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MOVIES: 10 NOT TO MISS

Release dates are tentative; watch the Coming Soon column in Tempo Movies for updates.

‘MIRACLE AT ST. ANNA’

Opening Sept. 26

Spike Lee goes to war: Set in 1944 Tuscany, James McBride’s adaptation of his own World War II novel follows a group of soldiers from the 92nd “Buffalo Soldier” Division who find themselves in the village of St. Anna di Stazzema behind enemy lines. The fate of an orphan boy taken under one Army grunt’s wing hangs in the balance.

‘APPALOOSA’

Oopening Oct. 3

In his second time behind the camera, director and actor Ed Harris brings the Robert B. Parker western novel to the screen. Harris and co-star Viggo Mortensen (his “History of Violence” adversary) star as two friends protecting a mining town from the murderous grip of a rancher. Jeremy Irons and Renee Zellweger round out the cast. Here’s hoping this labor of love (Harris also co-wrote and co-produced) brings back the western genre in style.

‘BODY OF LIES’

Opening Oct. 10

A-hunting we will go: Leonardo DiCaprio and Russell Crowe star in director Ridley Scott’s tale of CIA operatives on the trail of a Jordanian terrorist. The script is by William Monahan, whose tough-guy argot won him a much-deserved Oscar for “The Departed.” Iranian actress Golshifte Farahani co-stars.

‘W.’

O pening Oct. 17

Josh Brolin plays George W. Bush, the oilman turned politician, in director Oliver Stone’s biopic. Interesting timing, what with the election and all.

‘HAPPY-GO-LUCKY’

Opening Oct. 24

The latest tale of working-class Brits trying to make sense of their options, from writer-director Mike Leigh. The film stars Sally Hawkins (in an exquisitely nerve-racking turn) as an ebullient London schoolteacher who meets her Waterloo in an angry driving instructor (Eddie Marsan). Both performances just may turn up on certain shortlists come Academy Award nominations time.

‘BALLAST’

Opening Oct. 31

This beautiful little picture won the best director award at last year’s Sundance Film Festival. Directed with supreme understatement by Lance Hammer, it examines the effect of one man’s suicide on various family members and the uneasy makeshift family that emerges in the aftermath. Like “Frozen River,” which showed us a rarely dramatized corner of poverty-line America, this Mississippi Delta story really takes you somewhere.

‘QUANTUM OF SOLACE’

Opening Nov. 14 The newest James Bond movie and the second starring Daniel Craig, comes from director Marc Forster (“Finding Neverland,” “Stranger Than Fiction”). It has a long way to go to beat the satisfactions of “Casino Royale,” but here’s hoping.

‘MILK’

Opening Dec. 5 Gus Van Sant directs this biopic of San Francisco supervisor Harvey Milk, America’s first openly gay official elected to a major post who was martyred by former San Francisco Board of Supervisors pol Dan White. The killer’s defense team used the now-infamous “Twinkie defense” to excuse the junk food-fueled assassination. Sean Penn plays Milk; Josh Brolin is White.

‘FROST/NIXON’

Opening Dec. 5

From the writer of “The Queen” comes director Ron Howard’s adaptation of the popular Peter Morgan play, hinging on the interviews TV personality David Frost (Michael Sheen, who played Tony Blair in “The Queen”) conducted with disgraced but eternally wily ex-president Richard Nixon (Frank Langella).

‘THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL’

Opening Dec. 12

The 1951 science-fiction classic, reimagined for the age of digitized wows. Keanu Reeves and Jennifer Connelly trade their best looks of concern as our planet is threatened by a Being from Beyond.

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mjphillips@tribune.com