Other holiday movies coming up:

•  “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” (Dec. 14): Peter Jackson, who did alright with the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy, continues his J.R.R. Tolkien adventure with the tale of Bilbo Baggins and the lost Dwarf Kingdom of Erebor. The cast includes Orlando Bloom, Hugo Weaving, Cate Blanchett and Elijah Wood.

•  “Zero Dark Thirty” (Dec. 19): Director Kathryn Bigelow’s follow-up to her Oscar-winning “Hurt Locker” charts the real-life Navy SEAL mission to get Osama Bin Laden. Maybe this film, starring Joel Edgerton, Kyle Chandler and Chris Pratt, will attract the wide audience that eluded “The Hurt Locker” but shouldn’t have.

•  “This is 40” (Dec. 21): A kinda sorta sequel to “Knocked Up,” director Judd Apatow’s comedy reorients his relationship compass to focus on the characters, now older and wiser, played by Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann.

•  “Les Miserables” (Dec. 25): A full generation after its London, Broadway and global triumph, the musical about a loaf of bread, a jug of human kindness and a whole lotta squalor has been movie-musicalized, starring Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe, Anne Hathaway and Amanda Seyfried. Tom Hooper, Oscar winner for “The King’s Speech,” directs.

•  “Django Unchained” (Dec. 25): You can deal with the injustice of slavery the legislative, painstaking way, a la “Lincoln,” or you can turn Quentin Tarantino loose on a flamboyant revenge fantasy starring Jamie Foxx, Leonardo DiCaprio, Samuel L. Jackson and Christoph Waltz.

Chicago Tribune