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Jeff Bridges (The Men Who Stare at Goats, The Big Lebowski) stars as the richly comic, semi-tragic romantic anti-hero Bad Blake in the debut feature film from writer-director Scott Cooper. Bad Blake is a broken-down, hard-living country music singer who’s had way too many marriages, far too many years on the road and one too many drinks way too many times. And yet, Bad canÂ’t help but reach for salvation with the help of Jean (Maggie Gyllenhaal), a journalist who discovers the real man behind the musician. As he struggles down the road of redemption, Bad learns the hard way just how tough life can be on one manÂ’s crazy heart. Co-starring Colin Farrell and Robert Duvall.

Nine is a vibrant and provocative musical that follows the life of world famous film director Guido Contini (Daniel Day-Lewis) as he reaches a creative and personal crisis of epic proportion, while balancing the numerous women in his life including his wife (Marion Cotillard), his mistress (Penélope Cruz), his film star muse (Nicole Kidman), his confidant and costume designer (Judi Dench), a young American fashion journalist (Kate Hudson), the whore from his youth (Stacy “Fergie” Ferguson) and his mother (Sophia Loren). The original 1982 Broadway production of Nine, as directed by Tommy Tune, was nominated for twelve Tony Awards and won five, including Best Musical. This feature film version is directed by Rob Marshall (Chicago).

As a teenage fan of Albert Camus and Jean-Luc Godard, Nick Twisp (Michael Cera) is most definitely out of his element when his mother and her boyfriend move the family to a trailer park. When a pretty neighbor named Sheeni (Portia Doubleday) plays records by French crooners, it’s love at first sight for frustrated virgin Nick. Upon learning that Sheeni is already dating someone, Nick launches a hilarious quest to find his way into Sheeni’s heart, and bed.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s famous super-sleuth, Sherlock Holmes, gets an update with this adaptation of Lionel Wigram’s comic book series by writer/director Guy Ritchie (RocknRolla) starring Robert Downey Jr. as the titular detective, with Jude Law stepping into the shoes of his sidekick, Dr. Watson. Heading up the rest of the cast are RocknRolla’s Mark Strong as the film’s villain, Blackwood, and Rachel McAdams portraying the love interest, Irene Adler.

The eagerly awaited 17th feature by one of the world’s leading directors, Pedro Almodóvar (Volver, Talk to Her), is a lavish melodrama tinged with humor, showcasing the spectacular talents of Penélope Cruz. The story is told in flashback by Harry Caine (Lluís Homar, Bad Education), a blind screenwriter, who reveals that before an auto accident took his sight and the life of his love, he was the famous director Mateo Blanc. He had fallen in love with his leading lady, Lena (Cruz), who had made a startling metamorphosis from secretary and bereaved daughter to sought-after movie star when the ruthless industrialist Ernesto Martel (José Luis Gómez) became her lover and patron. The film Mateo is making with Lena (for which the jealous Martel insists on being producer) is a kinky comedy called Girls and Suitcases, reminiscent of Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown. As Mateo and Lena try to get away together for a romantic tryst, Martel’s gay son is constantly following and videotaping them for a “making of” feature—which Martel uses for surveillance (even getting a lip reader to decode the lovers’ conversations).

From Jason Reitman, the Oscar® nominated director of “Juno,” comes a comedy called “Up in the Air” starring Oscar® winner George Clooney as Ryan Bingham, a corporate downsizing expert whose cherished life on the road is threatened just as he is on the cusp of reaching ten million frequent flyer miles and just after he’s met the frequent-traveler woman of his dreams.

Set among a small circle of friends and neighbors in a Parisian suburb, 35 Shots of Rum is a gloriously delicate and sublime new film from the great French filmmaker Claire Denis (Beau Travail, Chocolat). Lionel (Alex Descas), a metro conductor, lives with his daughter Josephine (Mati Diop), a beautiful university student, in a bustling apartment complex. They have been sharing the same space for many years and have grown accustomed to one another’s company. Josephine has begun spending time with Noé (Grégoire Colin), a handsome young neighbor, while Lionel is being drawn into a romance with a longtime friend, taxi driver Gabrielle (Nicole Dogué). As their lives are pulled in different directions, father and daughter realize they must confront a painful aspect of their past in order to embrace what lies ahead. Sumptuously shot by frequent Denis collaborator Agnès Godard, this warm, funny and enchanting film casts a lovely spell unlike any other movie this year. Original music by Tindersticks (Denis’s Trouble Every Day and Nénette and Boni).

An Education is the story of a teenage girl’s coming-of-age set in 1961 London, a city caught between the drab, post-war 1950s and the glamorous, more liberated decade to come. Jenny (Carey Mulligan) stands on the brink of becoming a woman: a brilliantly witty and attractive 16-year-old whose suburban life is about to be blown apart by the utterly unsuitable 30-something David (Peter Sarsgaard). Urbane and witty, David manages to charm her conservative parents Jack (Alfred Molina) and Marjorie (Cara Seymour). David introduces Jenny to a glittering new world of classical concerts and late-night suppers with his attractive friend and business partner, Danny (Dominic Cooper) and Danny’s girlfriend, the beautiful but vacuous Helen (Rosamund Pike). Just as Jenny’s family’s long-held dream of getting their brilliant daughter into Oxford seems within reach, Jenny is tempted by another kind of life. Written by Nick Hornby (About a Boy, High Fidelity) and directed by Lone Scherfig (Italian for Beginners).

In 1966, BBC radio broadcasts less than an hour of pop music a day, forcing pirate DJs to take up the slack from boats anchored outside British waters. Quentin (Bill Nighy) is the commander of such a pirate station, overseeing a host of seedy, lusty and dope-smoking DJs, including the Count (Philip Seymour Hoffman) and Dave (Nick Frost), who makes it his personal mission to see to it that Quentin’s newly arrived godson (Tom Sturridge) loses his virginity.