A Guide to the Season's Competitors

8 1/2 Women Peter Greenaway attains new heights in tedium and adolescent art ideas in this affected, pointless riff on Fellini, harem-keeping, father-son incest, and Kabuki. Pity is all you feel for stripped-down stars Toni Collette, Polly Walker, and Amanda Plummer. May 26

Passion of Mind Alain Berliner last directed the ethereally loopy, heartbreaking Ma Vie en Rose, about a little boy who wants to be a girl. Now he makes his English-language debut with Demi Moore, the languishing star who wants to be an actress. Alain, our prayers are with you. May 26

Sunshine Ralph Fiennes does his brooding, obsessive thing in István Szabó's epic. Only he does it three times, playing three generations of a Hungarian Jewish family. Over the course of three hours. How big is your love? June 9

Love's Labor Lost Shakespeare's Public Enemy No. 1, Kenneth Branagh, pares down the verse to make room for '30s-style song-and-dance routines. It's tough to get Shakespeare's plays right, but tougher to warp them into such frenetic, mawkish, bloated palaver. June 9

Wonderland Michael Winter-bottom (whose credits include a murderous-lesbian road movie, a literary adaptation, and a war zone polemic) tries out the three-sister dysfunctional-family model most recently used by Todd Solondz. The film is unsentimental yet unfailingly generous, note-perfect in rendering the textures of urban life. July 28

Daddy and Them Billy Bob's white-trash valentine to Laura Dern has been moved three times over the course of a year, long enough for BBT to dump the old lady for Angelina Jolie. The tabloid subtext might help, but then again, the tabloids are probably all you need. August

Cecil B. Demented John Waters's cozily anarchic bit of summer counterprogramming bashes multiplex fare and takes jabs at Dogma (its band of Baltimore cine-terrorists undertake a Vow of Celibacy). Melanie Griffith is, as required, obliviously bad. August 11

On Freaks and Geeks

Shoadow Hours Peter Weller and Balthazar Getty trawl through an L.A. netherworld of sex, drugs, and performance art. July 14

The Opportunists In a twist of fate irrevocably proving the existence either of God or Satan, Christopher Walken and Cyndi Lauper are cast in the same film. It's a heist movie, if that's germane. August

Impostor Tireless Vincent D'Onofrio (also in The Celland Steal This Movie!) and Gary Sinise star in Gary Fleder's late-21st-century cat-and-mouse thriller. August 11

Loving Jezebel One of the new breed of "sensitive booty" come-dies, about a player's lifelong habit of balling his friends' girlfriends. Hill Harper takes the lead. August 18

Texas Rangers Not a big-screen run of the Chuck Norris show. But imagine this nightmare: a John Milius co-scripted semi-teen version of the creation of the post?Civil War Rangers, featuring Vincent Spano, James Van Der Beek, Ashton Kutcher, etc. August 25

The Crew More horrifying than the synopsis—four retired Mafiosos pull off one last job to save their failing nursing home—is the lineup: Burt Reynolds, Richard Dreyfuss, Seymour Cassel, and Dan Hedaya. Kill us now. August 25

Fast, Cheap, Hopefully Out of Control

Luminous Motion A 10-year-old, living on the road with his drifter mother (Deborah Kara Unger), hears voices and sees dead people (schizophrenia, not a sixth sense). May 19

Luminarias Looks like a feature-length episode of a Latina edition of The View. May 26

Thirteen The nonprofessional cast improvised many of their scenes in David Williams's portrait of a young girl as seen through the eyes of her mother. June 2

Groove Greg Harrison's Sundance fave is a well-intentioned document of the San Francisco rave scene, but the culture's E-fueled euphoria doesn't translate to the screen. Bring your own drugs. June 9

Jesus' Son: Alison Maclean's richly profane, dope-schizo version of the Denis Johnson novel about an amiable junkie named Fuckhead (Billy Crudup). Crudup eats up his first decent lead, but Jack Black, Denis Leary, Dennis Hopper, and Holly Hunter steal their scenes. June 16

Requiem For a DreamPi's Darren Aronofsky cashes in his mini-hit to adapt the Hubert Selby Jr. novel about junkiehood. Ellen Burstyn's the TV-addled mom, Jared Leto's the smacked-out son, and Jennifer Connelly and Marlon Wayans are his pals. June 16

Praise Chain-smoking asthmatic and eczema-plagued nymphoma-niac embark on intense, hermetic sexual affair. Discomfiting and mesmerizing, John Curran's Brisbane-set hothouse halluci-nation was a hit on the festival circuit two years ago. June 21

30 Days Aaron Harnick, star of Judy Berlin, turns writer-director for a solipsistic nebbish-shiksa romance that should, if nothing else, put a stop to Woody Allen rip-offs for a good long while. June 21

Getting to Know You Based on three Joyce Carol Oates stories, Lisanne Skyler's nuanced, astute, smartly structured debut boasts superb performances by Heather Matarazzo and Bebe Neuwirth and typically luminous cinematography by Jim Denault. June 28

The Broken Hearts League Gay rom-com hits rock bottom? Had the less butch title The Broken Hearts Clubat Sundance. July

The Five Senses Pompously schematic Canadian nonsense, connecting five people who, in some special way, See, Hear, Smell, Touch, and Taste. July 14

The Wisdom of Crocodiles Jude Law was previously too hot to live (in Talented Mr. Ripley). Now Jude Law (JUDE LAW!) plays a vampire hot to kill. To reiterate, this film stars JUDE LAW. July 14

Chuck and Buck Chris and Paul Weitz, the siblings behind American Pie, make their acting debut—will this buddy comedy be kin to Luke and Owen Wilson in Bottle Rocket or the brothers Sheen in Rated X? July 21