Your Fall Movie Preview

by KYW’s Bill Wine –

The splashy summer movie season is pretty much in the books, and the big holiday movie season is still quite a ways off.  But the (usually) quieter and more thoughtful autumn big-screen lineup is about to unfurl.

So here are the highlights of the fall movie season, the stars and titles that moviegoers can look forward to seeing between now and Thanksgiving, in more or less chronological order:

SEPTEMBER

George Clooney (right) stars as a master assassin who takes on one final assignment in Italy in the suspense thriller, The American.

Oscar nominees Carey Mulligan and Keira Knightley co-star in the science fiction drama, Never Let Me Go.

Director Ben Affleck co-stars with Oscar nominee Jeremy Renner in the Boston-set crime thriller, The Town.

Emma Stone stars as a teen with a shaky reputation in the high school-set teen comedy, Easy A.

A group of passengers trapped in a stalled elevator (right) realize that the Prince of Darkness is among them in the M. Night Shyamalan-scripted supernatural thriller, Devil.

Kristen Bell, Jamie Lee Curtis, Sigourney Weaver, and Betty White co-star in the wedding-focused ensemble comedy, You Again.

Woody Allen directs Josh Brolin, Naomi Watts, Antonio Banderas, and Anthony Hopkins in the London-set dramedy, You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger.

Ryan Reynolds plays a US truck driver in Iraq who finds himself trapped underground in a coffin in the claustrophobic thriller, Buried.

Oliver Stone directs an Is-greed-still-good? sequel starring returning Oscar winner Michael Douglas and Shia LeBeouf in the global-economy drama, Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps.

OCTOBER

David Fincher directs Jesse Eisenberg and Justin Timberlake (right) in the story of the founding of Facebook in the real-life cyberspace drama, The Social Network.

The Swedish horror hit, Let The Right One In, gets an English-language makeover and is transplanted to New Mexico in the vampire thriller, Let Me In.

Diane Lane and John Malkovich star in the story of the legendary 1973 Triple Crown winner, Secretariat.

Katherine Heigl and Josh Duhamel are forced to move in together to raise the orphaned infant daughter of their deceased best friends in the romantic comedy, Life As We Know It.

Edward Norton plays a convicted arsonist trying to manipulate parole officer Robert DeNiro in the cat-and-mouse thriller, Stone.

Hilary Swank and Sam Rockwell play siblings in the true-life story of a sister battling to free her brother, imprisoned and wrongly accused of murder, in Conviction.

Bruce Willis, Helen Mirren, Morgan Freeman, and John Malkovich are “retired and extremely dangerous” in the thriller about ex-CIA ops, Red.

Matt Damon stars as a San Francisco psychic who communicates with the dead in director Clint Eastwood’s Hereafter.

Ben Affleck stars as a salesman laid off by a downsizing Boston corporation in the American-dream drama, The Company Men.

More spooky occurrences are on the menu in the sequel to the 2009 horror thriller, Paranormal Activity 2.

NOVEMBER

James Franco plays a real-life mountain climber trapped under a boulder in the survival drama, 127 Hours.

Robert Downey Jr. and Zach Galifianakis (right) team up for an odd-couple road trip in the new comedy from the The Hangover director Todd Phillips, in Due Date.

Will Ferrell, Tina Fey, and Brad Pitt head the voice cast of the animated comedy about an alien supervillain, Megamind.

Sean Penn and Naomi Watts play real-life husband and wife in the drama about covert spying during the Bush administration in the political drama, Fair Game.

Denzel Washington tries to stop a runaway train carrying toxic chemicals in the race-against-time thriller, Unstoppable.

And Harrison Ford and Diane Keaton play the feuding anchors of a morning TV show with Rachel MacAdams as their hotshot producer in the broadcasting comedy, Morning Glory.

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That ought to get us cinema buffs through to the holidays.  Happy fall moviegoing!