You seldom see a female filmmaker making the quantum leap from a $200,000 Sundance title to a Brad Pitt-backed Christmastide blockbuster, so hats off to Ava DuVernay on the upcoming Selma. A retelling of the 1965 voting rights marches from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, the film stars David Oyelowo (also of DuVernay’s Middle of Nowhere) as Martin Luther King, Jr., with a substantial ensemble in Tom Wilkinson, Oprah Winfrey, Keith Stanfield, Tim Roth and Lorraine Toussaint, among others. Shot by the brilliant Bradford Young, Selma is set for a December 25 limited release and a national rollout on January 9, 2015.