Only during awards season would audiences be expected to go to the multiplex, buy expensive tickets, and watch September 11, 2001, get re-created, even if artfully and obliquely with fluttering papers and pigeons. The occasion is a high-toned adaptation of Jonathan Safran Foer’s 2005 novel—a harrowing read that is also somewhat sentimental. Our guess is that the movie will skew toward the latter: Hanks plays a doting dad lost in the terrorist attacks, while Oscar-approved Bullock does post-podium duty as the weeping widow who assists their nine-year-old son on a quest of rebirth.

Haywire
Michael Douglas, Antonio Banderas, Ewan McGregor, Gina Carano

Here we have yet another spy thriller about a femme agent gone rogue, as well as yet another movie directed by “retiring” Oscar-winner Steven Soderbergh. But it contains one element that separates it from the pack of generic thrillers: newcomer Carano, the spectacularly sexy mixed-martial artist who deserves a robust Hollywood career. It’s one thing to watch Angelina Jolie “kick ass” in an action movie, but when Carano, a real-life MMA star, throws down, your eyes don’t roll so much as go wide. She could probably take Matt Damon, if not Jason Bourne.

War Horse
Emily Watson, David Thewlis, Tom Hiddleston

Expect big things from this kid, Steven Spielberg. Okay, so he’s not such a kid anymore. But if you heard about this project without knowing he was onboard—it’s an adventure about a boy, his horse, and a world at war—you might automatically plug in the young director of E.T. or Empire of the Sun; that’s how perfect a match of material and maker it is. Accordingly, you can expect the trademark Spielbergian schmaltz to be laid on thick and heavy, but, still, don’t bet against this one for Best Picture come February.

Director David Fincher’s been on fire for a while now—the most impressive thing about his sexy trailer for this sure-to-be smash is that it makes you forget just how boring these unaccountably popular novels can be on the page. Fincher’s visual style here seems closer to his grim masterpiece Se7en than last year’s The Social Network, and Mara’s sinewy, leather-clad Lisbeth is convincing. Never mind that a trilogy of movies based on the books has already been made in Sweden; none are worth your time.

Addictions to pornography and having sex with many attractive partners: These wouldn’t be high on our break-the-habit list. But the brilliance of this quietly powerful, emotionally ruinous drama is how it brings you deeper into the loneliness of one man, a guy whose separation from humanity could stand in for any serious malady. His name is Brandon (a tightly coiled Fassbender), and he’s a gainfully employed Manhattanite pursuing his salacious habits during off-hours. Drifting into his smallish Midtown apartment is his fragile sister, Sissy (Carey Mulligan, recently in Drive), a nightclub singer and flake who begins to test Brandon’s patience. Stewarding it all with a rare degree of composure (and some very hot coupling) is England’s Steve McQueen, a visual artist turned director who has made an instantly essential movie about urban life. Seek it out.

The Sitter
Jonah Hill, Sam Rockwell,
Ari Graynor

It’s hard to say if a slimmed down Hill will still be funny—but thankfully, that’s a prospect we won’t have to reckon with for a couple more movies, including this one, which is an homage to the 1980s gem Adventures in Babysitting. But as a raunchy, unqualified child custodian, Hill seems prepared to take this comedy into rare, red-band realms of profanity. Director David Gordon Green may have stumbled with Your Highness, but you have to salute his continued willingness to infuse Hollywood fare with stoner humor and smuttiness.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
Colin Firth, Gary Oldman, John Hurt

John le Carré’s classic 1974 spy novel has lost its commas en route to this big screen adaptation, but rapturous early word suggests the gains are greater. The time is the Cold War: A retired British intelligence man is drafted back into the service to root out a Soviet mole. If you’re expecting trench coats and terse exchanges, you’re not far off, but it helps that the man behind the camera is stylish director Tomas Alfredson (of the supercool Swedish vampire flick Let the Right One In). The cast is first-rate: Firth, Tom Hardy, Hurt, Toby Jones, and—as our hero—Oldman, who’s overdue for his Oscar.

The Descendants
George Clooney, Beau Bridges, Shailene Woodley

You know it’s getting to be awards season when Clooney appears in movies looking tired and beaten down by middle-aged emptiness. (Let’s assume that’s acting.) In his strongly sympathetic latest, Clooney plays Matt, a Honolulu lawyer and father grappling with his wife’s coma caused by a water-skiing accident. Matt was nowhere near his thrillseeking spouse when misfortune struck, and, indeed, as he reconnects with a pair of estranged daughters and faces down his shortcomings as a father, the guy learns about the other man—a crushing blow. From such complex, dicey situations, tough-minded pictures are born, and if The Descendants isn’t quite toprank for its director, Alexander Payne (Election, Sideways), it still charms with subtle grace notes and gentle humor. There’s a gorgeous score of ukulele tunes and local ballads, and you end up caring about this well-off man and his family—you know they’ll be all right, but that doesn’t mean a fierce tropical wind isn’t blowing.

J. Edgar
Leonardo DiCaprio, Naomi Watts, Judi Dench

The FBI’s feared and revered first director, unafraid to play rough with presidents and senators, gets a biographical profile from director Clint Eastwood. Hoover, a buttoned-down yet impulsive and vengeful man, would be a difficult portrayal for any gifted actor; honestly, DiCaprio has us worried, even in the wake of mature work like Inception. But we’re curious about the script, written by Milk screenwriter Dustin Lance Black, which explores Hoover’s closeted sex life. Playing the fed’s “right-hand man” is Armie Hammer, whom you saw twice in The Social Network, as the Winklevoss twins.

Anonymous
Rhys Ifans, Vanessa Redgrave, David Thewlis

Plays, if you remember from high school, are those things that happen onstage before a live audience—and William Shakespeare remains the undisputed king of the form. Or does he? In this Elizabethan thriller sure to ruffle some ivory-tower feathers, the lusty Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford (Ifans)—a scribe in his own right—turns out to be the true author of such future classics as Macbeth and Romeo and Juliet. He also has an incestuous fling with the queen of England. Naturally. The director is Roland Emmerich (2012), who knows all about sound and fury signifying nothing.

The Rum Diary
Johnny Depp, Aaron Eckhart, Amber Heard

Depp used to be an actor before he became a special effect—and a fine one, if memory serves. This alcohol-addled drama, in which Depp revisits his technical chops, should right the record. He plays a cranky journalist who flees Eisenhower-era America for San Juan, Puerto Rico, where he falls in love with the local drink. Also on hand to slake his thirst is one of our favorite up-and-coming actresses, the clothing-averse Heard (Drive Angry 3D, The Informers). Source material comes from an early autobiographical novel by Hunter S. Thompson, whom Depp brilliantly portrayed in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.