Somewhere hidden in the list below is this year’s Oscar-winning best picture and most of the performance nominees. Having survived the all-about-the-box-office summer, the film industry rolls out its prestige products, which includes an armful of biopics ranging from theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking to seascape painter J.M.W. Turner to the Old Testament’s Red Sea parter, Moses.
If you choose the films you see by director, you will have such A-list helmers to select from as David Fincher, Alejandro Gonzalez Iñarrítu, Christopher Nolan, Paul Thomas Anderson and Tim Burton, to name a few.
Gone Girl – Ben Affleck has shown himself to be a better director (Argo) than actor, but still he seems well cast as the suspicious husband whose wife (Rosamund Pike) has gone missing on their anniversary. The always intriguing David Fincher has adapted Gillian Flynn’s best-seller for the screen and handles the directing chores. The film has plenty of Oscar buzz despite its dark story. (Oct. 3)
The Judge – It is a curious fact that Robert Downey Jr. made more money than any other actor in Hollywood last year, largely from the Iron Man character. So he can afford to stretch his acting muscles, playing opposite Robert Duvall as an urban defense attorney who returns to his Southern hometown to the newly widowered father he has long been estranged from. And wouldn’t you know it, Downey gets sucked into defending his dad in a deadly hit-and-run case. (Oct. 10)
Birdman – Whom would you cast as a former box office star who once played a superhero and is now trying to make a comeback on Broadway? Mexican director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu (Babel) went to Michael Keaton, who played a certain caped crusader in the late ’80s, which gives this film a sense of autobiography. Inarritu was able to attract a stellar supporting cast including Edward Norton, Naomi Watts, Emma Stone and Zach Galifianakis. (Oct. 17)
St. Vincent –The perennially reluctant Bill Murray stars as a — what else? —irascible Brooklyn codger who meets his match looking after the 12-year-old son of his next-door neighbor (Melissa McCarthy). This could turn gooey, but we’re betting that Murray finds a way to avoid that trap. The feature writing and directing debut of Theodore Melfi. (Oct. 24)
Interstellar – Christopher Nolan (Inception) directing newly Oscared Matthew McConaughey in a futuristic space epic. What else do you need to know to be interested? McConaughey plays a single dad who leaves his kids behind for a mission beyond our solar system, in search of a new food supply for our starving planet. Anne Hathaway (Nolan’s Catwoman) is along for the ride. (Nov. 7)
The Theory of Everything – Long before the craze to dump ice water on ourselves to raise awareness of ALS, a young British theoretical physicist named Stephen Hawking was afflicted with the disease. Director James Marsh, best known to date for the terrific Man on Wire, brings a documentarian’s authenticity to the life of Hawking (Eddie Redmayne) and his first wife (Felicity Jones). (Nov. 7)
Rosewater – Fans of Jon Stewart have been curious to learn what he was up to when he took a sabbatical from The Daily Show to make a movie. One thing is certain, his feature directing debut is not a comedy. Instead, it is a dark, fact-based, low-budget drama of an Iranian-born reporter (played by Gael Garcia Bernal), arrested, jailed and tortured for over 16 weeks after Iran’s 2009 presidential election. Stewart wrote the screenplay after Maziar Bahari’s appearance on his show was used as evidence of him being loyal to the West. (Nov. 7)
Foxcatcher – Speaking of people usually associated with comedy, there is Oscar talk surrounding the dramatic performance by Daily Show alum Steve Carell as Olympic wrestling coach John du Pont, who trains brothers Channing Tatum and Mark Ruffalo, then is accused of the murder of one of them. Directing is Bennett Miller (Capote), who knows a bit about filming sensationalized murder cases. (Nov. 14)
The Imitation Game –Alan Turing, the man credited with cracking the Nazi’s Enigma code that hastened the end of World War II, gets a biographical film that details both the war years and the subsequent decade when he faced criminal charges for being homosexual. PBS’s Sherlock Holmes, Benedict Cumberbatch, gives another chameleon-like performance as Turing, with Keira Knightley as his trusty sidekick. His Dr. Watson? (Nov. 21)
Wild – Cheryl Strayed’s memoir of self-discovery, about her thousand-mile solo trek throughout the American Northwest, became a passion project for Reese Witherspoon. The pointy-chinned Oscar winner (Walk the Line) optioned the book and developed the film, commissioning a script from novelist Nick Hornby (High Fidelity). Director Jean-Marc Vallee (Dallas Buyers Club) guides her through the grueling, image-changing role, presumably aiming for a similar transformation as he wrought for Matt (Dec. 5)
Exodus: Gods and Kings – Those of you who believe that the role of Moses belongs to the late Charlton Heston may soon have that tenet tested. For here comes that recent caped crusader Christian Bale as the biblical commandments toter in a new epic character study directed by Ridley Scott (Gladiator). It remains to be seen whether this means that Moses has morphed into an action hero. (Dec. 12)
Inherent Vice – Any time Paul Thomas Anderson (Magnolia, There Will Be Blood) makes a film, cinemaphiles are interested. Factor in that he is adapting a novel by the great, weighty and occasionally impenetrable Thomas Pynchon and you have the makings of a major event. Starring is Joaquin Phoenix — didn’t he promise to retire from making movies? — as an L.A. gumshoe on a missing person case that has a personal connection for him, and Josh Brolin as a city cop who takes an instant dislike to him. (Dec. 12)
Mr. Turner – Perpetual supporting player Timothy Spall gets the central role of renowned seascape artist J.M.W. Turner in director Mike Leigh’s 19th-century biography, focusing on the painter’s personal life as well as his efforts to forge a new canvas style that led to impressionism. Spall won acting honors for this role in Cannes and could have an Oscar nomination in his future. (Dec. 19)
Into the Woods – Mainstream audiences, as well as Hollywood, have been slow to embrace the psychologically and lyrically complex stage musicals of the brilliant Stephen Sondheim, but Disney is betting it can change that with its big screen adaptation of the 1987 Tony Award-winning show that interweaves such popular, if grisly fairy tales as Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood and Beanstalk Jack with an original story of a childless baker and his wife. Broadway veteran Rob Marshall (Chicago, Nine) is a pied piper, gathering a cast that includes Meryl Streep, Johnny Depp, Emily Blunt and Anna Kendrick. The question is how much of the show’s dark second half survives the film’s final cut. (Dec. 25)
Big Eyes – How do you make a movie about a renowned kitsch artist without stooping to kitsch as well? That is the challenge faced by director Tim Burton — who loves a good challenge — as he investigates the lives of Walter (Christoph Waltz) and Margaret (Amy Adams) Keane, who churned out those paintings of waifs with large, haunted eyes in the 1960s. Burton found himself intrigued more by the Keanes’ dysfunctional marriage and their battle over the art empire than the art itself. (Dec. 25)