25 films to see this fall

The Skin I Live In
We expect art-cinema giant Pedro Almodóvar to stun us on a regular basis with his spiky color palette and warm women. Yet we can’t help but salute him for taking a risk: a chiller about a snapped plastic surgeon (Antonio Banderas).—JR (Oct 14)

The Thing
Set in Antarctica a week before Kurt Russell battled aliens in John Carpenter’s 1982 shocker, this prequel sounds like a throwback to the salad days of gloopy, isolationist horror. The filmmakers might be messing with perfection, but let’s give them a pass for now.—JR (Oct 14)

We Can’t Go Home Again
This legendary experimental movie from Nicholas Ray—made in conjunction with his students at SUNY Binghamton during the early ’70s—gets a rare, one-night-only screening, courtesy of Film Forum. Is this foray into free-form metafiction a masterpiece or simply rebellion without a cause? Fans can finally see for themselves.—DF (Oct 17)

Martha Marcy May Marlene
Elizabeth “Don’t call me Mary-Kate and Ashley’s sister” Olsen sprints out of the gate with an incredible performance, as a young woman entangled with a religious cult run by a Manson-ish figure (Winter’s Bone’s John Hawkes, beyond creepy). She eventually decides to hightail it off the compound—and that’s when the real trouble starts.—DF (Oct 21)

The Rum Diary
Not content to play only one Hunter S. Thompson avatar, superfan Johnny Depp goes Gonzo again with this adaptation of Thompson’s early semiautobiographical novel, about a journalist bumming around Puerto Rico in the 1950s. The fact that Withnail & I’s Bruce Robinson is directing sweetens the deal substantially.—DF (Oct 28)