Death, ageing, failed marriages, racism, extreme poverty, paedophilia… there is a distinctly downbeat tone to many of the movies opening in Australia in the Oscar corridor from December 26 through the end of January.

On paper, at least, it’s hardly the kind of uplifting fare which audiences might be craving at a time when the real world is beset with financial and economic troubles, wars and the ever-present threat of terrorism. In the last Great Depression of the 1930s, it was slapstick comedies and glamorous musicals which folks sought out to help lift flagging spirits.

Surveying the crop of December releases in the US, Variety’s Pam McClintock declared, "Moviegoers will have to choose carefully if they want to avoid drama and death; three of the world's biggest stars play characters who kick the bucket.

“Considering the state of the country, will more serious storylines work, or will lighter fare prevail ... do people want to laugh or cry?"

To Hollywood’s immense relief, most of the upscale, potentially challenging films which platformed on limited screens in the US in the first couple of weeks of December are pleasing audiences and critics.

Considering some of the hefty budgets involved, the billion dollar question will be how well each film performs when it goes on wide release in the US, and how it fares internationally

Among the Oscar candidates, Clint Eastwood’s Gran Torino, the Meryl Streep-Philip Seymour Hoffman drama Doubt, the Kate Winslet-Ralph Fiennes starrer The Reader and Steven Soderbergh’s two-part biopic Che all posted impressive figures in their debuts in Los Angeles and New York.

Meanwhile Milk, Gus Van Sant’s brave film starring Sean Penn as Harvey Milk, the gay activist who was gunned down in 1978, had the highest-screen average among the top 10 films in the US as it expanded to 328 locations in its third week; Milk debuts here on January 29.

Similarly, Frost/Nixon, Ron Howard’s drama about the encounter between disgraced President Richard Nixon and his inquisitor David Frost, was drawing hefty audiences in the US before it widened there on Christmas Day.

Sam Mendes, director of Revolutionary Road, another Oscar hopeful, has a point when he says, "Serious movies are seldom in fashion."  When Mendes, an Oscar winner for American Beauty, sought studio backing for Revolutionary Road, he had two aces: Leonardo DiCaprio and Mendes’ wife Kate Winslet in their first pairing since Titanic 11 years ago.

"Nothing happened until Kate and Leonardo decided to do it," Mendes told Variety. "Then it snowballed."  The movie, which opens here on January 22, follows a couple in 1950s America who move to France to try to save their failing marriage.

Some pundits are forecasting a best actress nod for Winslet for Revolutionary Road and a supporting actress nomination for The Reader. Directed by Stephen Daldry (The Hours, Billy Elliot), The Reader focuses on a teenager, Michael, who has an affair with Hanna, a much older woman, a ticket collector; years later Hanna is on trial for war crimes because of her work as a prison guard at Auschwitz, and Michael (Ralph Fiennes) tries to make amends for his youthful misgivings; it launches here in February. Oscar gold has eluded Kate despite five nominations, as best actress for Titanic, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Little Children; and supporting actress for Iris and Sense and Sensibility.

Set in a Catholic school in the Bronx in 1964, Doubt follows Father Flynn (Philip Seymour Hoffman) who’s accused of having a questionable relationship with the school's only black student by the strict principal Sister Aloysius (Meryl Streep); Written and directed by John Patrick Shanley (who wrote Moonstruck and made the dud Joe vs. the Volcano), it opens here on January 15.

December 26 saw the launch in Australia of Frost/Nixon, Woody Allen’s superb Vicky, Cristina Barcelona and David Fincher’s $150 million epic The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.  Scripted by Eric Roth (Forrest Gump), Benjamin Button stars Brad Pitt as a character who’s born with an old man’s body and mind and reverse ages as the years go by. Cate Blanchett plays the love of his life.

“Combine Roth’s emotional output with David Fincher’s exactitude and you have something nearly perfect,” says Awards Daily’s Sasha Stone. “With so many limbs, emotions and ideas the film shouldn’t work at all, but somehow it does.”

Opening here on January 29, Gran Tarino stars Eastwood as Walt Kowalski, a racist Korean War vet who’s none too fond of the Asian immigrants next door. But he’s forced to question his beliefs when the family is threatened by gangbangers.

Slumdog Millionaire, a movie which no Hollywood studio wanted, could well be a sleeper at the Oscars. Danny Boyle’s feel-good saga centres on an 18 year-old orphan from the slums of Mumbai who gets to within one question of winning a fortune on India's Who Wants to be a Millionaire? when he’s arrested on suspicion of cheating. It was financed independently after the script was rejected by Warner Independent (since defunct) and Fox Searchlight. The latter agreed to distribute the movie in the US, where it’s raked in a juicy $12 million in its first five weeks after debuting at 10 theatres. While the plot evolves into an uplifting love story, it’s also laced with dark moments: child mutilation, a massacre of Muslims, sibling betrayal, corruption and police torture.

Soderbergh’s Che stars Benicio Del Toro as the revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara who was executed in 1967; as yet, the film doesn’t have an Australian distributor.

Among other movies in the running for best picture are The Dark Knight, Pixar’s blockbuster WALL.E and Darren Aronofsky’s The Wrestler, starring Mickey Rourke as a burnt-out grappler who suffers a heart attack and tries to get life in order when he’s offered a rematch.

It’s worth remembering that 2008’s major Oscar winners weren’t a barrel of laughs. The Coen brothers’ bleak No Country for Old Men took home four trophies including best pic, and Daniel Day-Lewis collected best actor for the nihilistic There Will Be Blood.

All told, this should be one of the most wide-open awards races in some years. The nominations will be announced on January 23 and the gongs will be handed out on February 23, Australian time.

"Escapism comes in many forms, but clearly it doesn't come in the form that most Oscar contenders take," says Paul Dergarabedian, president of US box-office tracker Media By Numbers. "If you are putting an Oscar movie out there this season, let's just say it's going to be more challenging than in other years to get the box office rolling. Traction in this marketplace is a bit tougher for these kinds of films."

So far, US audiences are showing they’re up for the challenge.