The 12 Most Anticipated Movies of the 2010 Sundance Film Festival

Robert Reford's Sundance Film Festival gets under way this evening in the Utah highlands with a screening of "Howl," a biopic about the legendary Beat poet Allen Ginsberg. James Franco stars as the free-spirited, anti-conformist Buddhist poet who hung out with Bay Area Hells Angels in the 1960s and associated with the New York punk rock scene in the early 1980s.

As you probably already know, Sundance draws studio moguls and executives, A-list celebrities, serious indie filmakers, and die-hard movie buffs each winter to Park City and the surrounding mountain towns. Altogether, 186 films will be screened at this year's festival. Along with the Cannes Film Festival and the Toronto Film Festival, Sundance is celebrated as the premiere destination for serious independent filmmakers shopping a movie for distribution. Modern classics such as "Reservoir Dogs," "Clerks," and "The Blair Witch Project" have gone on to widespread success after garnering significant buzz and street cred at Sundance. It's too early to begin predicting which picks will emerge from the movie industry's annual tribal meeting as the next under-the-radar box office sensation or Oscar dark horse. (Last year's success stories were "Precious" and "(500) Days of Summer.") In the meantime, we want to keep you a couple steps ahead of the cultural curve. We've rounded up the trailers and embeddable clips for 12 buzz-worthy movies debuting at Sundance over the next 10 days. Check them out below and let us know what you want to see.

"Blue Valentine"
Director: Derek Cianfrance
Starring: Ryan Gosling, Michelle Williams, Mike Vogel
Synopsis: A non-sequential drama about a married couple's turbulent falling out.

"Get Low"
Director: Aaron Schneider
Starring: Bill Murray, Robert Duvall
Synopsis: A drama about a man planning his own funeral.

"Howl"
Director: Rob Epstein, Jeffrey Friedman
Starring: James Franco, Jon Hamm, Mary-Louise Parker, Jeff Daniels, David Strathairn
Synopsis: A biopic about celebrated beat poet Allen Ginsberg.

"The Runaways"
Director: Floria Sigismondi
Starring: Kristen Stewart, Dakota FanningSynopsis: A coming-of-age biopic about '70s teenage band The Runaways.

"Splice"
Director: Vincenzo Natali
Starring: Adrien Brody, Sarah Polley
Synopsis: Two rebellious scientists splice together human and animal DNA, creating a deadly but beautiful new species that is described as "a winged human-chimera."

"Frozen"
Director: Adam Green
Starring: Emma Bell, Shawn Ashmore, Kevin Zegers
Synopsis: A thriller about three friends getting stuck on a chairlift after a ski resort closes for the weekend. Or, "Open Water" meets Warren Miller.

"Buried"
Director: Rodrigo Cortes
Starring: Ryan Reynolds
Synopsis: A U.S. contractor working in Iraq is buried alive inside a coffin with only a light and a cell phone after being attacked by a group of Iraqis.

"The Killer Inside Me"
Director: Michael Winterbottom
Starring: Casey Affleck, Kate Hudson, Simon Baker, Jessica Alba
Synopsis: A small town Texas sheriff slowly becomes a serial killer. Warning: the trailer is extremely violent.

"The Company Men"
Director: John Wells
Starring: Ben Affleck, Kevin Costner, Tommy Lee Jones, Maria Bello
Synopsis: The trials and tribulations of three American men and their families in an era of economic recession and corporate downsizing.

"Enter the Void"
Director: Gaspar Noe
Staring: Nathaniel Brown, Paz de la Huerta
Synopsis: A teenage drug dealer is killed in Japan and his ghost keeps watch over his sister.

"Mother and Child"
Director: Rodrigo Garca
Staring: Naomi Watts, Samuel L. Jackson, Marc Blucas
Synopsis: A serious drama about three different women and their relationships with children.

"Sympathy for Delicious"
Director: Mark Ruffalo
Staring:Orlando Bloom, Juliette Lewis, Mark Ruffalo
Synopsis: A gritty story about a down-and-out paralyzed DJ with a gift for healing people.

Other films to watch out for at Sundance:
"Welcome to the Rileys" -- Kristen Stewart, James Gandolfini, and Melissa Leo star in a movie about a complex affair with a prostitute after his daughter's death.
"Restepo" -- A movie about a platoon of American soldiers in a remote Afghan outpost with Sebastian Junger.