Friday January 3 to Thursday January 9, 2014

“If there can be such a thing as a sweet, reflective fable about death and the Holocaust, The Book Thief is it. Based on the bestseller by Markus Zusak, the film tells the story of Liesel Meminger (Sophie Nélisse), a young girl left in the care of foster parents Hans Hubermann (Geoffrey Rush) and his strict laundress wife, Rosa (Emily Watson).

9 OSCAR NOMINATIONS INCLUDING BEST PICTURE, DIRECTOR & ACTOR

Steve McQueen's 12 Years a Slave stars Chiwetel Ejifor as Solomon Northup, a free black man in 1840s America. He makes his living as a fiddle player, and his wife is a teacher.

A somber, twisting and thoroughly engrossing police thriller (* * * 1/2 out of four), Prisoners focuses on a decent man who takes the law into his own hands and, in the process, loses his humanity.

3 OSCAR NOMINATIONS INCLUDING BEST ACTRESS & SCREENPLAY

After recent excursions to London, Paris, and Rome, Woody Allen shifts his focus back to American shores, following Cate Blanchett's New York housewife through a personal crisis that takes her to San Francisco. Alec Baldwin plays Blanchett's husband, whom the actor describes as ''a go-getter, hard-charging corporate type who wants to buy her everything and keep her happy.