The 100 key films of 2013: Nos 71-80

Promised Land: Gus van Sant’s fracking-comes-to-suburbia story has gently rocked America, and looks set to premiere in Europe at the Berlin film festival. Matt Damon stars as the oil man in a moral quandary, and there’s gamey support from Frances McDormand, John Krasinski and Rosemarie DeWitt Photograph: PR

Queen of the Desert: He’s been churning out brilliant documentaries by the fistful (Grizzly Man, Into the Abyss, Cave of Forgotten Dreams) while managing to fit in a nasty villain acting job in the Jack Reacher, but Werner Herzog (above) hasn’t quite managed to reestablish his feature film directing career with the same panache as he displayed in the glory days of 70s New German Cinema. A biopic of Gertrude Bell, starring Naomi Watts and Robert Pattinson, is his latest attempt: Bell was an influential traveller, Arabist and secret diplomat in the British imperial possessions in the middle east – notably Iraq. No doubt Herzog sees her story as a way into understanding the current strife Photograph: Sebastien Nogier/AFP/Getty Images

The Railway Man: Still on his post-Kings Speech comedown, Colin Firth will be hoping this does rather better than the awful Gambit remake that emerged earlier this year. Based on Eric Lomax’s account of the torture he endured at the hands of the Japanese while working the Burma railway as a POW in the second world war, this will inevitably invite comparisons with the David Lean classic Bridge on the River Kwai; but the extra element is provided by Lomax’s reconciliation with his captors. Nicole Kidman plays his wife, Patti, who encouraged him to make the extraordinary step Photograph: Murdo Macleod/Murdo MacLeod

Romeo and Juliet: Julian Fellowes adapts the Shakey weepie for its latest big screen outing, with Hailee Steinfeld (True Grit) as Jules and Douglas Booth (razor-cheekboned Pip in last winter’s BBC adaptation of Great Expectations) as our hero. There’s eclectic support from Paul Giamatti as Friar Laurence, Stellan Skarsgård as the Prince of Verona, Damien Lewis as Lord Capulet and Lesley Manville as the Nurse. Young stars with smaller parts include Kodi Smit-McPhee as Benvolio and Chase Crawford as Tybalt Photograph: PR

The Rover: Few debut films have been so immediately impressive as David Michod’s Animal Kingdom (above), a brutal but somehow moving Australian gangster yarn. Three years on, Michod has put together his follow-up: a “futuristic western”, with Guy Pearce as a man whose sole possession, a car, is stolen by a gang of bandits; Robert Pattinson is one of the thieves who Pearce manages to enlist to help him. More than a dollop of Mad Max, we’d say … Photograph: Allstar/MAXIMUM FILMS/Sportsphoto Ltd./Allstar

Saving Mr Banks: The flood tide of films about film-making is mounting ever higher: with Hitchcock only just out of the way, here comes a study of the production of that cult classic... Mary Poppins. Yes, if you ever wanted to know the ins and outs of Chim Chim Cher-ee and Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, this is the film for you. Emma Thompson plays Australian author PL Travers on whose books the film was based; Tom Hanks is Walt Disney himself, angling to nail down the deal for what admittedly is one of the alltime family classics. (Mr Banks is the name of the kids’ father in the film, inspired by Travers’ own father.) Photograph: PR

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty: This is shaping up to be one of 2013’s big Christmas movies after a l-o-o-o-ng development process. A remake of the Danny Kaye hit from 1947, based on the classic short comic piece by James Thurber about the daydreaming suburbanite ("It's 40 kilometers through hell, sir," said the sergeant. Mitty finished one last brandy. "After all," he said softly, "what isn't?"). Ben Stiller is directing himself, his first outing in the chair since 2008’s Tropic Thunder Photograph: Aby Baker/Getty Images

Serena: Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper reunite after Silver Linings Playbook – but this doesn’t look like a sequel unless their SLP chemistry can be plausibly relocated to North Carolina in the Great Depression. Because that’s what’s on the menu for Serena: a timber merchant and his tough, domineering wife; their intense relationship goes awry when she discovers she can’t have children. Director is Danish Oscar winner Susanne Bier, expert in knotty psychodrama - here she is working from a novel by Ron Rash Photograph: PR

The Sessions: A poet in Berkeley in the 1970s who spends much of his time in an iron lung hires a professional sex surrogate to help him pop his cherry. Ben Lewin’s Sundance smash is set to capitalise on a brace of Golden Globe nominations (for lead John Hawkes, plus supporting actors Helen Hunt and William H Macy), and hopefully convert a couple to Oscar nods. Despite the potentially salacious pitch, this is delicate, witty, restrained movie-making that moves, wrongfoots and pulls back when you least expect it Photograph: PR

Side Effects: Steven Soderbergh was supposed to be retiring, but there’s no sign of it yet. This thriller, originally titled The Bitter Pill, sees Soderbergh reunited with his Magic Mike star Channing Tatum; he plays a convict whose release prompts his wife (Rooney Mara), to be prescribed experimental medication by her psychiatrist (Jude Law) to get over her nervousness. Early trailers suggest its a slow-burn psychological noir, but as ever with Soderbergh, who knows for sure? Photograph: PR