Eric Lavallée

Promising a much darker interpretation of the Charlotte Bronte classic, this fresh coat of paint to a film that has been remade one too many times comes from a director whose debut film announced the arrival of one extremely talented filmmaker. Focus Features quickly signed him up for Sin Nombre and did the same with this Brit List project which will only confirm his visual prose and strong sense of story-telling. Oh and Mia Wasikowska, Michael Fassbender, Judi Dench, Imogen Poots, Sally Hawkins and Jamie Bell make up the cast giving a robust reason to look forward to the beginning of the year movie options.

An indie addiction drama from the director who gave us My Sister's Keeper, The Notebook and John Q? Yup - the Cassavetes name can now be re-associated with independent film. Alpha Dog (the first time where I really took notice of Ben Foster) was Nick Cassavetes' more significant film of his filmography, and my thinking is with a rather large ensemble pitching in and a reunion with Foster for this to generate plenty of buzz.

A top 2009 Brit List project, John Madden's reunion with Judi Dench (Mrs Brown) should count for plenty and the rest of the cast (Bill Nighy, Maggie Smith, Dev Patel and Tom Wilkinson) should elevate this into the status of a bold, full spirited adult dramedy. It could be the project that makes us forget about Madden's horrible track record and this includes everything from Shakespeare in Love and up.

I had this listed on last year's list, and the extra wait can only mean the auteur is fine-tuning the project. Here is what I wrote one year back: not a remake of Murnau's 1926 film, but the closing chapter in Sokurov's grouping of four films under the theme of corruption is an absolute must for film snobs.

Time travel films are more often than not a sub-genre that hardly work...but this might just be this or next year's Inception for art-house patrons. Re-teaming with Joseph Gordon-Levitt and casting a strong threesome in Bruce Willis, Emily Blunt and Paul Dano, what I like best about Johnson (and it's obvious in a filmography that only consists of a high school film noir debut and caper comedy) is the convergence of unique storytelling and an obvious passion for the 7th art, sort of like what we find among filmmakers such as Guillermo del Toro.