Now we’re cooking. Finally, the fruits of the international film festival circuit are being delivered all over the place, just in time for awards season, formerly known as “winter.”
Now is the time we learn if the rapturous reception for Bennett Miller’s unblinking true-crime drama “Foxcatcher,” for example, first heard at Cannes and continuing at Telluride and Toronto, will translate to sizable audiences and multiple Academy Award nominations.
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November and December feel like 12 months, not two. So many titles of preordained or hoped-for prestige compete for your time and attention in the same, few short weeks. Stephen Hawking gets his biopic (a good one), “The Theory of Everything.” Master code-breaker Alan Turing gets his biopic (a good one), “The Imitation Game,” which won the big audience award in Toronto in September, the one nabbed in recent years by “Slumdog Millionaire” and “12 Years a Slave.”
Biopics have run the show for a while now. English painter J.M.W. Turner, played by Timothy Spall, is the grumbling, rumbling, weirdly compelling subject of the new Mike Leigh film (a good one), “Mr. Turner.” And if you don’t like biopics, there’s a new “Hunger Games” movie coming out. Also a new version of the musical “Annie.” Also the film version of the Stephen Sondheim/James Lapine fairy tale mashup “Into the Woods.”
Here are 10 to whet your appetite, which I realize is insatiable. But what can I do, I’m only one critic. Release dates subject to change.
“Interstellar,” Nov. 5. Christopher Nolan goes way, way out with this science fiction adventure starring Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway and Jessica Chastain. Early reports are strong; some say the spectacle outweighs the drama, which of course has never, ever happened before in the history of the medium. Let’s hope the man behind “Inception” can bend our perceptions in a new way.
“The Theory of Everything,” Nov. 14. Young Stephen Hawking in love, starring Eddie Redmayne in a career breakthrough, co-starring Felicity Jones as Jane Hawking. The director James Marsh did wonders in the documentary form with “Man on Wire”; here, his mixture of swoony romanticism and dramatic tact serves the subjects very well.
“Foxcatcher,” Nov. 21. Channing Tatum and Mark Ruffalo play the real-life Olympic wrestlers Mark and Dave Schultz; Steve Carell slips behind a spookily opaque mask of privilege as John du Pont, whose millions couldn’t buy his story a happy ending. Bennett Miller of “Capote” and “Moneyball” directs.
“Force Majeure,” Nov. 21. A skiing holiday in the French Alps. Family of four: wife, husband, two kids. Lunch on an open-air deck, near the mountain. Avalanche. Potential death. False alarm, but the way the husband reacts in this crucial few seconds becomes the subject, and the force, behind an extremely crafty black comedy from Swedish director Ruben Ostlund.
“The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1,” Nov. 21. One more to come after this one. The first two were quite good, in case you’ve forgotten. Julianne Moore joins the ensemble, but the ringleader remains Jennifer “It’s My Franchise” Lawrence.
“Wild,” Dec. 5. Based on Cheryl Strayed’s memoir about her 1,100-mile hike on the Pacific Crest Trail, the film developed by and starring Reese Witherspoon comes from the director of “Dallas Buyers Club,” Jean-Marc Vallee. Well-liked at Telluride and the Chicago International Film Festival, among other places.
“Top Five,” Dec. 5. Chris Rock is back, co-starring with Rosario Dawson in a comedy about a Chris Rock-like star’s encounter with a journalist. Huge response in Toronto. We could use a really good comedy.
“Inherent Vice,” Dec. 12. The new film from Paul Thomas Anderson (“There Will Be Blood,” “The Master”) imagines sunny Los Angeles as imagined by Thomas Pynchon, a place where (as Brecht said) the brighter the sunshine, the darker the shadows. Joaquin Phoenix, Josh Brolin and Martin Short are among the eccentrics jostling for attention in this acknowledged highlight of the recent New York Film Festival.
“The Imitation Game,” Dec. 12. Benedict Cumberbatch lends an air of restless intelligence and inner turmoil as Alan Turing, the mathematician, logician, cryptanalyst, philosopher, computer scientist, mathematical biologist and Enigma code-breaker. Keira Knightley co-stars.
“Mr. Turner,” Dec. 19. Mike Leigh’s latest is one of his best, an evocative and atmospheric depiction of the painter J.M.W. Turner’s life, times and canvases. Timothy Spall won the best actor prize at Cannes, deservedly.
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