The most highly publicized movie opening today is Reese Witherspoon's "Rendition," which is about a woman whose husband is accused of links to terrorism by the government and "exported" to another country so that he can be tortured for information outside of U.S. laws.

Our Featured Critic isn't a big fan of its heavy-handed and one-sided message, but with a production that also stars Meryl Streep and Jake Gyllenhaal, it's hard to ignore as a viable contestant for the weekend's box office.

Two other major releases are the sports farce comedy "The Comebacks" and Josh Hartnett's horror movie "30 Days of Night." In the former, an out-of-luck coach, Lambeau Fields, takes a rag-tag bunch of college misfits and drives them towards the football championships. In the latter, Josh Hartnett is a cop that tries to save the residents of an Alaskan town from an evil force that takes advantage of the 24-hour darkness.

Also appearing this week for its now-yearly release is Tim Burton's "The Nightmare Before Christmas in Disney Digital 3D." The big news about this year's appearance is that it is doing so on more screens than ever due to the increase in digital cinema projection systems that are capable of also showing 3D movies.

You can check out these movies, and the many other new releases this week, by visiting our "New Movies" page in Now Showing.