An unexpected teenage pregnancy, a lightning strike that reverses the aging process, the unexpected discovery of an oil well in late-19th-century California: Forget any notion of subtle, intimate Oscar hopefuls. This winter, it’s going to be a battle among the big and the bold, all vying to wow critics and audiences with stories of lives brought to the brink. That said, the Oscar conversation might just be dominated by three titles that no one has heard much about. The first springs from the imagination of Jason Reitman, who directed the sarcastic (some said superficial) 2006 comedy “Thank You for Smoking.” His new film, “Juno,” is every bit as funny, but also more sincere in the way it treats the fear percolating beneath the surface of its teenage heroine, who regards her unexpected pregnancy as so many teenagers might regard their first speeding ticket: an inconvenience to be sure, but nothing they can’t handle. Starring the smart-alecky, sardonic, and subtly vulnerable Ellen Page, “Juno” takes Mr. Reitman’s razor-sharp wit to more genuine heights.

If “Juno” features this year’s breakthrough performance, then “Youth Without Youth” (December 14) heralds the year’s most anticipated return. Francis Ford Coppola’s film tells the story of an elderly professor of linguistics (Tim Roth) who finds himself growing younger after being struck by lightning. Convinced that he can now complete his life’s work (which entails searching for the very first language of the human species), he falls in love with a young woman (Alexandra Maria Lara) who begins channeling ancient languages, working backward each night toward that primordial dialect. Paul Thomas Anderson may not be in the Coppola class, but his own comeback, “There Will Be Blood” (December 26), has fans abuzz. Mr. Anderson’s follow-up to “Magnolia” and “Punch-Drunk Love” stars Daniel Day-Lewis (whose rare appearances on movie screens are enough to fill seats) as an oil prospector who discovers the first of several mines in the barren California countryside at the turn of the 20th century. Based on Upton Sinclair’s novel “Oil!,” “There Will Be Blood” chronicles the ascent of oil to the definitive commodity of the American West.

November 21

THE MIST

All things considered, Hollywood has a pretty good batting average when it comes to adapting Stephen King material, as does director Frank Darabont, whose renown rests almost solely on his adaptation of Mr. King’s short story “The Shawshank Redemption.” But unlike the lengthy monologues that make up that prison drama, there appears to be less chitchat than chaos in “The Mist,” a thriller about a rural Maine town that finds itself bombarded one night by violent thunderstorms, and the next morning by a mysterious mist that serves as home to some supernatural force that kills anything in its path. As a group of townsfolk barricade themselves inside a supermarket, the story becomes less about the dangers outside than those on the inside, in the way that panic and fanaticism can ignite a self-destructive version of mob mentality and fan it into an inferno.

I’M NOT THERE

The liveliest room at this year’s New York Film Festival featured a full house that lined up early in anticipation of Todd Haynes’s “I’m Not There” — anticipation that almost immediately broke down into two circles: a group of disappointed film critics and a group of delighted Bob Dylan fans (this was the first film that earned Mr. Dylan’s approval to use his music). Mr. Haynes scrambles the format of the conventional biopic, chopping up the chapters of Mr. Dylan’s life and casting six different actors to play the varying personalities that marked the movements of his career. With each movement making use of a different aesthetic, and each actor bringing a different interpretation of the icon, Mr. Haynes’s experiment is heavy on analysis but far removed from the straightforward, Oscar-friendly likes of “Ray” or “Walk the Line.”

November 30

THE SAVAGES

The trauma faced by middle-aged children of parents who can no longer take care of themselves, and the decisions they have to make regarding what to do with them, are relatively unexamined in Hollywood. A generation ago, grandma and grandpa moved in with their children and grandchildren. But today those duties have been taken over by nursing homes and assisted living centers.

Hence the dilemma facing Laura Linney and Philip Seymour Hoffman, who learn that their father is drifting deeper into the fog of dementia, and who must fly out to Arizona to bring him back to a Northeast nursing home. Directed by Tamara Jenkins (“Slums of Beverly Hills”), “The Savages” is about coming to grips with the pain in a family’s past, coping with the stress and confusion of the present, and about an aimless, detached brother and sister uniting in concern for a wayward parent.

THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY

“Diving Bell” is the tale of a man trapped inside himself, told from the perspective of the drowning prisoner, screaming out to be heard. Julian Schnabel’s film is based on the real story of editor Jean-Dominique Bauby, who suffered a powerful stroke at age 43 and awoke to find that no muscle in his body would respond to his still-active mind except for his right eyelid. The film re-creates the inspiring, letter-by-letter drafting of Bauby’s memoir, just as Mr. Schnabel (“Before Night Falls”) uses the editor’s confinement to offer a unique take on the essential, enigmatic nature of visual communication — not just that of our pupils, but of our mind’s eye.

December 7

ATONEMENT

In the span of just three weeks, a pair of classic novels will be released in big-screen form, starting with this weekend’s re-imagining of Gabriel García Márquez’s “Love in the Time of Cholera” and continuing on December 7 with Ian McEwan’s “Atonement.” Keira Knightley stars as Cecilia, a well-to-do older child of an elite British family in the summer of 1935. After she falls in love with a servant boy, the pair shares a romance that is wildly misconstrued by Cecilia’s younger sister, an aspiring writer who concocts a lie so vicious that it breaks two hearts with a single blow. As molded by director Joe Wright, the movie promises all the pomp and pageantry that Academy voters love to reward, beginning with a rural country romance and moving on to the battlefields of World War II.

GRACE IS GONE

The typically jovial John Cusack has chosen some unusual roles this year. This spring, he played a horror writer who is all but scared to death in the thriller “1408.” Then he played a heartbroken science-fiction writer and widower who adopts a shy and introverted young orphan in “Martian Child.” He pushes even further into his darker side with next month’s “Grace Is Gone,” a drama about a father who takes his daughters on an impromptu road trip after learning that his soldier wife has been killed in Iraq. A metaphor for a country that has yet to come to terms with the nearly 4,000 sons and daughters, mothers, and fathers lost to the war on terror, “Grace Is Gone” hopes to be the one war film this year that connects with mainstream audiences.

December 14

I AM LEGEND

Months ago, “I Am Legend” looked like little more than a summer blockbuster that had been misplaced in the year’s schedule. But recent buzz about the film suggests there may be more at stake here than special effects and disaster-film hysteria. Will Smith plays as a scientist who awakes to discover that he is the last man standing in New York City — perhaps the last human being left on the planet. He sets to the task of discovering why his blood is immune to the man-made virus that has decimated the rest of the species. Throw in a zombie subplot, complete with mutated victims of the virus who wait to pounce on the unwitting Mr. Smith, and you have a “War of the Worlds”/ “Independence Day”/”28 Days Later” cocktail, all dressed up in hopes of a serious awards-season debut.

THE KITE RUNNER

Before the scandal surrounding a critical rape scene delayed the film’s release, “The Kite Runner,” based on Khaled Hosseini’s popular novel, was poised to hit theaters prior to Thanksgiving, its sights set on a foreign film nomination. The film tells the decades-spanning story of two childhood friends — one the son of an estate’s owner and the other the child of the estate’s servant — who are driven apart at a young age by class differences and one boy’s shame over a sexual assault. A leap into the future finds the wealthy boy living in America, distraught to learn the news that his one-time friend has died and left behind a son to fend for himself in Afghanistan. Traveling overseas to save the boy, the American tries to right the wrongs of the past.

December 22

SWEENEY TODD: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street”

We’re a long way from of the steplines of “Chicago,” “Hairspray,” and “Dreamgirls.” This winter, Hollywood’s musical of choice is “Sweeney Todd,” brought to life by Tim Burton, with longtime collaborator Johnny Depp as the barber who sets out to murder all those who have wronged him. Few (if any) critics have seen the movie yet, so the list of questions remains: Will Mr. Burton imbue this musical with the same magic he brought to “Nightmare Before Christmas” and “Corpse Bride”? How will the big-screen adaptation alter Stephen Sondheim’s famous stage production? Are audiences eager for a live-action Christmas musical with “Demon” in the title?

December 25

CASSANDRA’S DREAM

As the years have ticked by, Woody Allen’s films have become less reliable as must-sees. But thanks to his 2005 sensation “Match Point” and his recent willingness to move outside his New York comedy comfort zone, Mr. Allen has rekindled the promise of further reinvention. In “Cassandra’s Dream,” the 71-year-old nebbish returns to gloomy London with a story of a woman who entices two brothers (Colin Farrell and Ewan McGregor) into a heist, then tries turning them against each other in a scheme to run off with the loot.

THE GREAT DEBATERS

Denzel Washington takes his second stab at directing with “The Great Debaters,” which explores the inspirational, real-life fairy tale of a college debate team that achieved the (supposedly) impossible. In 1935, professor Melvin B. Tolson(Mr. Washington)coached the Wiley College debate team in Mashall, Texas, leading them all the way to the national championship, were they went argument-to-argument against vaunted Harvard arguers. This year’s other big debate-themed film, the sadly overlooked “Rocket Science,” bombed at the box office. Then again, it didn’t have the star power or the major studio backing of MGM, which is pinning all its awards hopes right here.

ssnyder@nysun.com