By Garrick Hoffman, Liberal Studies Major

As a cinemaphile, I rarely get excited for films.

I’m not sure if it’s because the state of Hollywood is just like Bob Dylan’s music now (dull and boring; commence my tar-and-feathering for disparaging Dylan) and that all the skilled screenwriters flocked over to television, or if it’s just me being a cowardly film lover, but I just don’t get excited for films like I used to. But that’s different now that I’ve read about some upcoming films and saw their trailers. Wanna know which ones?

Yeah you do.

The Revenant (Director: Alejandro G. Iñárritu, starring Leonardo DiCaprio)

Release date: December 25, 2015

This Western thriller, based on the 2002 book of the same name by Michael Punke, surrounds Hugh Glass, a fur trapper who is viciously attacked by a bear while hunting. His comrades betray him by robbing him and leaving him for dead, then murder his son. The Revenant follows Glass on his vindictive expedition to achieve revenge.

The film has such an ominous, shadowy appearance to it that I’m deeply attracted to, and combined with the acting and the directorial prowess, we can expect a good one. DiCaprio especially has continuously proved to audiences that he selects his films very…well…selectively, and that if the world of film was like the NFL, he’d be playing in the Pro-Bowl every year. The dude cannot make bad movies.

The Hateful Eight (Director: Quentin Tarantino, starring a whole cast of “stactors,” or “star actors”)

Release date: December 25, 2015

I just used the term “directorial prowess,” but maybe I should have saved that one for Tarantino.

It’s been three years (that is, three Christmases) ago since the release of a Tarantino flick, and when has Tarantino ever let us down? The Hateful Eight is, similar to The Revenant, a Western flick starring all sorts of “stactors,” including Sam Jackson, Kurt Russell, and Michael Madsen.

The plot either comes off as very straightforward or a bit ambiguous. In Tarantino’s words, “It’s eight people who are totally f*cking hateful …There’s not a good guy or woman in it. There’s no hero. It’s eight hateful people are trapped in this one stagecoach stopover during a three-day blizzard and watching them deal with their issues.”

Snowden (Director: Oliver Stone, starring Joseph Gordon-Leavitt)

Release date: May 13, 2016 (formerly on Christmas)

In 2013, Edward Snowden, a CIA contractor, went from a fairly simple family man to America’s most wanted man after he leaked scores upon scores of classified government documents that revealed the insidious behaviors of the NSA.

Now Oliver Stone, famous for his politically-oriented films (such as one of his hallmarks, JFK), has taken the helm to direct and write Snowden, another politically-oriented film that serves as a thriller and a biography of Edward Snowden. The film stars Joseph Gordon-Leavitt as Snowden, Zachary Quinto as journalist Glenn Greenwald, and Melissa Leo and documentarian Laura Poitras, who directed Citizenfour, a documentary on the events leading to and following Snowden’s leaks.

Now, can you see why I’m so eager to get to the silver screen in the coming months?