dialogue. The story was a brutal one, about the hunger strike among imprisoned IRA agents in 1981. Now, McQueen is turning to another ordeal for his latest, 12 Years a Slave.

There is no director who has proved himself more capable of capturing the visceral horror of slavery in America than McQueen. With this movie, he views the nightmare through the lens of Solomon Northup (Chiwetel Ejiofor)—the story is culled from his autobiography—a free man sold into slavery after being kidnapped in Washington D.C. in 1841. As the title suggests, he was enslaved for 12 years before being free again. McQueen's film, a sure Oscar contender, focuses on those years when Northup was made to work on a plantation in Louisiana. Django Unchained, this will not be. —RS

Director: Ben Stiller
Stars: Ben Stiller, Kristen Wiig, Adam Scott, Patton Oswalt, Shirley MacLaine, Sean Penn
Release date: December 25

With an all-star comedy cast, Ben Stiller, Kristen Wiig and Adam Scott and Academy Award winner, Sean Penn, The Secret Life of Walter Mittyis the main reason we can't wait for December 25. Forget dinner with the family—sitting in a theatre with strangers watching the epic fantasy, based on James Thurber's short story of the same name, sounds much more appealing. Stiller, as Walter Mitty, is a boring office worker living inside his own daydreams, where adventure and love with his co-worker, Cheryl (Wiig), is real.

If you're questioning Stiller's talent as a director, this little tidbit should fight off naysayers: It was chosen to premiere as the centerpiece to this year's New York Film Festival, a spot previously given to award-winners My Week With Marilyn and Precious. —TA

Director: Martin Scorsese
Stars: Leonardo Dicaprio, Jonah Hill, Matthew McConaughey, Jon Bernthal, Margot Robbie, Jon Favreau, Kyle Chandler, Jean Dujardin, Rob Reiner, Cristin Milioti, Spike Jonze, Ethan Suplee
Release date: November 15

He's better known for his gangster dramas and character studies, but people should recognize Martin Scorsese's comic chops. The man's made some hilarious films, albeit of the darkest variety possible. In After Hours (1985), he captured the vibrancy of late-night New York City through a comedy of errors and a rogue's gallery of eccentrics doing eccentric things. In The King of Comedy (1983), Scorsese and actor Robert De Niro played up the lunacy of celebrity obsession to hilarious degrees of awkwardness and embarrassment.

Based on its lively trailer, Scorsese's latest film, The Wolf of Wall Street, appears to be a return to that. It stars the director's go-to leading man, Leonardo Dicaprio, as real-life NYC stockbroker Jordan Belfort, who came under investigation for shady Wall Street practices and mob involvement. He also lived a hedonistic, self-absorbed lifestyle, and scenes trailer images of midget-tossing and DiCaprio popping and locking hint at the absurdities at work in The Wolf of Wall Street before it all falls down for Belfort. —MB

Director: Adam McKay
Stars: Will Ferrell, Steve Carell, Paul Rudd, David Koechner, Christina Applegate, Meagan Good, James Marsden, Fred Willard, Kristen Wiig, Vince Vaughn, Josh Lawson, Greg Kinnear, Dylan Baker, Chris Parnell
Release date: December 20

It's the movie everyone's been dying for but nobody ever thought would happen. Anchorman: The Legend Continues is, finally, a reality, with expectation levels set higher than Shaq's showerhead. Can Will "Ron Burgundy" Ferrell, Paul "Brian Fantana" Rudd, Steve "Brick Tamland" Carell, and David "Champ Kind" Koechner do it again?

At this point, we're just happy that the Channel 4 news team has reassembled in the first place. Not to mention, Christina "Veronica Corningstone" Applegate will return from what must've been, like, an eight-year sabbatical on Whore Island.

Set in the early 1980s, Anchorman: The Legend Continues follows Burgundy and his colleagues as they begin work at a 24-hour news channel, where new characters (James Marsden's Jack Lime, Meagan Good's Linda Jackson) try to contend with kind-of-a-big-deal Ron. Expect cameos from Kanye West, Drake, Harrison Ford, Jim Carrey, Sacha Baron Cohen, Amy Poehler, Tina Fey, Green Day, and just about anyone else in Hollywood's who's ever been in the same room as Will Ferrell. —MB

Director: Alfonso Cuarón
Stars: Sandra Bullock, George Clooney
Release date: October 4

Seven years is way too many to wait for a new Alfonso Cuarón movie. Yet it's been that long since the brilliant Mexican filmmaker blessed us with Children of Men, the best movie of 2006, even if the Academy Awards didn't recognize. If you've seen that film, you're well aware of its technical prowess, particularly in two extended single-take action sequences that rank as two of the best-directed scenes in recent cinema memory.

Assuming that the early word on Gravity is true, Cuarón may have topped Children of Men in that department. Mostly a one-hander for Sandra Bullock, Gravity finds the Oscar-winning actress playing a Space Shuttle engineer who's left dangling in outer space after her ship gets destroyed by debris. George Clooney's there too, as her colleague, but word is that he's not around long. It's the Bullock show, and with reportedly next-level visual effects and the specter of intergalactic silence (there's very little dialogue and practically no music) surrounding her, Gravity should be as harrowing as awards-baiting movies come. —MB

Director: David O. Russell
Stars: Christian Bale, Bradley Cooper, Jeremy Renner, Amy Adams, Jennifer Lawrence, Robert De Niro, Louis C.K., Michael Pena
Release date: December 13

There's something about the '70s that brings out the best in contemporary filmmakers. The clothes and music combine for unforgettable images, like the killing of Billy Batts in Martin Scorsese's Goodfellas, or the wild pool party in Paul Thomas Anderson's Boogie Nights. The hairy chests glimpsed under big-collared button-downs, disco beats, and sparkling lurex halter tops have transfixed David O. Russell, director of The Fighter and Silver Linings Playbook. The result is American Hustle, which is apparently about the FBI ABSCAM operation.

But watch the trailer and you can see that, more importantly, it's about gold chains falling almost to Christian Bale's tiny gut, Bradley Cooper curling his hair, Jennifer Lawrence crawling across a table, and Amy Adams moving her body like S-curves drawn in warm water while Led Zeppelin explains cock rock at a high volume.

There's dialogue about forgery and value—the story, perhaps?—but there's also dancing, sex, dry cleaning, and just the best clothes, furs and lapels you can really grab a hold of. If this movie is half as scintillating as its trailer, we'll all have won. —RS