A year ago, who had heard of "Sideways"? Or of "The Grudge," for that matter? Or "National Treasure"?

Likewise, two years ago, who was looking for big things from "Elf" or "School of Rock"?

The fall movie season arrives, as crowded as a bus at rush hour, and buried somewhere within it are this year's surprise hits. It doesn't take much insider savvy to predict that "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" should make a decent box-office showing (gee, you think?), or that fans of Jennifer Weiner's best-selling novel "In Her Shoes" might flock to the film version, which stars Cameron Diaz and Toni Collette.

But it's trickier, if not impossible, to find the real dark horses. Consider last year's "Sideways" — a low-budget comedy about wine and middle age, cast with little-known actors and based on a novel nobody had read. On its opening weekend last October, it grossed slightly more than $200,000, in a tiny handful of theaters. And then the word of mouth for this raucous but soulful comedy kicked in. Six months later, it was still in theaters, having earned more than $70 million (and it raked in a handful of Oscar nominations along the way).

What might do the same this year? Sight unseen, I've got my eye on Cameron Crowe's "Elizabethtown." Though his last movie, "Almost Famous," didn't make much of a dent at the box office (despite strong reviews), Crowe knows how to make hits (see "Jerry Maguire," for example) and has a knack for casting couples with warm, goofy chemistry. Orlando Bloom and Kirsten Dunst seem almost too adorable for words — and, between the "Lord of the Rings" and "Spider-Man" franchises, both have legions of fans. "Elizabethtown" opens Oct. 14. Stay tuned.

"Pride and Prejudice," directed by Joe Wright and opening Nov. 23, just might catch on with the art-house crowd who made "Sense and Sensibility" a big hit a few years back — and Keira Knightley, as Elizabeth Bennet, might bring her "Pirates of the Caribbean" fans. "Good Night, and Good Luck," the story of Edward R. Murrow and Sen. Joseph McCarthy, arrives with a strong pedigree: directed by George Clooney (who did a stylish job with "Confessions of a Dangerous Mind"), starring Clooney, David Strathairn, Robert Downey Jr. and Patricia Clarkson, and audaciously filmed in black and white. Sounds like Oscar bait, and just might catch on with an audience intrigued by its real-life tale.

Perhaps a bigger surprise than "Sideways" last year was the success of "The Grudge," a Sarah Michelle Gellar-starring remake of a Japanese horror film that received mostly negative reviews, but earned more than $100 million. Audiences flocked to it last fall, as well as to the slasher "Saw" (which came out of nowhere to make $55 million). Let it not go unnoticed that this year's fall season is crammed with horror movies (see sidebar), among them the clunkily titled "Saw II," rushed into production after the success of "Saw." Keep an eye, also, on "Cry_Wolf," a horror-in-high-school tale that might draw in the young audience of "The Grudge," and the well-cast demonic-possession drama "The Exorcism of Emily Rose," starring Laura Linney, Tom Wilkinson and Campbell Scott.

But last fall's most lucrative surprise (if you don't count "The Incredibles" and "Shark Tale," both box-office slam dunks) was "National Treasure," the family-friendly adventure film about Nicolas Cage on a "Da Vinci Code"-ish treasure hunt. This season features a couple of adventure films that might find that same audience: "Zathura," a fantasy about two brothers in outer space (based on a book by Chris Van Allsburg, author of "The Polar Express"), and "The Legend of Zorro," a swashbuckling sequel to the 1998 original, with a young son (Adrian Alonso) joining Antonio Banderas and Catherine Zeta-Jones.

But the best surprises are, of course, the ones you can't predict. Between now and Thanksgiving, some fabulous little film will come out of nowhere to enchant audiences and confound box-office prognosticators. I don't know what it is, but I can't wait to see it.

Moira Macdonald: 206-464-2725 or mmacdonald@seattletimes.com