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Action
"The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" is the much-anticipated Hollywood version of Steig Larsson's thriller, about a disgraced journalist (Daniel Craig) teaming with an anti-social Goth hacker (Rooney Mara) to unravel a Swedish mystery. Director David Fincher ("The Social Network") will have to compete with the mental movie created by the book's fans — as well as the really good Swedish version that was released first.
Team Edward and Team Jacob face off again in "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Part 1" (Nov. 18), as Bella Swan faces marriage and parenthood with vampire Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson). Elsewhere, "Twilight's" studly werewolf Taylor Lautner goes solo in "Abduction" (Sept. 23), as a teen trying to figure out a shadowy conspiracy involving his parents.
The late Sam Peckinpah returns, kind of, as two of his films get remade: "Straw Dogs" (opens Friday), a spectacularly violent tale of a couple (James Marsden, Kate Bosworth) terrorized by the locals in a Mississippi Gulf Coast town; and "Killer Elite" (Sept. 23), starring Jason Statham and Clive Owen as rival assassins. Statham also shows up in "Safe" (Oct. 28), as a former elite agent rescuing a 12-year-old girl from Chinese gangs.
Speaking of spies, Gary Oldman and Colin Firth play out spy games in "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" (Nov. 18), an adaptation of John LeCarre's classic novel. Tom Cruise must clear the names of his IMF group in "Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol" (Dec. 21).
Workers at a New York high-rise (including Ben Stiller and Gabourey Sidibe) decide to rob the building's richest resident (Alan Alda), who scammed them out of their retirement funds, in Brett Ratner's "Tower Heist" (Nov. 4). "Machine Gun Preacher" (Oct. 7) tells the supposedly true story of Sam Childers (Gerard Butler), a drug-dealing biker who finds Jesus and crusades to help free children forced to fight in the Sudan.
Cars are major players in "Drive" (opens Friday), a stylistic drama starring Ryan Gosling as a professional getaway driver, and the indie "Bellflower" (opens Friday), in which two buddies' plans to build a "Mad Max"-style super car are interrupted when one of them falls in love.
D'Artagnan and company ride again, with another version of "The Three Musketeers" (Oct. 21) — this one filmed in 3-D and with a meaty role for Milla Jovovich. The Greek legend of Theseus and the titans gets a stylish update in "Immortals" (Nov. 11), directed by Tarsem Singh. And Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law return to Baker Street in "Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows" (Dec. 16).
Going to the future: Hugh Jackman trains rock-'em sock-'em robots in the futuristic "Real Steel" (Oct. 7). In another future, where time is a tradeable commodity and the poor risk dying, Justin Timberlake takes Amanda Seyfried to buy back his life in "In Time" (Oct. 28).
Gangsters in '60s Britain are showcased in "Brighton Rock" (opens Friday), an adaptation of a Graham Greene novel about an up-and-coming killer (Sam Riley). In the French "Point Break" (Oct. 14), a nurse treats a gangster, whose buddies then kidnap the nurse's pregnant wife to force him to bust out a crime lord from the hospital. Also from France, "Love Crime" (Sept. 30), the last movie directed by the late Alain Corneau ("All the Mornings in the World"), an executive (Kristin Scott Thomas) and her assistant (Ludivine Sagnier) engage in an escalating game of manipulation.
Horror
"The Thing" (Oct. 14) is a prequel to John Carpenter's 1982 horror tale (itself a remake of a 1951 classic), following a research team in Antarctica where a shape-changing alien is taking over the bodies of the humans — leaving Mary Elizabeth Winstead ("Scott Pilgrim vs. the World") in Kurt Russell's hero role. Elsewhere, aliens land in Moscow in "The Darkest Hour" (Dec. 25).
Daniel Craig stars in "Dream House" (Sept. 30), moving into a home where he still sees his wife (Rachel Weisz) and daughters — who were killed in that house. In another house, "Paranormal Activity 3" (Oct. 21) completes (we can only hope) the trilogy of the family beset by ghosts captured on video cameras.
Kevin Smith's "Red State" (Oct. 21), which drew critical buzz and the notorious Westboro Baptist Church when it played Park City, depicts a nasty — and well-armed — fundamentalist group led by the charismatic Michael Parks. The much-delayed "Tucker and Dale vs. Evil" (Sept. 30) flips the slasher-movie cliches, centering on two vacationing rednecks (Alan Tudyk, Tyler Labine) who are attacked by preppy college kids. Equally tongue-in-cheek is "Piranha 3DD" (Nov. 23), whose bimbos-and-biters agenda is spelled out pretty clearly in the title.
Children
The day before Thanksgiving, Nov. 23, brings three anticipated children's titles: "The Muppets," which brings Jim Henson's felt-and-fur creations back to the big screen alongside Jason Segel and Amy Adams; "Hugo," Martin Scorsese's fantastical 3D adaptation of The Invention of Hugo Cabret; and the computer-animated "Arthur Christmas," made by the Aardman Animation folks ("Flushed Away") and centering on the son of Santa Claus.
In "The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn" (Dec. 23), director Steven Spielberg brings the beloved Belgian comic globetrotter to life, thanks to some ground-breaking computer animation.
In "Puss in Boots" (Nov. 4), "Shrek's" swashbuckling feline (voiced by Antonio Banderas) gets his own adventure. The dancing penguins are back in "Happy Feet Two" (Nov. 18), as are the singing rodents in "Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chip-wrecked" (Dec. 16). And Disney's 1994 classic "The Lion King" (opens Friday returns in an immaculate 3-D print.
In the inspired-by-a-true-story "Dolphin Tale" (Sept. 23), a Florida kid (Nathan Gamble) befriends a dolphin who has lost its tail — and spearheads an effort to build a prosthetic tail for her.
Comedy
In the seriocomic "50/50," two friends (Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Seth Rogen) size up the angles when one of them is diagnosed with cancer. An alcoholic author (Charlize Theron) returns to her small town in "Young Adult" (Dec. 16), written by "Juno" scribe Diablo Cody. And widower Matt Damon starts a new life with his children in "We Bought a Zoo" (Dec. 23), directed by Cameron Crowe ("Almost Famous").
A gay teen (Jeremy Dozier) and the class tramp (Juno Temple) team up for a road trip, circa 1987, in the high-school comedy "Dirty Girl" (Oct. 7). A depressed 11-year-old finds optimism in her eccentric neighbors in the French comedy-drama "The Hedgehog" (Oct. 7).
Steve Martin, Owen Wilson and Jack Black play rival bird-watchers in "The Big Year" (Oct. 14). Rowan Atkinson returns as a bumbling British spy in "Johnny English Reborn" (Oct. 28).
It's time to get raunchy for the holidays with "A Very Harold and Kumar 3D Christmas" (Nov. 4), which reunites our stoner pals (John Cho and Kal Penn) with the freakier-than-usual Neil Patrick Harris. Adam Sandler plays dual roles — as a family man and his annoying twin sister —in "Jack and Jill" (Nov. 11). Jonah Hill experiences his own adventures in babysitting in "The Sitter" (Dec. 9).
Sarah Jessica Parker stars in "I Don't Know How She Does It" (opens Friday), as a working mom becoming frayed around the edges by demands of the office and home. A single woman (Anna Faris) realizes she's used up her quota of boyfriends in "What's Your Number?" (Sept. 30). And a variety of couples meet up on "New Year's Eve" (Dec. 9), Garry Marshall's sequel to "Valentine's Day."
A silent film star finds love, just as the talkies threaten his career, in the silent comedy "The Artist" (date to be determined). This was a breakout hit from this year's Cannes Film Festival, and is being talked up for Oscar glory.
Drama
Meryl Streep masters another impersonation — of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher — in "The Iron Lady" (Dec. 16). Michelle Williams portrays the screen legend Marilyn Monroe, in the remembrance piece "My Week With Marilyn" (date to be determined). Madonna takes the director's chair for "W.E." (date to be determined), a stylized look at the lives of King Edward VII and American divorcee Wallis Simpson.
Brad Pitt stars in "Moneyball" (Sept. 23), playing real-life Oakland A's general manager Billy Beane, who revolutionized major-league baseball by applying statistics to the hiring of players. Leonardo DiCaprio plays another larger-than-life figure, the infamous FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, for director Clint Eastwood in "J. Edgar" (Nov. 9). Viggo Mortensen and Michael Fassbender portray psychiatrists Sigmund Freud and Karl Jung in "A Dangerous Method" (date to be determined), directed by David Cronenberg. In "The Whistleblower" (date to be determined), Rachel Weisz plays a Nebraska cop who serves a tour in Bosnia — and calls foul on the United Nations for covering up a sex scandal.
George Clooney serves double duty this fall: In "The Ides of March" (Oct. 7), which Clooney directed, he plays a presidential candidate who attracts an idealistic campaign worker (Ryan Gosling). In Alexander Payne's "The Descendants" (date to be determined), Clooney plays a father in Hawaii who must reconnect with his children when his wife is in a boating accident.
A child deals with the loss of his father, killed in the Sept. 11 attacks, in "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" (Dec. 25), adapted from Jonathan Safran Foer's novel. The bond between a boy and his horse is tested by World War I in "War Horse" (Dec. 28), directed by Steven Spielberg.
An American journalist (Johnny Depp) finds intrigue in '50s Puerto Rico in "The Rum Diary" (Oct. 28), adapted from a Hunter S. Thompson novel. Another journalist investigates a candidate for sainthood, and discovers some truths about his own father in the Spanish Civil War, in "There Be Dragons" (date to be determined). The question of whether Shakespeare wrote all those plays is explored by director Roland Emmerich ("Independence Day") in "Anonymous" (Oct. 28).
Workers at a brokerage house face minute-by-minute moral dilemmas as the economy collapses in "Margin Call" (date to be determined).
Parents (Jodie Foster, John C. Reilly, Kate Winslet, Christoph Waltz) meet when their kids get into a fight in "Carnage" (date to be determined), directed by Roman Polanski. Reilly and Tilda Swinton play parents dealing with their son's mass-murder spree in Lynne Ramsay's "We Need to Talk About Kevin" (date to be determined).
Kirsten Dunst faces marriage as the world is about to end in Lars von Trier's "Melancholia" (date to be determined). Four college friends (Thomas Jane, Rob Lowe, Jeremy Piven, Christian McKay) see their reunion spiral out of control in "I Melt With You" (date to be determined). Anna Paquin plays a high-school student who becomes involved with a bus accident in "Margaret" (date to be determined), a movie that's been on the shelf for four years.
Antonio Banderas plays an obsessed plastic surgeon who creates an artificial skin in Pedro Almodovar's kinky "The Skin I Live In" (date to be determined). In the Portuguese drama "To Die Like a Man" (date to be determined), a transvestite dies before achieving her goal of erasing all traces of her male identity. A young woman (Emily Browning) becomes entangled in a secret world of prostitution in "Sleeping Beauty" (date to be determined).
"Footloose" (Oct. 14) is a Southern-fried remake of the 1984 made-in-Utah dance classic, starring newcomer Kenny Wormold as the rebel kid who tries to bring dancing back to a rural town, over the objections of the town preacher (Dennis Quaid), but with the help of the preacher's wild daughter (Utah's own Julianne Hough).
A romance spans an ocean for Anton Yelchin and Felicity Jones in "Like Crazy" (Nov. 18), which won the Grand Jury Prize at this year's Sundance Film Festival. Romance also breaks out between a terminally ill teen (Mia Wasikowska) and a boy (Henry Hopper) who likes to attend funerals in Gus Van Sant's "Restless" (date to be determined). Meanwhile, a British love story between two men who meet in a pub plays out over a "Weekend" (Oct. 28).
In "The Way" (Oct. 7), Martin Sheen plays a doctor who goes to Spain to finish the spiritual journey his son (Sheen's good son, Emilio Estevez, who wrote and directed) was taking when he died. "Courageous" (Sept. 30) is a Christian-themed drama, from the folks who made "Fireproof," centering on four police officers in crisis.
Sundance debuted these stories about faith being tested: Vera Farmiga directs and stars in "Higher Ground" (Sept. 23), as a woman searching for the truth about God in a fundamentalist Christian community. A small-town construction worker (Michael Shannon) begins to see apocalyptic visions in "Take Shelter" (date to be determined). In "Circumstance" (Sept. 23), two teen girls in Tehran confront their sexuality and a society aiming to suppress those urges. A young woman (Elizabeth Olsen) deals with life in and out of a cult in "Martha Marcy May Marlene" (Nov. 11).
And, for old-movie buffs, Robert Bresson's 1951 classic "Diary of a Country Priest" (date to be determined) gets a 60th anniversary re-release.
Documentary
Footage from the Black Power movement, shot by Swedish journalists, is recut in "The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975" (Nov. 4). The life and death of legendary Brazilian Formula One racer Ayrton Senna is recalled in "Senna" (Sept. 30). Members of a legendary Houston high-school band reunite to honor their mentor in "Thunder Soul" (Oct. 14).