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Is it awards season already? Why, it seems it was just a few weeks ago that the Oscars reached their chaotic conclusion as La La Land was mistakenly proclaimed the best picture winner before the error was corrected and Moonlight
But the movies are restless at the starting gate. Some, like the gay romance Call Me by Your Name and the generational saga Mudbound, were introduced at Sundance. The fantastical tale The Shape of Water made an impressive debut in Venice before heading to Telluride and Toronto, where such films as the Winston Churchill biopic Darkest Hour, the feminist celebration Battle of the Sexes, the high school-set Lady Bird and the singular Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri jumped into the race. Now the questions are: Which will develop momentum? Will there be room for summer hits like Wonder Woman and Dunkirk? And will late arrivals like Steven Spielberg's The Post and Paul Thomas Anderson's Phantom Thread pull to the fore in the last moment? THR's early look at the top contenders:
Ashley Lee, Rebecca Ford, Mia Galuppo and Andy Lewis contributed.
Grosses are worldwide as of Oct. 29.
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Baby Driver
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Battle of the Sexes
RELEASE DATE Sept. 22
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Beauty and the Beast
RELEASE DATE March 17
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The 1991 animated classic on which it's based earned a best picture nom. Bill Condon's live-action retelling upped the ante with three new tunes, lavish sets and expressive performance capture/CG sidekicks.
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The Big Sick
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BOX OFFICE $223.4 million
Roger Deakins could score his 14th cinematography nomination with this visually extravagant sci-fi sequel helmed by Denis Villeneuve, in which Harrison Ford passes the baton to new blade runner Ryan Gosling.
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Breathe
RELEASE DATE Oct. 13
BOX OFFICE $378,931
In this triumph-over-debilitating-illness tale, Andy Serkis makes his feature directorial debut with the true love story of Robin and Diana Cavendish (Andrew Garfield and The Crown's Claire Foy), who refuse to give up when Robin is terminally diagnosed with polio at the age of 28.
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Call Me by Your Name
RELEASE DATE Nov. 24
Critics have been championing Luca Guadagnino's idyllic drama, another Sundance breakout, that stars Armie Hammer as a 24-year-old American student who has a summer romance with a 17-year-old boy, played by Timothee Chalamet, in the Italian countryside in 1983.
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Chappaquiddick
RELEASE DATE Dec. 8
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Darkest Hour
RELEASE DATE Nov. 22
Playing Winston Churchill in The Crown brought John Lithgow an Emmy, and so Gary Oldman, nearly unrecognizable as the British prime minister, could be Oscar-bound for his work in Joe Wright's biopic, set amid the outbreak of World War II.
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Detroit
RELEASE DATE July 28
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The Disaster Artist
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Downsizing
RELEASE DATE Dec. 22
Matt Damon shrinks to 5 inches to enjoy the good life in this sci-fi-meets-suburbia parable from Alexander Payne, a seven-time Oscar nominee and two-time screenplay winner. The Venice Film Festival opener also features a breakout performance from Thailand-born Vietnamese-American actress Hong Chau.
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Dunkirk
RELEASE DATE July 21
BOX OFFICE $523.8 million
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Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool
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First They Killed My Father
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The Florida Project
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This ultra-low-budget slice-of-life story, from Tangerine director Sean Baker, is set in the cheap motels in the shadow of Disney World and features scene-stealing performances from the child actors Brooklynn Kimberly Prince and Valeria Cotto, who play 6-year-old friends.
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Get Out
RELEASE DATE Feb. 24
BOX OFFICE $253.5 million
It may have masqueraded as a horror movie, but Jordan Peele's directorial debut, which he also wrote, was hailed as a sly and powerful commentary on race. Not only was it a commercial hit but critical acclaim earned it a 99 percent positive score on Rotten Tomatoes.
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Good Time
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BOX OFFICE $2 million
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Hostiles
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I, Tonya
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In the Fade
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The Killing of a Sacred Deer
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Lady Bird
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Last Flag Flying
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Marshall
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The Meyerowitz Stories
RELEASE DATE Oct. 13
In writer-director Noah Baumbach's most recent look at neurotic New Yorkers, two-time Oscar winner Dustin Hoffman's performance, as an artist whose competitive clan (Adam Sandler, Ben Stiller, Elizabeth Marvel) gather round him, could earn him yet more recognition from his peers.
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Molly's Game
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Mudbound
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Murder on the Orient Express
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Phantom Thread
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The Post
RELEASE DATE Dec. 22
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Roman J. Israel, Esq.
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The Shape of Water
RELEASE DATE Dec. 1
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Star Wars: The Last Jedi
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Stronger
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Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
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Victoria & Abdul
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War for the Planet of the Apes
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Wind River
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Wonderstruck
RELEASE DATE Oct. 20
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Todd Haynes' adaptation of Brian Selznick's novel, which bowed in Cannes, centers on two children in different eras traversing New York City to find their missing loved ones.
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Wonder Wheel
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Woody Allen's second outing with Amazon Studios follows a onetime aspiring actress turned Coney Island waitress, played by Kate Winslet as she navigates relationships with her abusive husband, younger lover, estranged stepdaughter and deranged son.
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Wonder Woman
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