The holidays are just around the corner which means good cheer, family time and some of the very best movies of the year. Here are five of the best:
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
Opens: December 14th
The first in the three-part prequel to the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy, this movie is almost guaranteed to please fans given its been put together by the exact same team that produced the first set of films. And because the world of Middle Earth is still full of elves, orcs, wizards, hobbits and the occasional Golum.
Producer and director Peter Jackson and his crew haven’t rested on their laurels, however; instead they’ve upped their technical game as well as their story-telling skills.
Turning the children’s book “The Hobbit,” into three, three-hour movies forced the crew to dig deep into character’s backstory while Jackson himself has been on a personal techie crusade by shooting the film in HFR, or High Frame Rate.
The new format, which means the movie was shot at 48 frames a second, as opposed to the traditional 24, lends the film an ultra-realistic look that even surpasses the award-winning visuals of the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy.
Zero Dark Thirty
Opens: December 19th (Limited release), January 11th (Wide release)
This movie from “Hurt Locker” director Kathryn Bigelow tells the story of the hunt for Osama bin Laden following 9/11 and his death at the hands of the Navy’s legendary SEAL Team 6.
With unprecedented access to CIA officers, Bigelow’s co-producer on “Locker” Mark Boal used his journalism chops to craft a procedural epic that is perfect for Oscar season.
The story follows an obsessed CIA officer (Jessica Chastain) over the 10 years it took the intelligence agency to track down the famed terrorist mastermind.
Already creating a swirl of controversy because of it’s portrayal of the waterboarding, “Zero Dark Thirty” will be a talker for years to come.
Jack Reacher
Opens: December 21st
When your in-laws are driving you up the walls and you need an action film-fueled endorphin release, then this is the movie for you.
Tom Cruise stars as the titular character, a former army investigator who heads to an innocent heartland city after five people are shot dead by an expert sniper.
“You think I’m a hero? I’m not a hero,” Cruise hisses to a baddy in the movie’s trailer, setting the dark tone of this Dirty Harry-meets-Jason Bourne blockbuster.
With “Mission: Impossible 5” still years off, this is your best chance to see Cruise at his butt-kicking best.
Django Unchained
Opens: December 25th
Quentin Tarantino. Leonardo DiCaprio. Jamie Foxx. And Christoph Waltz. What else do you really need to know?
“Django,” played by Foxx, is a freed slave-turned-bounty hunter who hunts down a vicious plantation owner with the help of his liberator and mentor (Waltz).
Filled with a mixture of Japanese manga-style gore, dark comedy and over-the-top style that has become Tarantino’s calling card, “Django” falls firmly in line with Tarantino’s revenge-film box office smashes “Inglorious Basterds,” “Kill Bill: Vol 1.” and “Kill Bill: Vol. 2.”
The only difference is that the Nazi’s and trained assassins have been replaced by slave owning Southerners.
Les Misérables
Opens: December 25th
The worldwide hit musical comes to the big screen for the umpteenth time, but this iteration with director Tom Hooper (“The King’s Speech”) has gone above and beyond previous movie musicals by having the actors sing live on-camera instead of lip-syncing to prerecorded tracks.
Combined with visually stunning sets and A-list actors — like Russell Crowe, Hugh Jackman and Anne Hathaway — the experience adds up to the ultimate in Broadway-at-cineplex prices.
For those unfamiliar with the story, this is not a musical for the kiddies seeing as rape is pivotal while many characters die grisly, bullet-ridden deaths.