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7 Oscar-worthy films to finish out 2015


Stockings are being hung by the chimney with care, and that means Santa is bringing gifts of great cinema to film fans everywhere.

November and December is the time when studios trot out their best stuff — the last two months of the year have hosted the releases of nine movies that have won best picture since 2000.Oscar-bait flicks like Spotlight, Brooklyn and Trumbo started their runs last week, and more high-end fare is coming soon for eager moviegoers and awards pundits.

Here are seven movies you’ll want to see by the end of the year to get ready for awards season.

Carol (Nov. 20)

In director Todd Haynes’ adaptation of the Patricia Highsmith novel, a young Manhattan photographer named Therese (Rooney Mara) falls for the older Carol (Cate Blanchett) in 1952 — a story that’s filled with drama, especially for a romance among lesbians at a time when “representation was even more absent from the world and more mysterious and unknown,” says Haynes.

He adds that Carol is dealing with a failing marriage and custody battle for her daughter while Therese is just beginning her career and finding her footing in the big city.  “There’s such a dynamic of differences between them and the actresses just bring such a nuanced understanding to their performances," he says.

But Haynes also loves that it’s about falling in love at its heart. "When you’re in Therese’s position and you’re in the dark and you’re trying to discern every gesture for what it means,” he says, “Everybody’s felt that way regardless of their sexual orientation and their sex. There was something really wonderful about how familiar that is.”

The Danish Girl (Nov. 27)

Eddie Redmayne, last year’s best actor winner for The Theory of Everything takes on another transformative role: As artist Einar Wegener, who transitions to Lili Elbe in 1930, becoming  the first known person to receive gender-reassignment surgery in 1930.

One of the keys for Redmayne was talking to real trans women about their experiences, and one of them told him that the early period of transitioning is one of “hyperfeminization,” he says. “As you’re finding your feminine self, you’re using makeup and clothes but you’re perhaps going too far. She described it almost as like a girl’s adolescence — what girls do in their puberty years of trying things and putting on too much makeup and wearing skirts that are too short.

“I wanted to make sure that we found that,” the actor adds. “She’s finding her femininity, but then toward the end of the film, she’s stripped bare and she’s found herself, really.”

Youth (Dec. 4)

A variety of personalities all come together in an alpine resort for writer/director Paolo Sorrentino’s drama, including a retired conductor (Michael Caine) and his business manager/daughter (Rachel Weisz), a young actor (Paul Dano) researching a new role and a filmmaker (Harvey Keitel) wanting to end his career with one last triumph.

The characters in the movie have their children — literal and figurative — and a desire to fulfill their life, Keitel says. “It’s usually very difficult. The idea is to not shy away from it being difficult, and that I think is the gift of the wonderful story Paolo wrote.”

Playing Mick has been a hard role for him to shake — in a good way. “It’s something I’m still reflecting on and probably will be for a long time,” he adds. “I don’t know when it’s going to end. I’m still expecting a call from Paolo saying, ‘Harvey, we’re going to start shooting again tomorrow.’ ”

In the Heart of the Sea (Dec. 11)

As first mate Owen Chase, Chris Hemsworth puts aside supervillains to take on an 80-foot sperm whale — and one that just happened to inspire the creature in Moby-Dick — in director Ron Howard’s seafaring adventure story.

It’s obviously a different hero role than Thor in the Marvel movies, Howard says. “Once again he’s offering all that physicality but clear evidence that he’s an actor to be taken very seriously.”

Owen is passed over for captain of his whaling ship, and Hemsworth talked to Howard about how to best dig into a man who ultimately becomes a leader after a whale attack leaves them stranded at sea. “Let’s go against the grain of what we think this guy is and have there be contrast and inconsistencies and things that contradict other parts of his personality,” the actor says. “I like that unpredictable nature of it.”

Concussion (Dec. 25)

Director Peter Landesman brings the hot-button issues of pro football and head trauma to the big screen in a movie that “behaves like an edge-of-your-seat political thriller but (is) about something that’s important to all of us, a real sacred cow in American culture.”

The drama is based on a GQ article that chronicled the efforts of Dr. Bennet Omalu (played in the film by Will Smith) to research the effect of chronic traumatic encephalopathy on players, and the NFL subsequently getting in the way of him publicizing his discovery.

“It’s definitely about an issue that has entered the zeitgeist in a very unusual and forceful way, for sure,” says Landesman, adding that it marks one of Smith’s greatest on-screen performances. “I think he even surprised himself. People watch this movie and 10 minutes in, they don’t even know it’s Will.”

The Revenant (Dec. 25)

Leonardo DiCaprio has played some icons in his day, but never quite like Hugh Glass in the drama directed by Alejandro G. Inarritu (last year’s best director winner for Birdman). In 1823, the fur trapper was mauled by a bear, left for dead and then embarked on a 200-mile trek to find the man who killed his son.

“He’s almost become this kind of Paul Bunyan character” in American history, says DiCaprio, who weathered production shutdowns (a lack of snow moved filming from Canada to the southern tip of Argentina), days of crawling through ice and show and various other predicaments such as eating raw bison meat and sleeping in animal carcasses. “We wanted to really put ourselves in a situation where we present somebody who has lost absolutely everything, who has such a minute chance of living in these harsh environments in the dead of winter, crawling through miles of wilderness.”

However, he sees it as much more than a revenge film. “It becomes a story of something much more profound than that — his connection with the natural world and what life means takes on a new meaning,” DiCaprio says. “He needs to ask himself, when all the chips are against him, why does he still move on? It’s interesting to explore in a movie, especially in this day and age.”

Anomalisa (Dec. 30)

Years ago, Charlie Kaufman came up with a very human story of a lonely author who has his world turned upside down by a chance meeting with a female stranger in his hotel. And, using stop-motion technology, he’s turned that old radio play of his into one of the more intriguing animated movies of the season.

“I like fake things a lot,” says Kaufman, who co-directed Anomalisa with Duke Johnson. “I like sets and puppets and I like trying to imbue those things with life and make this thing come to life in a subtle and real and nuanced way and have emotional impact.”

Johnson says he “completely identified” with the tale of how Michael (voiced by David Thewlis) meets Lisa (Jennifer Jason Leigh). And around the holidays when some are feeling loneliness like his main character, Kaufman adds, “maybe there’s some sort of solace in seeing somebody else have that kind of experience, where you’re watching a movie where you don’t feel so alone in your aloneness.”