Natalie Portman and Chris Hemsworth return for “Thor: The Dark World.”
Credit: Disney/Marvel
1. ‘Thor: The Dark World’
Now that he has that “Avengers” business taken care of, Chris Hemsworth’s retro alpha male god tries to reconnect with his boo (Natalie Portman), all while fighting off a new batch of baddies.
2. ‘The Book Thief’
The latest bestseller that will make for a hard sell to audiences is Markus Zusak’s tome about an orphan (Sophie Nelisse) living in Nazi Germany. Geoffrey Rush and Emily Watson play her foster parents.
3. ‘Great Expectations’
Previously adapted for the big screen into a ‘90s Ethan Hawke mope-a-thon (albeit a pretty one, by “Gravity” director Alfonso Cuaron), Charles Dickens’ novel gets a more traditional, period-specific take, with Helena Bonham Carter as Miss Havisham and Ralph Fiennes as Magwich.
4. ‘The Armstrong Lie’
Last seen tackling WikiLeaks with “We Steal Secrets,” absurdly prolific documentarian Alex Gibney takes on Lance Armstrong’s doping scandal.
5. ‘How I Live Now’
The ubiquitous Saoirse Ronan headlines this grim what-if, playing a teen who arrives in the English countryside just in time for the U.K. to turn into a violent military state.
6. ‘At Berkeley’
Documentarian Frederick Wiseman is 81 years old and still averages one probing documentary a year. As ever, his cameras hang back to watch an institution at work, in this case a college with a long history of student protests.
7 . ‘Go for Sisters’
It’s been awhile since John Sayles (“Lone Star”) made a film many people paid attention to. Hopefully someone will check out his quite good latest: a character-driven mystery starring Lisa Gay Hamilton, Edward James Olmos and Yolanda Ross.
8. ‘The Motel Life’
Emile Hirsch and Stephen Dorff play brothers who go on the road after being involved in a hit-and-run that proved fatal.
9. ‘Ender’s Game’
Sci-fi legend Orson Scott Card may be a massive homophobe, but he’s a talented massive homophobe, whose most famous book — about a boy (Asa Butterfield) being trained for war — is the latest would-be space spectacular.
10. ‘Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa’
Spinning off from the “Jackass” franchise, Johnny Knoxville gives his geriatric character Irving Zisman a game young grandson (Jackson Nicoll), sending them around America, “Borat”-style.
