To be a movie released this fall, you really should star Jessica Chastain, Reese Witherspoon, and/or Benedict Cumberbatch; contain a subplot about a romantically dying or missing teen; and feature walk-ons (in voice-over, at least) from Kristen Wiig, Steve Carell, and the Affleck of your choice. There will be a lot of jostling in the lead-up to those bigger releases at Christmas—or, as we in the liberal media call it, Satan’s Favourite Holiday. So please check your Mayan calendars for tremors that could rearrange the titles below.

September 26

Kristen Wiig and Bill Hader are The Skeleton Twins, siblings who come together tentatively after a suicide attempt. Ben Kingsley leads a voice cast in The Boxtrolls, a stop-motion-animated take on the kidbook Here Be Monsters. Simon Pegg looks for meaning in Hector & The Search for Happiness. Downton Abbey’s Dan Stevens plays a soldier with a questionable past in The Guest, and secret-ops agent Denzel Washington is The Equalizer. The doc David Bowie Is takes you on a guided London-museum tour, and IMAX explores the Hidden Universe 3D.

October 3

Ben Affleck is accused of having murdered missing wife Rosamund Pike in David Fincher’s much-anticipated Gone Girl. Adam Sandler plays it straight in Jason Reitman’s multi-generational Men, Women & Children. From Sweden comes the offbeat 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared, and a Chinese road trip is taken by comic Breakup Buddies. Yo, Chucky: move over for the doll-faced Annabelle.

October 10

Gravity fans can go Interstellar in Christopher Nolan’s big space opera, starring Matthew McConaughey and Jessica Chastain, among others. Viggo Mortensen, Kirsten Dunst, and Oscar Isaac form a dangerous triangle in a new version of Patricia Highsmith’s The Two Faces of January. Ex-Outkaster André Benjamin plays the pre-fame Hendrix in John Ridley’s well-received Jimi: All Is by My Side. Steve Carell is the dad in Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, while Robert Downey Jr. is prodigal son to The Judge, played by Robert Duvall. Jeremy Renner’s a rogue reporter in Kill the Messenger. A young wife is Addicted to cheating and Dracula Untold looks not unfamiliar.

October 17

Michael Keaton’s an ex-superhero in Birdman. Brad Pitt says “tanks” to another round of WWII in Fury. Canada’s Prince of Pot gets profiled in the locally made Citizen Marc. A black, female DJ tweaks collegiate PCers in the satirical Dear White People, and Annie gets a multiculti reboot. Musical polymath Nick Cave marks 20,000 Days on Earth, Africans and Cubans explore common musical roots in They Are We, and we get concertized by Bjork: Biophilia Live. Zoe Saldana leads the animated voice cast for The Book of Life, romance is afoot in The Best of Me, and youths face the end of earth in These Final Hours. Shirley MacLaine and Christopher Plummer are Elsa & Fred. (What more do you need to know?). And an unsung heroine of prewar Chinese literature is celebrated in The Golden Era.

October 24

A budding jazz drummer struggles with his tough mentor in Whiplash. Reese Witherspoon helps Sudanese refugees in The Good Lie. Well-known saint Bill Murray plays St. Vincent, a cranky neighbour to Melissa McCarthy. And Keanu Reeves is John Wick, a hit man on the run. Hopefully, you won’t get bored by Ouija, or by Chloë Grace Moretz and Keira Knightley when the lassies square off in Laggies.

October 31

Julianne Moore is a fading, Sunset Boulevard legend in David Cronenberg’s Maps to the Stars. Nicole Kidman gets scared in Before I Go to Sleep, perhaps because Daniel Radcliffe grows Horns. Japan’s animated Studio Ghibli returns with The Tale of Princess Kaguya.

November 7

And there’s more animation with Big Hero 6.

November 14

Jeff Daniels and Jim Carrey rebound for Dumb and Dumber To while Eddie Redmayne is the young Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything. Belle’s Gugu Mbatha-Raw goes all Beyoncé while heading Beyond the Lights.

November 21

No explanation needed for The Hunger Games: Mockingjay—Part 1. A Canadian woman turns her Heartbeat into song while Tommy Lee Jones is an old-West claim jumper in The Homesman.

November 28:

Playing against type, Foxcatcher’s Steve Carell looks down his nose as wealthy murderer John DuPont. The Penguins of Madagascar is an aviary toon-off of you-know-what. An Alpine avalanche is the Force Majeur in this deft Swedish thriller. And that whole damn cast punches the clock for Horrible Bosses 2.

December 5

Reese Witherspoon goes Wild in this adaptation of the Cheryl Strayed memoir (which should have been called Strayed, right?). Chinese romance goes hi-tech in Love on a Cloud, and you’ll be crying for your mummy during The Pyramid.

Other titles to watch for this fall: Nic Cage is Left Behind by the Rapture, Jake Gyllenhal is a Nightcrawler among crime journalists, there are angry spirits in Jessabelle, while Israel and Palestine face off yet again in The Green Prince. Canadian teens try to escape technology in Hard Drive, Vancouver’s Ali Larter stars in You’re Not You, singer Paul Potts is given the biopic treatment in One Chance, and Billy Crudup is a Rudderless musician in William H. Macy’s directorial debut.