They are the 800-pound gorillas of the movie season. In the industry, they're called "franchises," or "tentpoles" because the whole summer season is built around them.

"Spider-Man 3" was the first this summer. Here are the others:

* "Shrek the Third" (opens today) - The big green ogre (voiced by Mike Myers) is back, this time journeying from Far Far Away in search of a young king - some punk kid named Arthur (Justin Timberlake). Eddie Murphy, Cameron Diaz and Julie Andrews also return to the voice cast.

* "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End" (May 25) - The search for Capt. Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) takes us around the world, picking up Chow Yun-Fat along the way to join cast regulars Keira Knightley, Orlando Bloom and Geoffrey Rush.

* "Ocean's 13" (June 8) - George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon and pals team up for another heist, with Al Pacino as the mark.

* "Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer" (June 15) - Marvel Comics' foursome face an intergalactic peril who's really cool-looking.

* "Live Free or Die Hard" (June 27) - Yippee-kai-yay, Bruce Willis's John McClane is back in business, battling Internet terrorists.

* "Transformers" (July 4) - Michael Bay directs this live-action entry in the toy/cartoon franchise, about a robot war that wreaks havoc on the poor earthlings caught in the middle.

* "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" (July 13) - The boy wizard (Daniel Radcliffe) and his friends gear up for an epic battle with Lord Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes).

* "The Simpsons Movie" (July 27) - America's favorite four-fingered family hits the big screen, raking in the d'oh-re-mi.

* "The Bourne Ultimatum" (Aug. 3) - Matt Damon returns as amnesiac spy Jason Bourne, circling the globe to find his past and outrun his old bosses.

Action/Fantasy

Japanese anime may not get any crazier than in "Paprika." Satoshi Kan ("Tokyo Godfathers") directs this surreal tale about a machine that allows therapists to enter their patients' dreams - and what happens when the machine is stolen, and the only one who can retrieve it is a beautiful female therapist, Paprika (June 29).

Also coming: Luc Besson directs the offbeat comedy-thriller "Angel-A" (July 6). . . . Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker team up again for "Rush Hour 3" (Aug. 10). . . . The video-game-based "D.O.A.: Dead or Alive" (June 22) arrives, after many delays. . . . A man goes to a magical world to retrieve a fallen star in "Stardust" (Aug. 10), based on the Neil Gaiman novel. . . . Colin Firth leads "The Last Legion" (Aug. 24), an action-adventure set at the end of the Roman Empire. . . . Kevin Bacon seeks revenge on the thugs who killed his family in "Death Sentence" (Aug. 31). . . . And fists and knees go flying in the Thai kung-fu spectacular "Dynamite Warrior" (to be determined).

Kids

You've heard that some movie stars can be rats, but in "Ratatouille" it's literally true. The hero of this Pixar adventure is a cuisine-loving rat (voiced by Patton Oswalt) who dreams of being a French chef. Brad Bird ("The Incredibles") directs (June 29).

Also coming: Another group of computer-animated penguins hits the waves in "Surf's Up" (June 8). . . . Emma Roberts, Julia's niece, goes sleuthing in Hollywood as "Nancy Drew" (June 15), an update of the classic character. . . . Another classic crime-fighter, "Underdog" (Aug. 3), returns in a live-action/animation hybrid. . . . In "Daddy Day Camp" (Aug. 8), Cuba Gooding Jr. takes over Eddie Murphy's role as comic babysitter. . . . The cartoon/toy fashion plates of "Bratz" (Aug. 10) get their own movie. . . . Christina Ricci fights a family curse in the fantasy "Penelope" (Aug. 17). . . . And parents groom their son, a piano prodigy, in the Swiss film "Vitus" (to be determined).

Comedy

Can Judd Apatow repeat the magical kettle-corn comedy formula of "The 40-Year-Old Virgin," salty and sweet at the same time? Yes, and then some, with "Knocked Up" - in which a one-night stand between a career woman (Katherine Heigl, from "Grey's Anatomy") and a slacker dude ("Virgin's" Seth Rogen) leads to pregnancy. It's the comedy to beat this summer (June 1).

Laughter with heart: Keri Russell plays a woman who loves making pies but hates her awful husband in "Waitress" (May 25), directed by the late Adrienne Shelly. . . . Steve Carell becomes Noah in "Evan Almighty" (June 22), the very expensive sequel to "Bruce Almighty." . . . John Travolta puts on the big dress for the musical version of John Waters' "Hairspray" (July 20). . . . Kevin James and Adam Sandler play firefighters who marry for the health benefits in "I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry" (July 20).

Teen tales: Brenda Blethyn plays an overbearing comedienne who makes life tough for her shy son in "Introducing the Dwights" (July 20), which had the title "Clubland" when it played Sundance '07. . . . A teen (Anton Yelchin) goes to a new school and becomes a self-appointed psychiatrist in "Charlie Bartlett" (Aug. 3). . . . Two high-schoolers (Jonah Hill and Michael Cera) try to throw a kegger in "Superbad" (Aug. 17). . . . And a stutterer tries to apply himself on the debate team in the Sundance hit "Rocket Science" (to be determined).

Silly stuff: "Saturday Night Live's" Adam Samberg plays a daredevil in "Hot Rod" (Aug. 3). . . . Four guys trek to see "Star Wars, Episode I" at all costs in "Fanboys" (Aug. 17). . . . Inspirational sports movies are spoofed in "The Comebacks" (Aug. 24). . . . A ping-pong player (Dan Fogler) gets caught up in espionage in "Balls of Fury" (Aug. 31), from the guys behind "Reno 911!" . . . And Rowan Atkinson brings back his silent simpleton, and evokes Jacques Tati, in "Mr. Bean's Holiday" (Aug. 24).

Dark humor: A writer (David Duchovny) is asked to sell his soul in the Hollywood satire "The TV Set" (June 1). . . . A hitman (Ben Kingsley) tries to stop drinking and ends up with a woman (Téa Leoni) related to one of his victims in "You Kill Me" (June 22). . . . A dead man's dark secret comes out, much to his family's dismay, in "Death at a Funeral" (June 29). . . . Billy Connelly plays a boy's pet zombie in "Fido" (to be determined).

Foreign funnies: Iranian women risk arrest to sneak into a soccer game in the satire "Offside" (opens today). . . . A CEO (Daniel Auteuil) goes to great lengths to hide an affair in the French comedy "The Valet" (June 1). . . . And Auteuil plays an antiques dealer who needs to prove he has friends in "My Best Friend" (to be determined).

Romance

The story of John Carney's "Once," an Irish film that won the World Cinema Audience Award at this year's Sundance Film Festival, is simple: A Dublin street musician (Glen Hansard) meets a Czech flower peddler (Marketa Irglova), and she helps him realize his dream to record a demo album. The music, though, is beautiful - gorgeous songs of longing and heartbreak recorded by Hansard and Irglova, longtime musical collaborators. This is the date-night movie of the summer (June 22).

Also coming: "No Reservations" (July 27), a remake of the German treat "Mostly Martha," casts Catherine Zeta-Jones and Aaron Eckhart as rival chefs. . . . Mandy Moore and John Krasinski ("The Office") find the path to matrimony blocked by an interfering clergyman (Robin Williams) in "Licence to Wed" (July 4). . . . Jason Biggs plays a guy who impulsively proposes to a waitress ("Wedding Crashers' " Isla Fisher) in "Wedding Daze" (Aug. 17). . . . A lesbian (Elizabeth Reaser) ends up dating a professor (Justin Kirk) and the woman he dumped (Gretchen Mol) in "Puccini for Beginners" (opens today). . . . Six people couple and recouple in French director Alain Resnais' "Private Fears in Public Places" (May 25). . . . Parker Posey finds love with a Frenchman in "Broken English" (to be determined). . . . Luke Wilson (who co-directed with his brother Andrew) plays a con man seeking redemption in "The Wendell Baker Story" (to be determined). . . . A New Yorker (Chris Eigeman) finds the perfect woman (Famke Janssen), but has to escape his shrink (Ian Holm), in "The Treatment" (to be determined). . . . An insomniac (Sean Biggerstaff) tries to kill time working at an all-night supermarket in the surreal "Cashback" (to be determined), an expansion of an Oscar-nominated British short. . . . And love among opposites is the theme of the New Zealand film "Eagle vs. Shark" (to be determined), a hit at Sundance '07.

Drama

Summertime isn't usually time to talk Oscars, but "A Mighty Heart" may start the discussion. Angelina Jolie stars as Mariane Pearl, wife of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl (Dan Futterman), who was killed by al-Qaida terrorists in Pakistan. Michael Winterbottom, whose movies range from the hilarious "Tristram Shandy" to the hard-hitting "Road to Guantanamo," directs (June 22).

True-life stories: "Gracie" (June 1), about a girl trying to play on the boys' soccer team, is a family affair - directed by Davis Guggenheim ("An Inconvenient Truth"), starring Guggenheim's wife, Elisabeth Shue, and her brother Andrew, and based on Shue's real-life experience. . . . The sure-to-be-controversial "September Dawn" (June 22) sets a romance against the backdrop of the Mountain Meadows Massacre of 1857, when Mormon gunmen murdered 120 Arkansas settlers. . . . Marion Cotillard ("A Good Year") portrays singer Edith Piaf in the French biopic "La Vie en Rose" (June 29). . . . Singer Marc Anthony plays salsa singer Hector Lavoe in "El Cantante" (Aug. 1), co-starring Anthony's wife, Jennifer Lopez. . . . Anne Hathaway ("The Devil Wears Prada") portrays young Jane Austen in "Becoming Jane" (to be determined). . . . Christian Bale plays a U.S. Navy pilot as he escapes a Vietnamese POW camp in Werner Herzog's "Rescue Dawn" (to be determined), based on one of Herzog's documentaries. . . . Don Cheadle portrays an ex-con who became a D.C. radio legend in "Talk to Me" (to be determined). . . . And painter Francisco Goya (Stellan Skarsgaard) fights to save his muse (Natalie Portman) from a monk (Javier Bardem) in Milos Forman's "Goya's Ghosts" (to be determined).

Classics return: Charles Burnett's 1977 film "Killer of Sheep" (July 27), a poetic look at life in the L.A. neighborhood of Watts, finally gets a theatrical release. . . . Max Ophüls' 1953 tale of deceit, "The Earrings of Madame De . . ." (June 15), follows a trail of deceit through a general (Charles Boyer) and his wife (Danielle Darrieux). . . . And Alejandro Jodorowsky's 1970 cult classic "El Topo" (to be determined), possibly the weirdest damn thing you ever saw, also comes back.

More drama: Julie Christie faces a losing battle with Alzheimer's in Sarah Polley's "Away From Her" (opens today). . . . A surveillance-camera monitor sees a face from her past in "Red Road" (opens today). . . . A fisherman (Gabriel Byrne) makes a fateful choice in "Jindabyne" (June 8), an Australian adaptation of a Raymond Carver short story. . . . Vanessa Redgrave and Claire Danes play the same woman, 50 years apart, in "Evening" (June 29), an adaptation of Susan Minot's novel. . . . When thugs kill a Latino man, his wife and son turn the tables in the John Singleton-produced "Illegal Tender" (Aug. 24). . . . A journalist (Tim Roth) and a starlet (Sienna Miller) have a revealing "Interview" (to be determined) in this drama, directed by Steve Buscemi. . . . A Sicilian family makes the trek to Ellis Island at the start of the 20th century in "Golden Door" (June 15). . . . The second chapter of D.H. Lawrence's erotic tale, "Lady Chatterley" (to be determined), hits the big screen. . . . And an African couple's problems mirror the people's troubles with the World Bank in "Bamako" (to be determined), a film from Mali.

Horror/Thriller

Rocker-turned-director Rob Zombie ("The Devil's Rejects") is remaking John Carpenter's 1978 slasher flick "Halloween." This one could go either way - a sharp re-interpretation of a horror classic, or a blot on the memory of the great Jamie Lee Curtis. Casting wrestler Tyler Mane as Michael Myers doesn't bode well, though (Aug. 31).

Grown-up chills: Kevin Costner plays a killer battling his dark side (William Hurt) in "Mr. Brooks" (June 1). . . . A new baby brings out the worst in older sibling "Joshua" (July 13), a creepfest from Sundance starring Sam Rockwell and Vera Farmiga. . . . John Cusack enters a hotel room where strange things happen in "1408" (July 13). . . . A couple (Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman) are terrorized in their vacation home in "The Strangers" (July 13). . . . Lindsay Lohan plays a woman who fakes her death to escape a killer, but starts suffering from a split personality, in "I Know Who Killed Me" (July 27). . . . Nicole Kidman stars in "The Invasion" (Aug. 17), yet another remake of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers." . . . And Parker Posey gets caught up in espionage in "Fay Grim" (May 25), Hal Hartley's sequel to his 1997 film "Henry Fool."

Gore galore: A woman (Ashley Judd) finds herself trapped in a room with a man (Michael Shannon) who sees insects everywhere in "Bug" (May 25), directed by William Friedkin ("The Exorcist"). . . . More tourists run afoul of Slovakian butchery in Eli Roth's "Hostel: Part II" (June 8). . . . The battle between light and dark continues in "Day Watch" (June 15), the sequel to the Russian vampire drama "Night Watch." . . . Two people are trapped in a cellar in "Captivity" (June 22), a movie known for its controversial posters. . . . A mother and son try to outrun rival werewolf packs in "Skinwalkers" (July 27). . . . And a company's team-building exercise goes horribly awry in the British horror-comedy "Severance" (to be determined).

Documentaries

Michael Moore's back and, as Muhammad Ali once said of himself, he's so mean he makes medicine sick. At least he aims to give the health-care industry a bellyache in his latest crusading documentary, "Sicko." He's already got the Bush administration angry, for taking a bunch of ailing 9/11 rescue workers to Cuba for the free health care (June 29).

Also coming: The Sundance entry "Zoo" (May 25) is Robinson Devor's artily photographed examination of the subculture of bestiality, and the Washington state man who died after having sex with a horse. . . . Also from Sundance: "Crazy Love" (June 15), about the ultimate love-hate relationship. . . . "Arctic Tale" (to be determined) follows walruses and polar bear cubs as they try to survive. . . . A harrowing case of wrongful imprisonment is profiled in "The Trials of Darryl Hunt" (to be determined). . . . And "ShowBusiness: The Road to Broadway" (to be determined) chronicles the thrills and spills of a busy season on the Great White Way.