Reunited for the first time since Titanic, Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio play '50s-era marrieds in Revolutionary Road, adapted by Sam Mendes (Winslet's husband) from Richard Yates' 1961 novel. But this time they're a mismatch; watching them scrap feels like a ringside seat at the Golden Gloves with Michael Shannon as ref.
In Ron Howard's smartly suspenseful Frost/Nixon, Michael Sheen and Frank Langella reprise their roles in the 2007 Broadway battle of wits between a disgraced but wily U.S. president and the Brit TV host pressing him to admit his guilt. Langella, who won a Tony for his take on Tricky Dick, will need that tux for Oscar night.
Darren Aronofsky's The Wrestler is an emotional powerhouse, thanks to the egoless brilliance of its star. Playing an aging showman-athlete called Randy "the Ram" Robinson, Mickey Rourke makes this battered bull of a man a figure of such towering pathos, it's as if he contains all human frailty and suffering.