Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (Photo: Disney)
Approximately three dozen movies are expected to open locally between the start of November and the start of 2020. While dates are subject to change (especially for those Oscar-bait titles initially debuting in limited release), here are the films that will be filling theaters over the course of the next two months.
NOVEMBER 1: Tony Award winner Cynthia Erivo (The Color Purple) stars as American heroine Harriet Tubman in the biopic Harriet … A former mob assassin (Robert De Niro) reflects on his past exploits, including his friendship with Jimmy Hoffa (Al Pacino), in Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman … A detective (Edward Norton) with Tourette’s Syndrome seeks to solve the murder of his mentor (Bruce Willis) in Motherless Brooklyn … Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton) and a T-800 (Arnold Schwarzenegger) must eliminate a new strain of Terminator (Gabriel Luna) before he can negatively alter the future in Terminator: Dark Fate.
NOVEMBER 8: Based on the Stephen King novel, Doctor Sleep finds The Shining’s now-adult Danny Torrance (Ewan McGregor) teaming up with a gifted teenager (Kyliegh Curran) to fend off a diabolic group that seeks to usurp their supernatural powers … Powered by the music of George Michael, Last Christmas centers on a female Scrooge (Emilia Clarke) who thaws after she meets a charming suitor (Henry Golding) … A key battle from World War II is retold under the eye of director Roland Emmerich (Independence Day) in Midway, starring Woody Harrelson and Aaron Eckhart … A bunch of cute kids make life difficult for a seasoned firefighter (John Cena) and his team in the family film Playing with Fire.
NOVEMBER 15: The latest reboot of Charlie’s Angels finds Elizabeth Banks serving as writer, director, and female Bosley to the trio of kick-ass operatives played by Kristen Stewart, Naomi Scott and Ella Balinska … A designer (Matt Damon) and a driver (Christian Bale) team up to build a revolutionary new car during the 1960s in Ford v Ferrari … A wealthy widow (Helen Mirren) falls for a similarly lonely senior (Ian McKellen), little realizing that he’s a con artist, in the thriller The Good Liar … With the support of Senator Dianne Feinstein (Annette Bening), investigator Daniel Jones (Adam Driver) tries to expose the inadequacies and falsehoods surrounding the CIA’s post-9/11 torture program in The Report.
NOVEMBER 22: On the heels of last year’s beloved Mr. Rogers documentary Won’t You Be My Neighbor? comes the dramatized A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, starring Tom Hanks as the soft-spoken children’s TV host … A lawyer (Mark Ruffalo) takes on DuPont in the based-on-fact drama Dark Waters, co-starring Anne Hathaway and Tim Robbins … Elsa seeks to uncover the truth about her mysterious powers in the animated sequel Frozen II … An NYPD detective (Chadwick Boseman) takes part in a citywide search for a pair of cop killers in 21 Bridges.
NOVEMBER 27: An all-star cast (Chris Evans, Jamie Lee Curtis and Michael Shannon, among others) powers Knives Out, a murder-mystery in which a detective (Daniel Craig) seeks to uncover who killed a crime novelist (Christopher Plummer) … After fatally shooting a racist cop in self-defense, a black couple (Daniel Kaluuya and Jodie Turner-Smith) on their first date find themselves transformed into modern-day outlaws in Queen & Slim.
DECEMBER 6: The Theory of Everything co-stars Felicity Jones and Eddie Redmayne reunite for The Aeronauts, in which two individuals attempt to make scientific breakthroughs while traveling in a hot-air balloon … A woman (Marianne Jean-Baptiste) discovers that her newly acquired dress harbors evil forces in the comic horror opus In Fabric.
DECEMBER 13: Several sorority sisters are stalked by a murderous maniac in Black Christmas, a remake of the highly regarded 1974 chiller … Writer-director Terrence Malick is behind A Hidden Life, a based-on-fact drama about an Austrian peasant (August Diehl) who refused to fight for the Nazis and subsequently faced execution … The avatars from 2017’s Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (played by Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart, Karen Gillan and Jack Black) return to the game’s terrain for more adventures in Jumanji: The Next Level … Directed by Clint Eastwood, Richard Jewell centers on the security guard (Paul Walter Hauser) who saved scores of lives during a bomb attack at the 1996 Olympics.
DECEMBER 20: Bombshell examines the story behind the women (portrayed by Charlize Theron, Nicole Kidman and Margot Robbie) who took on the heinous Fox News guru Roger Ailes (John Lithgow) … The stage smash Cats finally gets transformed into a major motion picture, with Tom Hooper (Les Misérables) directing a cast that includes James Corden, Judi Dench, Idris Elba and Taylor Swift … Rey (Daisy Ridley) squares off against Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) while her Resistance compatriots rally to take down the First Order in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker … An extraordinary AI seeking to take over the world must first contend with an ordinary woman (Melissa McCarthy) in the comedy Superintelligence.
DECEMBER 25: Just Mercy centers on real-life defense attorney Bryan Stevenson (Michael B. Jordan) and his tireless efforts to free a man (Jamie Foxx) wrongly convicted of murder … The latest screen version of Louis May Alcott’s Little Women finds writer-director Greta Gerwig reuniting with her Ladybird stars Saoirse Ronan (here playing Jo March) and Timothy Chalamet and surrounding them with Emma Watson, Florence Pugh and Eliza Scanlen as the other March sisters and Meryl Streep as Aunt March … Two British soldiers (George MacKay and Dean-Charles Chapman) must deliver an important message across enemy lines in the World War I epic 1917 … In the animated yarn Spies in Disguise, a debonair secret agent (voiced by Will Smith) and a nerdy technician (Tom Holland) must join forces to stop a deadly threat … A New York jeweler (Adam Sandler) flirts with danger in an effort to improve his lot in life in the drama Uncut Gems.
FILM FRENZY 