Matthew Goode and Colin Firth in Tom Ford's "A Single Man"
Now that fall is almost done and winter is headed our way, your local movie house—assuming you don’t live in a red state or on Staten Island—will be heading into what is normally considered the prestige film season that lasts from September right up to December 31st, when films become ineligible for next year’s Academy Awards nominations. Sure, sometimes the odd Hollywood blockbuster/disaster/action movie will sneak in under the radar (read: “2012″), but for the most part you can assume that most of the movies with a post-September release date will be gunning for a golden statuette. And now, with several publications and other film organizations beginning to release their top flicks of the year—you can see the picks the International Press Academy chose here—we figured it might be best to offer up a look at what you don’t want to miss. After the jump, a few films you’ll want to check out as 2009 comes to a close — lest your Oscar ballot become a bigger flop than Labor Pains.