While Christmas bells are ringing this season, if history holds true cash registers at multiplexes across the country will be humming along. All the major studios will be unveiling their year-end ornaments, all aspiring to be placed atop the lucrative box office tree. For the film industry knows that the best antidote to those awkward family moments (especially after the first semester of a young elf’s first year at Harvard) is an escape to the cinema, a place where folks can forget about shopping and little Jimmy’s bad grades and get lost with a neurotic Russell Crowe, or Gandalf, Frodo and some pesky rings. This year will prove no different—audiences have the same variety of Oscar hopefuls and escapist blockbusters to offset their burning desire to drown yuletide angst with too much eggnog. The following are some of the standouts for this season.

Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring December 19 No introduction is required for this giant-budget production of J.R.R. Tolkien’s epochal first installment of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. New Line Cinema and director Peter Jackson took a huge gamble when they decided to film all three books back-to-back over a grueling 18 months of production, with a rumored $300 million budget and a juicy Christmas release for the films over a period of three years. With no major stars (does anyone remember Elijah Wood?) and a premise that is decidedly unfriendly to the box office, the studio is relying on the fact that humankind has become quite familiar with the story that invented the fantasy genre. Think Star Wars: Episode 1 with a better cast and a better director, and you might come close to realizing the hype behind this one. An absolute must-see.

The Majestic December 21 After two consecutive adaptations of serialized Stephen King prison novels, crowd-pleasing director Frank Darabont once again enters the world of the uplifting. The Majestic tells the story of Peter Appleton (Jim Carrey), a blacklisted Hollywood screenwriter who loses his memory in a car accident. Appleton finds himself in a small California town, and is mistaken for the lost son of Harry Trimble (Martin Landau). Here he joins the task of revamping an old movie theatre, The Majestic, along with rediscovering himself, finding true love and other such escapades, such as evading the Communist hunters who eventually track him down. Darabont is the classic Hollywood emotional manipulator, and usually he is able to transcend convention in his films just enough to forgive their cheesiness. However, though he has the always-lovable Jim Carrey at his disposal, he doesn’t have a clever, magical Stephen King story to float the film. The Majestic may not be the season’s most exciting attraction, due to its cardboard cut-out plot, but nonetheless it’s worth a look—Darabont and Carrey together could very well surprise. Think of it as Truman’s Red Scare Show.

A Beautiful Mind December 21, Limited Release Russell Crowe, Hollywood womanizer and enemy of adoring fans everywhere, comes back in yet another massive starring role. This time, rather than donning battle armor or a gray wig, Crowe picks up a ballpoint and a serious case of geeky neurosis to fill the shoes of John Forbes Nash, Jr., a math prodigy who, after a ground-breaking discovery early in his career, developed a process known as game theory and won the Nobel Prize after years of battling with schizophrenia. With Mr. Hit-and-Miss Ron Howard directing, the craftsman of trash like Far and Away and gems like Apollo 13, A Beautiful Mind has the potential to be an edgy, revealing biographical portrait. It also has the possibility of being uplifting, pretentious garbage. Only a Christmas Day outing will tell.

Ali December 25 Here’s an odd couple: Will Smith and Michael Mann, the filmmaker whose seriously heavy hand has a tendency to violently beat the intellect of audiences. “Forget what you think you know,” the tagline for Ali, seems to be the line for Mann’s career, which includes The Last of the Mohicans and the brilliant Insider. This time around, Mann tackles the controversial life of boxer Muhammad Ali (Smith) in a biopic that covers the decade from the 1964 championship to the “Rumble in the Jungle” with George Foreman in 1974. Mann’s stylings aside, the real test of Ali’s worth will be whether or not Smith can pull it off. Perennially thought to be underestimated, Smith’s demeanor seems appropriate, but his past performances (think Wild, Wild West) do not elucidate remembrances of conviction or effectiveness. Regardless, Mann’s psychotically controlled direction and careful writing are sure to pick up the potential slack. It’s a bargain, but a sure-fire hit with audiences.

With this selection, along with stale leftovers from Thanksgiving (like the grossly disappointing yet massively popular Harry Potter), Christmas is going to be a fun-filled movie season, even if the economy is depressed and all anyone buys is undergarments. Of course, in retrospect, even Home Alone 18 would be appealing at this point, coming off one of Hollywood’s worst years ever. Who can remember a worse year than the one where the meaty offerings were unequivocally over-cooked Christmas hams like Pearl Harbor and The Mummy Returns, and one great film (Spielberg’s A.I.) that everyone hated? Furthermore, who ever thought that Tim Burton would make a truly, undeniably unwatchable film (Planet of the Apes)? Please, save us Santa. Repeat viewings of It’s a Wonderful Life are indeed wondrous, but some chestnuts can roast for only so long.