Film festivals are the platforms from which many a fall movie leaps with flair, hoping to nail its plunge into the deep end of awards season. And many of the following films got their start at Sundance, Tribeca, Cannes, Telluride or Toronto.
Put another way, what follows are films sure to be talked about. Stock up: More than a few of them will be the stuff of Oscar-season chatter.
Here are 20 movies worth knowing about, including two representatives of Colorado’s muscular documentary community.
A quick caution: Dates remain subject to change as Oscar jockeying gets heated.
Denver film maverick and Oscar and Emmy winner Daniel Junge (“Saving Face”) teamed up with director Bryan Storkel (“Holy Rollers: The True Story of Card Counting Christians”) for this look at Christian disciples of mixed martial-arts fighting. The movie can be very funny, surprisingly tender, and the filmmakers absolutely resist predictable judgments about their subjects — even when the interviewees don’t have a prayer. Whom Would Jesus Deck? — indeed. (Available on iTunes and other on-demand platforms; DVD release Oct. 7)
David Fincher tapped novelist Gillian Flynn to adapt her bestseller about a marriage gone south, a wife gone missing and a husband suspected. The opener of the New York Film Festival — starring Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike — is rumored to be the perfect wedding of cinephile craft and populist cred. Did the filmmaking duo change the book’s surprise ending? you ask. Maybe. Word is lovers of the book are in for a welcome jolt, and those who didn’t crack open the volume (for goodness’ sake, don’t do it now!) will be gobsmacked. (Oct. 3)
Help is on the way. Striking miners and their families get the support of unlikely allies when a group of lesbian and gay activists from London arrive in their Welsh village in this reality-based comedy set in 1984. Bill Nighy, Imelda Staunton, Dominic West and Paddy Considine make for a fine, er, fabulous, cast. (Oct. 3)
In this reality-based drama, Jeremy Renner portrays Gary Webb. In the mid-1990s, the San Jose Mercury News reporter followed the money trail and uncovered a damning pipeline between the CIA-supported Nicaraguan Contras and the crack- cocaine trade in L.A. Michael Cuesta, who has numerous episodes of Showtime’s “Homeland” to his credit, directs this tale of ugly conspiracies and the vilification of a journalist. (Oct. 10)
“The Judge”
Here comes the Judge. Here comes the Judge. Here comes some explosive onscreen chemistry between two powerhouse Roberts. Duvall and Downey Jr. play father and estranged son in this courtroom-meets-familial drama. (Oct. 10)
Dallas-based writer-director Jorge R. Gutierrez sends hero Manolo (voiced by Diego Luna) on a quest through a fantastical realm inspired by the Mexican holiday of remembrance, the Day of the Dead. (Oct. 17)
Writer-director David Ayer is compelled by the darker shades of heroism. Consider his two L.A. cop stories: “Training Day” and “End of Watch.” This World War II drama about a Sherman tank unit at the tail end of the war in Europe promises unflinching images of U.S. soldiers doing things we’d rather not know about. The title is actually the name of the tank Brad Pitt’s character, Wardaddy, commands. Still, make no mistake, fury is also a visceral character in this saga. (Oct. 17)
Bill Murray plies his brilliant comedic timing and his deep gift for understated pathos in this dramedy about a crabby Brooklyn denizen who winds up babysitting for a single mom (Melissa McCarthy). We’ve grown accustomed to the kind of Murray performance that sets off Oscar buzz. This one did at the Toronto film fest. But even before that, film critic Howie Movshovitz dreamed up a timely education series, “Bill Murray: Triumph of the Infantile,” running Wednesdays in October at the Denver Film Society’s Sie FilmCenter. (“Triumph,” Wednesdays in October; “St. Vincent,” Oct. 17)
This is turning out to be quite the fall for Reese Witherspoon. By “fall” we mean rise. She’s a producer on “Gone Girl.” In December, she hits the Pacific Crest Trail as Cheryl Strayed in “Wild.” And in this reality-inspired drama, she plays a no-nonsense job- placement specialist who must help a group of Sudanese refugees. (Oct. 24)
In 2013, writer-director Damien Chazelle’s short about a jazz ensemble and its bullying instructor won a much deserved award at Aspen Film’s Shortsfest. This past January, the feature-length version of that music-room conflagration — starring Miles Teller as a drumming prodigy and J.K. Simmons as the abusive teacher — took the audience and grand jury prizes at Sundance. Now it’s time to see what the drumbeat of acclaim is about. (Oct. 24)
Jake Gyllenhaal continues his serious streak (“Prisoners,” “Enemy,” “End of Watch”) with this nasty tale about a crime-beat videographer. Set in a nighttime L.A. when the police scanner hums with mayhem, this noirish ride was written and directed by Dan Gilroy. Welcome back Rene Russo, who plays a ratings-obsessed news director in the drama high on Indiewire’s critics’ survey of the best movies at the Toronto film fest. Caveat, it has some pretty fine detractors, too. Most of whom live in L.A. Hmm. (Oct. 31)
Another hit out of Sundance, this satire from newbie writer-director Justin Simien introduces us to Samantha White (Tessa Thompson), a young college student bent on speaking truth to her Ivy League peers on her radio program. “It’s like Spike Lee and Oprah had some pissed-off baby,” someone says of the campus activist. That line alone may be worth the price of the ticket, to quote James Baldwin. (October)
Alejandro González Iñárritu’s dark comedy “Birdman” swooped into Telluride after premiering at the Venice Film Festival, carried on the winds of praise for what is an astounding cinematic feat. Want more metaphors? We’ve got ’em: Michael Keaton boldly soars and brilliantly plummets as Riggan Thomson, a movie star pigeon-holed by his super-hero role in a franchise. In hopes of breaking out, he decides to mount an ill-fated adaptation of a Raymond Carver story collection. (October)
First-time feature director Alan Hicks’ debut captures the special relationship between jazz legend and teacher Clark Terry and piano prodigy Justin Kauflin. Boulder-based producer Paula DuPré Pesman shepherded this celebration of a mentor by his students. In addition to Kauflin and Hicks, Terry took Quincy Jones under his wing. When Q was a kid, he sought out the trumpeter in a Seattle nightclub. When he later became a band leader, he spirited Terry away from Duke Ellington. To use one of Terry’s fave words: “beautiful.” Just beautiful. (October)
A stellar cast fuels Christopher Nolan’s much-anticipated space drama. Matthew McConaughey and Anne Hathaway are astronauts on a mission to save humans from extinction. Others on board for the saga: John Lithgow, Jessica Chastain, David Oyelowo, Ellen Burstyn and Michael Caine. Looking for a Nolan refresher? The Denver Film Society is hosting a series in October called “The (almost) Complete Christopher Nolan.” (Nolan series, Oct 23-26; “Interstellar,” Nov. 7)
‘Tis the season of dueling brainiac biopics. Benedict Cumberbatch is being hailed for his turn as Alan Turing in “The Imitation Game.” Here, Eddie Redmayne portrays physicist/cosmologist Stephen Hawking, who in his 20s was diagnosed with motor neuron disease. Felicity Jones is Jane Wilde, the Cambridge art student whom he falls for and marries. Her book — “Travelling to Infinity: My Life with Stephen by Jane Hawking” — is the basis for director James Marsh’s intimate story of a marriage and a mind. (Nov. 7)
Gael García Bernal portrays Iranian-born, British journalist Maziar Bahari, who was arrested in Iran in 2009, imprisoned and tortured by a man known simply as Rosewater. Based on Bahari’s memoir “Then They Came for Me,” this is a smart, humane, funny-at-times drama. Not bad for a first-time writer-director by the name of Jon Stewart. That guy might just have a future. (Nov. 7)
The American frontier proves too harsh a reality for three women in this sophomore feature written and directed by Tommy Lee Jones. Two-time Oscar winner and recent Telluride Film Festival honoree Hilary Swank stars as Mary Bee Cuddy, the determined woman who plans to transport them east. Jones plays the drifter she relies on for help. (Nov. 17)
This World War II drama about code-breaking and tormented math genius Alan Turing (Benedict Cumberbatch) had its world premiere in Telluride and then took the People’s Choice award at the Toronto film fest. That’s usually how a best-picture Oscar winner is born. A fine turn by Keira Knightley helps. Still, if you’re seeking a Cumberbatch appetizer, take advantage of the encore screening of Danny Boyle’s National Theatre production of “Frankenstein,” in which Cumberbatch and Jonny Lee Miller alternate roles as the arrogant scientist and his betrayed monster at the Sie FilmCenter (“Frankenstein,” Oct. 16 and 19 and Nov. 1; “The Imitation Game,” November)
“The Hunger Games: Mockingjay — Part I”
On the one hand, cynicism is required: Leave it to a studio to mess with the final third of a trilogy in which the rebellion in Panem boils by breaking it into two impossibly lucrative parts. (“Part II” opens in 2015.) On the other hand, we can’t help celebrating the return of Katniss Everdeen, one of recent cinema’s great and reluctant heroes, and her portrayer Jennifer Lawrence. (Nov. 21)
Lisa Kennedy: 303-954-1567, lkennedy@denverpost.com or twitter.com/bylisakennedy
