James Bond, Abe Lincoln, and some heavyweights of classic literature will all make it to the big screen this fall.
Disney/WB/FilmDistrict/Focus Features/WB
It's been a long, strange, explosion-filled ride, but another summer blockbuster season has come to an end. As August draws to a close, we put aside our threequels and superheroes—some for now and some for good (so long, Christian Bale's Batman; see you in 2015, Avengers). But, happily, there's no time in the cinematic calendar quite like autumn, when studios start eying Oscar nominations. If summer is a time for Abraham Lincoln to fight vampires, autumn is a time for Abraham Lincoln to give long, dignified speeches.
But it's not all Oscar bait, either. Though there are plenty of intelligent, adult-oriented period dramas on the horizon, there are also time-traveling assassins, wayward video-game characters, and kung-fu masters who can change their bodies into iron. Here are the 20 most promising films yet to be released in 2012:
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