Fall/Winter Preview: Film Journal International’s guide to award contenders and holiday fare

Summer is over, and award season fare has begun to roll into theatres. From Joy to The Danish Girl to Bridge of Spies and In the Heart of the Sea, the next few months until 2016 rolls around will give moviegoers the chance to see all those films that might—higher powers and Academy voters willing—rake in the gold come next year’s Oscars. But fans of less hardware-happy genres need not worry; there are plenty of horror, sci-fi and action epics to get you through even the worst winter doldrums.

October Highlights

Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks collaborate for the fourth time with Bridge of Spies, a Cold War-era political thriller about a lawyer (Hanks) tasked by the CIA with negotiating the exchange of two captured spies, one American, the other Soviet. (20th Century Fox; Oct. 16)

After a detour to sci-fi for Pacific Rim, Pan’s Labyrinth director Guillermo del Toro returns to his horror roots for the Gothic haunted-house tale Crimson Peak, about a young bride (Mia Wasikowska) whose new home—and new husband (Tom Hiddleston) and sister-in-law (Jessica Chastain)—aren’t exactly as free of supernatural shenanigans as one would generally prefer. (Universal; Oct. 16)

Peter Sarsgaard plays psychologist Stanley Milgram, whose famed “Milgram experiment” tested the extent to which subjects would obey authority if asked to administer painful electric shocks to other people, in Michael Almereyda’s Experimenter. (Magnolia; Oct. 16)

Sony goes meta in Rob Letterman’s Goosebumps, an adaptation of R.L. Stine’s famous series of kids’ horror books of the same name. Jack Black stars as Stine himself, who—in the world of Goosebumps-the-movie—keeps all his creatures imprisoned in his manuscripts. Spoiler alert: They get out. (Columbia Pictures; Oct. 16)

The unnamed “Ma” (Brie Larson), kidnapped and imprisoned years before, raises her young son (Jacob Tremblay) within the confines of a single room in Lenny Abrahamson’s adaptation of Emma Donoghue’s best-selling novel Room. (A24; Oct. 16)

Robert Redford plays CBS anchor Dan Rather in Truth, based on the true story of how shoddily researched reporting about President George W. Bush’s Vietnam War record ended the career of one of the world’s most respected newsmen. Cate Blanchett co-stars as Rather’s producer. (Sony Pictures Classics; Oct. 16)

Bradley Cooper aims for his fourth consecutive Oscar nomination in John Wells’ Burnt, in which he plays a bad-boy chef attempting to come back from the brink of career suicide. (The Weinstein Company; Oct. 23)

Saturday morning cartoon classic Jem and the Holograms gets its first feature film courtesy of Step Up 2: The Streets and G.I. Joe: Retaliation director Jon M. Chu, who made the smart choice of casting ’80s icon Molly Ringwald as the adoptive mother of Jem’s quartet of teenage pop stars. (Universal; Oct. 23)

Vin Diesel plays an immortal witch hunter in the aptly named The Last Witch Hunter, in which he…hunts witches. In modern-day New York, specifically, with the help of an apprentice (Elijah Wood) and a good witch (“Game of Thrones”’ Rose Leslie). You get the gist. (Summit Entertainment; Oct. 23)

Found-footage horror’s most enduring franchise gets its sixth installment in Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension, directed by first-timer Gregory Plotkin, who edited the last four films in the series. (Paramount; Oct. 23)

Bill Murray plays a washed-up rock manager who discovers a talented young singer (newcomer Leem Lubany) while stranded in Afghanistan in Barry Levinson’s Rock the Kasbah. Bruce Willis, Kate Hudson, Zooey Deschanel, Danny McBride and Scott Caan co-star. (Open Road Films; Oct. 23)

Director Sarah Gavron (Brick Lane) and screenwriter Abi Morgan (The Iron Lady) bring Britain’s turn-of-the-century feminist movement to the big screen in Suffragette, starring Carey Mulligan as a young wife and mother-turned-revolutionary. Helena Bonham Carter, Meryl Streep, Ben Whishaw and Brendan Gleeson co-star. (Focus Features; Oct. 23)

Sandra Bullock and Billy Bob Thornton star in Our Brand is Crisis, David Gordon Green’s narrative adaptation of Rachel Boynton’s 2005 documentary about American political consultants hired to work on the 2002 Bolivian presidential election. (Warner Bros.; Oct. 30)

Three scouts (think “Boy Scouts,” but the not-copyrighted variety) put their “Be prepared” motto (again, copyright) to the test when they team up with a cocktail waitress to survive the zombie apocalypse in the horror comedy Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse. (Paramount; Oct. 30)

Also in October

Director Hao Hsiao-Hsien was named Best Director at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival for The Assassin, a martial-arts drama set in ninth century China. Qi Shu of the blockbuster Journey to the West plays Yinniang, an assassin-in-training tasked with taking out a local lord (Chen Chang) whom she just so happens to have been betrothed to as a child. (Well Go USA; Oct. 16)

“True Detective”’s Cary Fukunaga (Jane Eyre) returns to the world of film with Beasts of No Nation, about an African child soldier (newcomer Abraham Attah) forced to fight in a civil war under a brutal commanding officer (Idris Elba). (Bleecker Street Media; Oct. 16)

Ali Larter is a single mother who moves into a haunted house with her two adorable children—not intentionally, geez—in first-time director Alistair Legrand’s The Diabolical. (Preferred Content; Oct. 16)

Cinematographer Reed Morano (Frozen River, Kill Your Darlings) makes her directorial debut with Meadowland, about a young couple (Olivia Wilde and Luke Wilson) who suffer the psychological aftermath of their young son being kidnapped a year prior. (Cinedigm; Oct. 16)

Writer/director/actor Robert Fontaine plays a Hispanic-America detective investigating the disappearances of five migrant workers in the immigration drama Mi America. (Independent; Oct. 16)

Enigmatic thief Alex (Olga Kurylenko) gets on the bad side of a master assassin (James Purefoy) in Stephen S. Campanelli’s action thriller Momentum. (GoDigital; Oct. 16)

Debbie Reynolds, Clint Eastwood, John Waters, Geroge Takei and the man himself sat down with documentarian Jeffrey Schwarz (I Am Divine) for Tab Hunter Confidential, about the matinee idol who stayed closeted for decades. (The Film Collaborative; Oct. 16)

Rudy himself returns to the football field in the faith-based drama Woodlawn, about a high-school football coach (Sean Astin) in 1970s Alabama whose team is forced to get with the times by the arrival of a black player (Caleb Castille). (Independent; Oct. 16)

Attack on Titan: End of the World, the second film in a trilogy based on Japanese manga series Attack on Titan, picks up where the series’ first movie left off: with a group of dystopia-dwelling young adults fighting off people-eating giants, called Titans, that dwell outside the walls of humanity’s sole remaining city. (FUNimation Entertainment; Oct. 20)

Great Scott! Michael J. Fox, Lea Thompson, Robert Zemeckis, Christopher Lloyd and more go back to Hill Valley—metaphorically, that is—for Jason Aron’s Back in Time, a documentary about the making and cultural impact of Back to the Future. (Independent; Oct. 21)

Ready the Kleenex: Experimental artist and musician Laurie Anderson returns to the feature doc world after nearly 30 years with Heart of a Dog, a filmic tribute to her late dog Lolabelle. (Abramorama; Oct. 21)

Kurt Russell plays a sheriff who must rescue a group of settlers from cave-dwelling cannibals (ooh, fun) in first-time director S. Craig Zahler’s horror western Bone Tomahawk. (RLJ Entertainment; Oct. 23)

Angelina Jolie counts herself among the executive producers of Zeresenay Mehari’s Difret, about a young girl sentenced to death for (literally) fighting back against her village’s tradition of kidnapping girls for marriage. (Amplify Releasing; Oct. 23)

Roger Corman, Guillermo del Toro, Julian Sands and the late Christopher Lee and Bela Lugosi lend their pipes to Extraordinary Tales, an animated anthology of five Edgar Allan Poe stories. (Gkids; Oct. 23)

Comedian Sarah Silverman goes serious in I Smile Back, about a wife and mother whose drug use and extramarital affairs threaten to tear her family apart. (Broad Green Pictures; Oct. 23)

Thirteen-year-old Julie (newcomer Grace Tarnow) attempts to reconnect with her grandmother (Dorothy Tristan, who also wrote the film) following the death of the young girl’s mother in John D. Hancock’s The Looking Glass. (First Run Features; Oct. 23)

Kristen Wiig, Sebastián Silva (who also directs) and Tunde Adebimpe play an unconventional New York trio whose attempts to have a baby are complicated by the presence of a neighbor from hell in the dark comedy/drama Nasty Baby. (The Orchard; Oct. 23)

Chilean documentarian Patricio Guzmán documents the plight of the indigenous population of Chilean Patagonia in The Pearl Button, his first film since 2010’s Nostalgia for the Light. (Kino Lorber; Oct. 23)

Director Shion Sono (Suicide Club) creates an alternate version of Japan where warring street gangs vie for dominance in the rap musical Tokyo Tribe. (XLrator Media; Oct. 23)

Documentary producer Abigail Disney (The Invisible War, The Queen of Versailles) makes her directorial debut with The Armor of Light, about an evangelical minister who breaks with conservative politics when he begins to question whether one can be both pro-life and pro-gun. (Independent; Oct. 30)

A middle-class wife and mother’s life starts to fall apart when her husband loses his job in Marco Dutra and Juliana Rojas’ Brazilian drama Hard Labor. (Cinema Slate; Oct. 30)

An oddball family’s seclusion from the world is threatened by the arrival of a reality-TV show crew in writer-director Alice Rohrwacher’s Italian-language drama The Wonders, which won the Grand Jury Prize at Cannes in 2014. (Oscilloscope Laboratories; Oct. 30)

Naomi Klein’s 2004 climate change book This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs the Climate gets a film adaptation courtesy of director Avi Lewis and a slew of high-wattage executive producers, among them Alfonso Cuarón, Shepard Fairey, Danny Glover and Seth MacFarlane. (Independent; October TBA)

November Highlights

Saoirse Ronan is a young Irish immigrant in 1950s New York in John Crowley’s Brooklyn, based on the novel by Colm Tóibín and adapted for the screen by Nick Hornby. Emory Cohen and Domhnall Gleeson play the two men whom Ronan’s Eilis must choose between. (Fox Searchlight; Nov. 6)

Two lifelong best friends (Drew Barrymore and Toni Collette) go down very different paths when one of them starts a family and the other is diagnosed with cancer in Catherine Hardwicke’s buddy comedy/drama Miss You Already. (Lionsgate; Nov. 6)

Horton Hears a Who!’s Steve Martino gets his hand on another iconic children’s property with The Peanuts Movie, a 3D animated take on Charles M. Schultz’s classic cartoon. This is the first big-screen outing for Charlie Brown, Lucy, Linus and the gang in 35 years. (20th Century Fox; Nov. 6)

Sam Mendes follows up his massively successful James Bond film Skyfall with Spectre, which sees the British superspy (Daniel Craig) face off against a mysterious organization led by crime kingpin Franz Oberhauser (Christoph Waltz). Monica Bellucci and Léa Seydoux take their turn as Bond Girls, while Ralph Fiennes, Ben Whishaw and Naomie Harris reprise their supporting roles from the last film. (Columbia Pictures; Nov. 6)

Tom McCarthy (The Visitor, The Station Agent) assembles a prestigious cast—Rachel McAdams, Michael Keaton, Mark Ruffalo, Liev Schreiber and more—for Spotlight, about the Boston Globe investigation that uncovered a conspiracy to hide a pattern of child molestation within the local Catholic Church. (Open Road Films; Nov. 6)

Bryan Cranston plays blacklisted Hollywood Ten leader Dalton Trumbo in Jay Roach’s Trumbo, which boasts a cast that includes Helen Mirren (as gossip columnist Hedda Hopper), Michael Stuhlbarg (as Edward G. Robinson), John Goodman (as B-movie producer Frank King), Dean O’Gorman (as Kirk Douglas) and Christian Berkel (as Otto Preminger). It’ll be a good one for film-history enthusiasts. (Bleecker Street Media; Nov. 6)

Angelina Jolie directed, wrote and co-stars in By the Sea, about a married couple (Jolie and her real-life husband, Brad Pitt) who try to mend their fractured relationship with a weekend in a French seaside village. (Universal; Nov. 13)

Diane Keaton is a matriarch intent on giving her family—which includes her husband (John Goodman), sister (Marisa Tomei) and children (Olivia Wilde and Ed Helms)—one perfect Christmas in I Am Sam director Jessie Nelson’s Love the Coopers. (CBS Films-Lionsgate; Nov. 13)

A decade after The Ring sequel The Ring Two hit theatres, the famous horror series about a killer videotape finally becomes a trilogy with F. Javier Gutiérrez’s Rings. Matilda Lutz, Alex Roe, Aimee Teagarden and Johnny Galecki star in the film, which takes place 13 years after audiences were first introduced to the deadly Samara. (Paramount; Nov. 13)

The famous 2010 Copiapó mining accident, which saw 33 miners trapped in a Chilean gold and copper mine for 69 days, gets its inevitable film adaptation in the form of The 33. Antonio Banderas stars as the leader of the miners, with Rodrigo Santoro as the government official in charge of rescue operations. (Warner Bros.; Nov. 13)

Far from Heaven’s Todd Haynes returns to the 1950s for Carol, about a shop clerk (Rooney Mara) who falls for an older, sophisticated (oh, and married) woman (Cate Blanchett). The film, which co-stars Sarah Paulson and Kyle Chandler, is based on Patricia Highsmith’s 1952 lesbian romance novel The Price of Salt. (The Weinstein Company; Nov. 20)

Jennifer Lawrence suits up as Katniss Everdeen one last time in The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2, the fourth and final movie in Lionsgate’s $2 billion-plus young-adult dystopian franchise. At least unless they decide to split this movie into two at the last minute. (Lionsgate; Nov. 20)

Julia Roberts, Nicole Kidman and Chiwetel Ejiofor star in Secret in Their Eyes, writer-director Billy Ray’s adaptation of the Oscar-winning Argentinean film about a retired investigator (Ejiofor) who returns to an unsolved case from early in his career. (STX Entertainment; Nov. 20)

Fruitvale Station’s Ryan Coogler reunites with Michael B. Jordan for Creed, a Rocky sequel/spinoff starring Jordan as the son of Rocky Balboa’s rival and friend Apollo Creed. Sly Stallone returns to the franchise, with Rocky strapping on the boxing gloves so he can train his new protégé. (Warner Bros.-MGM; Nov. 25)

Pixar hopes to have their second success this year with The Good Dinosaur, which sees Inside Out’s anthropomorphized emotions switched out for a young dinosaur and his dog-like caveboy companion. (Walt Disney-Pixar; Nov. 25)

Seth Rogen, Anthony Mackie and Joseph Gordon-Levitt are childhood friends with a tradition of R-rated Christmas Eve revelry in The Night Before, from 50/50 and Warm Bodies’ Jonathan Levine. (Columbia Pictures; Nov. 25)

“Sherlock’’s Paul McGuigan directs an action-heavy version of the story of Victor Frankenstein, with James McAvoy as the archetypal mad scientist and Daniel Radcliffe as his more-verbose-than-usual assistant, Igor. Presumably the latter develops a hunchback by the time the credits roll. (20th Century Fox; Nov. 25)

Eddie Redmayne stars as real-life transgender artist Lili Elbe—born Einar Wegener in 19th-century Denmark—in The Danish Girl, Tom Hooper’s follow-up to his Oscar-winning Les Misérables. Alicia Vikander co-stars as Lili’s wife Gerda, with Amber Heard, Ben Whishaw and Matthias Schoenaerts rounding out the cast. (Focus Features; Nov. 27)

British actor Tom Hiddleston taps into his inner Southerner in Marc Abraham’s I Saw the Light, in which he plays country-music pioneer Hank Williams, who died at the age of 29 following years of drug and alcohol abuse. Elizabeth Olsen co-stars as Williams’ wife Audrey. (Sony Pictures Classics; Nov. 27)

Also in November

Frederick Wiseman turns his lens on one New York’s most culturally diverse neighborhoods with In Jackson Heights, the 40th film from the legendary documentarian. (Zipporah Films; Nov. 4)

“Pretty Little Liars”’ Ian Harding stars with Carol Kane and Harry Potter’s Evanna Lynch in Addiction: A 60’s Love Story, about a heroin addict (Harding) working in the illegal pornography industry. (Breaking Glass Pictures; Nov. 6)

A young family moves from bustling London to a remote Irish forest and finds that, whoops, the forest is haunted in Corin Hardy’s The Hallow. (IFC Midnight; Nov. 6)

Ulrich Seidl’s appropriately titled In the Basement is a documentary examination of what a diverse group of subjects—secret sadists, taxidermy enthusiasts and more—keep in their basements. (Strand Releasing; Nov. 6)

Josh Duhamel plays a small-time crook who takes on a teenage accomplice (Josh Wiggins) after the death of the latter’s mother in writer-director Trey Nelson’s crime drama Lost in the Sun. (Independent; Nov. 6)

An explicit French sexual melodrama…shot in 3D. Yeah, you could have guessed Love is a Gaspar Noé (Enter the Void, Irreversible) film. (Alchemy; Nov. 6)

Tween TV faves Victoria Justice and Avan Jogia (Nickelodeon’s “Victorious”) and Eden Sher (“The Middle”) star in high-school comedy The Outskirts, about a pair of geeks who unite their school’s outcasts in a war of vengeance against the popular crowd. (Clarius Entertainment; Nov. 6)

Sports doc Palio turns director Cosima Spender’s lens on the world’s oldest horse race, which brings not only athleticism but also corruption, bribery and scandal to the Italian city of Siena every year. (Picturehouse; Nov. 6)

A young Bedouin boy (Jacir Eid Al-Hwietat) fights to survive in World War I-era Hijaz (now a part of Saudi Arabia) following the death of his father in Naji Abu Nowar’s Theeb, which received wide critical acclaim when it debuted at the Venice Film Festival last year. (Film Movement; Nov. 6)

Human-rights lawyer Philippe Sands confronts the sons of two high-level Nazi officials—one who entirely repudiates his father, another who desperately attempts to reconcile his father’s evil deeds with the caring man he knew as a child—in David Evans’ What Our Fathers Did: A Nazi Legacy. (Oscilloscope Laboratories; Nov. 6)

Duel gets a 21st-century update with Wrecker, about two girls en route to a music festival who find themselves stalked by a mysterious truck driver. (XLrator Media; Nov. 6)

A young couple lives in a Manhattan tenement whose drug-addicted degenerates get infected with a zombie-esque virus in the horror thriller Condemned. (RLJ Entertainment; Nov. 13)

Gregg Turkington plays a struggling comedian who’s gotten older but no more successful over the years in Rick Alverson’s Entertainment, which the director and star co-wrote with cult comic Tim Heidecker of the duo Tim and Eric. (Magnolia; Nov. 13)

Alicia Vikander narrates director Stig Björkman’s Ingrid Bergman – In Her Own Words, which uses home movies, correspondence and diaries to shed light on one of film history’s most enduring icons. (Rialto Pictures; Nov. 13)

Christopher Abbott (“Girls”) and Cynthia Nixon star in New York-set coming-of-age drama James White, the feature directorial debut of Martha Marcy May Marlene producer Josh Mond. (The Film Arcade; Nov. 13)

Jennifer Connelly and Anthony Mackie play a homeless couple living on the streets of New York in Shelter, the directorial debut of actor Paul Bettany. (Screen Media Films; Nov. 13)

Directors Gabriel Clarke and John McKenna used original interviews, newly discovered footage and Steve McQueen’s private footage to create Steve McQueen: The Man & Le Mans, which tells the story of the late actor’s ill-fated passion project Le Mans. (FilmRise; Nov. 13)

Two political rivals must work together to establish Zimbabwe’s first constitution in Camilla Nielsson’s Democrats, which won the Best Documentary Feature award at this year’s Tribeca Film Festival. (Independent; Nov. 18)

In Censored Voices, director Mor Loushy reveals in full for the first time interviews with Israeli soldiers conducted immediately after 1967’s “Six-Day War,” which saw Israel conquer the Gaza Strip, the Sinai Peninsula and the West Bank. (Music Box Films; Nov. 20)

Actor Jackie Earle Haley makes his directorial debut with Criminal Activities, about a group of friends who invest in a “sure thing” stock tip that ends up getting them in hot water with the Mob. Haley, John Travolta, Dan Stevens and Michael Pitt star. (RLJ Entertainment; Nov. 20)

The actions of five free-spirited sisters inadvertently set off a scandal in their small Turkish village in Deniz Gamze Ergüven’s Mustang, which debuted to critical acclaim at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival. (Cohen Media Group; Nov. 20)

The title Very Semi-Serious: A Partially Thorough Portrait of New Yorker Cartoonists says it all. Documentarian Leah Wolchok, making her directorial debut, follows New Yorker cartoon editor Bob Mankoff through the process of curating the magazine’s famous editorial cartoon selection. (HBO Documentary Films; Nov. 20)

Fellipe Barbosa directed and co-wrote Casa Grande, a semi-autobiographical Brazilian drama about an upper-class teen whose family spirals ever further into debt. (Cinema Slate; November TBA)

December Highlights

A little bit Christmas and a little bit Halloween, Michael Dougherty’s Krampus brings to life a creature from Germanic folklore said to be the demonic counterpart to Santa Claus; while Saint Nick rewards nice children, Krampus punishes the naughty ones. Adam Scott, Toni Collette and Allison Tolman (TV’s “Fargo”) co-star. (Universal; Dec. 4)

Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard play Shakespeare’s murderous monarchs in Australian director Justin Kurzel’s version of the Scottish play…OK, fine, we can say “Macbeth” in print. Sean Harris, Paddy Considine, Jack Reynor and David Thewlis as poor king Duncan (spoiler alert?) round out the cast. (The Weinstein Company; Dec. 4)

Paolo Sorrentino follows up his Oscar-winning Italian film The Great Beauty with Youth, his second English-language feature. Michael Caine and Harvey Keitel star as two old friends trying to recapture some of their own youth while on vacation in the Swiss Alps. (Fox Searchlight; Dec. 4)

It’s man vs. beast vs. nature in Ron Howard’s In the Heart of the Sea, based on the true story that inspired Moby-Dick. Chris Hemsworth stars as first officer of the whaling ship Essex, which in 1820 was attacked by one seriously angry whale. (Warner Bros.; Dec.11)

Tina Fey and Amy Poehler star in Jason Moore’s Sisters, about two siblings who decide to throw a raver in their childhood home before their parents sell it. “Saturday Night Live”’s Maya Rudolph and Kate McKinnon co-star, as do James Brolin, Dianne Wiest, John Leguizamo and up-and-coming comedic actor (oh, and wrestler) John Cena. (Universal; Dec. 18)

Director J.J. Abrams takes audiences back to a galaxy far far away in Star Wars: Episode VII–The Force Awakens, the first Star Wars film since Disney bought Lucasfilm back in 2012. Franchise newcomers John Boyega, Daisy Ridley, Oscar Isaac and Adam Driver join returning vets Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher. (Walt Disney; Dec. 18)

Squeaky-voiced rodents Alvin, Simon and Theodore are back and causing mischief yet again—this time while en route to New York—in Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip, Fox’s fourth Chipmunk film. Jason Lee returns as their owner?… handler?… adoptive father?… Dave. (20th Century Fox; Dec. 23)

Will Smith stars in the fact-based sports drama Concussion, about a neuropathologist (Smith) who discovers the phenomenon of lifelong brain trauma (Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, or CTE) in two football players.Kill the Messenger scribe Peter Landesman wrote and directed the project, with Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Alec Baldwin co-starring. (Columbia Pictures; Dec. 25)

Will Ferrell plays a man competing for the affection of his stepkids against their real father—a much-cooler-than-him Mark Wahlberg—in Daddy’s Home, the latest from the comedy duo of Sean Anders and John Morris (Horrible Bosses 2). (Paramount; Dec. 25)

Quentin Taratino reunites with Samuel L. Jackson, Walton Goggins, Kurt Russell, Tim Roth, Michael Madsen and Bruce Dern—plus new collaborators Jennifer Jason Leigh, Channing Tatum and Demian Bichir—for the blood-drenched western The Hateful Eight, about a bounty hunter (Russell) who gets trapped in a blizzard while escorting a fugitive (Leigh) to the hangman’s noose. (The Weinstein Company; Dec. 25)

David O. Russell reunites with his Silver Linings Playbook crew of Jennifer Lawrence, Bradley Cooper and Robert De Niro—Silver’s Jackie Weaver is absent, with Russell newbie Édgar Ramírez in the mix instead—for Joy, about the housewife and entrepreneur (Lawrence) who invented the Miracle Mop. (20th Century Fox; Dec. 25)

The Fast and the Furiouscinematographer Ericson Core helms a 21st-century remake of ’80s actioner Point Break, which swaps out Patrick Swayze for Édgar Ramírez (who, between this and Joy, has two very different movies coming out on Christmas), Keanu Reeves for Luke Bracey, and a crew of bank-robbing surfers with extreme sports scofflaws. (Warner Bros.; Dec. 25)

Alejandro González Iñárritu follows up his Oscar-winning Birdman with The Revenant, a western about a frontiersman (Leonardo DiCaprio) who goes on a quest for vengeance against his former comrades after they leave him for dead following a bear attack. Tom Hardy, Will Poulter and Domhnall Gleeson co-star. (20th Century Fox; Dec. 25)

Joseph Gordon-Levitt stars in Oliver Stone’s Snowden, about the National Security Agency contractor who famously leaked information on government surveillance tactics in 2013. It’s a busy season for Gordon-Levitt, who also stars in October’s The Walk and November’s The Night Before. (Open Road Films; Dec. 25)

Also in December

Cinephiles will get a treat in early December with the release of Hitchcock/Truffaut, the latest from film documentarian Kent Jones (A Letter to Elia, Val Lewton: The Man in the Shadows). Directors Martin Scorsese, David Fincher, David Linklater, Olivier Assayas and more lend their voices to the film, which provides a cinematic counterpart to François Truffaut’s 1967 film-book bible of the same name. (Cohen Media Group; Dec. 2)

“This film is not an adaptation of the book Arabian Nights despite drawing on its structure,” warns the trailer for Miguel Gomes’ Arabian Nights trilogy, which uses a Scheherazade-esque figure to tell a series of stories about contemporary Portugal. Volume 1–The Restless One comes out on Dec. 4, with Volume 2–The Desolate One following on Dec. 11and Volume 3–The Enchanted One on Dec. 18. (Kino Lorber)

Patricia Arquette and her “Boardwalk Empire” compatriot Vincent Piazza play an aspiring criminal couple in ’90s New York City who get it into their heads to rob Mafia hangouts in Nick Sandow’s The Wannabe. (Entertainment One; Dec. 4)

Cliff Curtis (Whale Rider, “Fear the Walking Dead”) and James Rolleston (Boy) star in James Napier Robertson’s The Dark Horse, a New Zealand drama about a washed-up former chess champ (Curtis) who tries to put his life back on track by teaching local youth the game of kings. (Broad Green Pictures; Dec. 11)

Tilda Swinton narrates Dreams Rewired, a documentary about the evolution of communication that draws upon clips from nearly 200 films made between the 1880s and the 1930s. (Icarus Films; Dec. 16)

Rock icon Henry Rollins plays a misanthropic social outcast who must rescue his long-lost daughter from crime lords in writer-director Jason Krawczyk’s He Never Died. (Vertical Entertainment; Dec. 18)

László Nemes makes his feature directorial debut with Holocaust drama Son of Saul, about an Auschwitz prisoner (Géza Röhrig) tasked with burning the bodies of his fellow Jews. The film has been selected as Hungary’s entry for the 2016 Oscars. (Sony Pictures Classics; Dec. 18)

Brazilian documentarian Eryk Rocha examines his native country’s tradition of street soccer in Sunday Ball. (Cinema Slate; December TBA)

A trio of strangers—a former soldier, a young woman and a girl—pose as a family in order to escape war-torn Sri Lanka to live as refugees in France in Jacques Audiard’s Dheepan. (Sundance Selects; TBA)

Geraldine Chaplin plays a well-to-do tourist who gets involved in a relationship with a younger woman (Yanet Mojica) while on vacation in the Dominican Republic in Israel Cárdenas and Laura Amelia Guzmán’s Sand Dollars. (Breaking Glass Pictures; TBA)

Various gunslingers and scofflaws converge on the town of Religion, Arizona for a poker tournament in writer-director James O’Brien’s Western Religion. (Independent; TBA)

Release dates are subject to change.

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