Holiday Movie Preview: A Dozen Movies to See in the Next Six Weeks

Brie Larson could look a little more excited to see these movies.

For the last several years my one New Year's resolution has been to see fifty-two movies released in that given year. That means catching up on older movies I haven't seen doesn't count, & I go off the Oscars' calendar, meaning movies like Selma & American Sniper that didn't have a wide release until this year still count as films from 2014 as they had already been released in Los Angeles. Those may seem like unnecessary hurdles, but if a resolution is easy what's the point? With six weeks to go in 2015 I've downed forty movies*, with that in mind this holiday movie preview will list the dozen movies I'm most excited for from today till the clock strikes twelve on January 1, 2016.

*Of those forty, four have clearly stood above the others. "Inside Out," Pixar's latest masterpiece, "The End of the Tour," a beautifully nuanced two man show between Jesse Eisenberg & Jason Segel, "It Follows," already one of my favorite horror movies, & "Ex Machina," a clever sci-fi thriller that was my introduction to the astounding Alicia Vikander as well as a reminder that Oscar Isaac is the best actor working today. All of these films can be found on DVD or some form of streaming.

A few notes about this list. All of the movies listed have yet to debut in Tucson, if you live in a larger city you may have already seen a couple of them. The list, also, only includes movies that will play in Tucson before the New Year, so The Revenant & The Hateful Eight didn't make the cut as their wide releases aren't until January 6. Lastly, if a film's release date includes the "limited" qualifier it means that unless you live in L.A. or New York you'll have to wait a little longer to see it, for Tucson you generally need to add two to four weeks, & if you don't live in a city you may not get the opportunity to see such films in theaters at all. As always, if you click on a film's title you can see its trailer. Now, without further ado...