UPFRONT/WATCH
History, Made Epic
New movies dramatize important people and moments of the past
THE COLOR PURPLE
In theaters December 25
• This adaptation of the hit Broadway musical adds a dash of magical realism to a fiction deeply rooted in the reality of rural Georgia in the early 1900s.
Inspired by the Pulitzer-winning novel by Alice Walker, 79
FERRARI
In theaters December 25
• Miami Vice producer Michael Mann, 80, directs a biopic about Enzo Ferrari (Adam Driver) in 1957, when his motorists risked their lives to win a 1,000-mile race and save his company.
Inspired by the tumultuous life of champion Grand Prix driver turned legendary automaker Ferrari
FREUD’S LAST SESSION
In theaters December 22
• The film’s debate between Sigmund Freud (Anthony Hopkins, 85) and C.S. Lewis (Downton Abbey’s Matthew Goode) never happened, but it illuminates their ideas about God, Freud’s gay daughter and Lewis’ love for his dead friend’s mom.
Inspired by psychoanalysis founder Freud and Christian writer and literary scholar Lewis
THE ZONE OF INTEREST
In theaters December 15
• The year’s most-buzzed-about foreign actress, Sandra Hüller, plays the “Queen of Auschwitz,” the wife of Nazi commander Rudolf Höss (Christian Friedel), who tends to her kids in an Edenic garden lit by the crematoria yards away. —Tim Appelo
Loosely based on Martin Amis’ novel of the same name, inspired by Höss
ALSO PLAYING
Two new movies with A-list talents cast light on society’s troubles
LEAVE THE WORLD BEHIND
In theaters; on Netflix December 8
Producers Barack and Michelle Obama present a thriller about a couple (Julia Roberts, 57, and Ethan Hawke, 53), their ritzy Airbnb host (Mahershala Ali) and a doomsday prepper (Kevin Bacon, 65) whose paranoia seems appropriate as a massive cyberattack devastates America. They’re on their own—but will they turn on each other?
AMERICAN FICTION
In theaters December 15
In a barbed comedy that’s also a heartwarming drama, curmudgeonly professor and author Thelonious “Monk” Ellison (Jeffrey Wright, 58) writes a book satirizing every urban gangsta stereotype he hates. He’s aghast when it becomes a bestseller with a multimillion-dollar movie deal, as he struggles to find a nursing home for his mom (Leslie Uggams, 80), who has dementia. —Tim Appelo