The winter season isn’t usually the most exciting time for movies. The box office is more likely to be dominated by December holdovers like Frozen or The Wolf of Wall Street and other movies pushing for the big awards. That doesn’t mean these winter releases are bad (Dark City, an amazing sci-fi film, was a late February release) it just means the studio may not have had the full confidence to release these movies during the ultra-competitive fall and Christmas seasons. For a lot of these movies, that lack of competition could certainly help get some more viewers.

January 17

Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit 

I thought the delay from its original holiday release might have helped this once strong franchise get a decent reboot, but it instead fell to the holdovers and the hit comedy standout “Ride Along”. Still, it’s out there if you want to see Chris Pine’s fill the shoes of Alec Baldwin, Harrison Ford and Ben Affleck before him.

January 21

Knights of Badassdom

It seems like this movie has been teased at comic book conventions forever now (filming began in 2010!) but Joe Lynch’s geek epic finally saw an official release, albeit a limited one. It only launched in about 13 theaters in January but does seem to be hitting on demand video services in February so you can still catch it this winter.

January 24

I, Frankenstein

This may have been a case of casting based on head shape alone, since star Aaron Eckhart has never carried a successful movie on his own, but his large head and jawline certainly fit the part. Since this film was such a colossal failure, if you want to see it in theaters, you better catch it soon because it won’t hang around for much longer.

Also in January… “Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones” (Jan 2) and “The Legend of Hercules” (Jan 9) were left off the list simply because I didn’t get them added in time for them to still be found in many theaters. Based on their box office, I’m assuming nobody will care.

February 7

The Lego Movie

Lego has been branching out from what we all remember from our childhood. They have a library of successful games and TV shows that proves they are more than just an awesome kid’s toy. Now they’re going to try their hand at movies, and I truly think this is going to be a fun movie and a big hit given the lack of competition.

February 12

RoboCop

Another famous sci-fi remake, though I’m sure the producers of this film hope it fares better than the Total Recall remake from a couple of years ago. They definitely have a good cast in place, so if the plot satisfies, then this could be a hit. The only aspect that could make the hardcore fans cautious is the step down to a PG-13 rating.

February 14

Vampire Academy

Based on the hit young adult novel, this movie enters a crowded Valentine’s Day. There are three other movies debuting as well, all romance genre films. This is the only one with a fantasy angle so it’s the only one worth mentioning here, but if you want to see a movie on Valentine’s Day with your special someone, Hollywood has you more than covered.

February 21

Pompeii

Paul W.S. Anderson, famous for directing and producing the Resident Evil movies takes a shot at the historical disaster flick genre. The trailer has a strong “Gladiator” meets “Volcano” vibe but how much will the gladiator story matter to an audience just waiting for the big mountain to blow up?

The Wind Rises

Conflicting reports have said famed anime director Hayao Miyazaki may retire after his latest Studio Ghibli film, which is getting its US release this winter. I hope this isn’t true as I’d like to see more from Miyazaki and especially something more in the realm of fantasy where his films truly shine. This historical epic gets the usual star-studded US dub that some fans can take or leave, but both versions should be available once the film has a video release.

February 28

Welcome to Yesterday

Another sci-fi, found footage movie in the vein of Cloverfield and Chronicle. This one is made by a Michael Bay production company and involves teenagers and time travel. Of course everything goes horribly wrong for the characters. Hopefully the plot holds together well because coherent time travel stories can be tough to pull off.

Also in February… Liam Neeson does his seemingly annual one-man army thing in “Non-Stop” (Feb 28) and Kevin Costner tries to do the Liam Neeson one-man army thing in “3 Days to Kill” (Feb 21). Plus, George Clooney gets a bunch of his famous friends to star in a heist movie, but it’s not Oceans 14, it’s “The Monuments Men” (Feb 7) and they’re stealing art back from Nazis so it’s probably not as much fun.

That’s it for the major winter movies. I’ll be back next month for the spring preview of the big March/April releases, the calm before the summer movie storm. Be sure to rank these movies below based on how badly you can’t wait to see them and add any comments if I missed a particular release or you just want to discuss the movies on the list.