This Christmas is shaping up to be one of the most crowded movie release days in recent memory. In addition to big blockbusters like Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and The Adventures of Tintin, we’ve also got alien invasion flick The Darkest Hour plus a handful of dramas like Spielberg’s War Horse, Angelina Jolie’s In the Land of Blood and Honey, and Cameron Crowe’s We Bought a Zoo. Now it looks like we can add another Oscar bait-y drama to the mix as Warner Brothers will release Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close in select theatres that week as well. The first trailer has debuted online this week over on Apple.com, and it makes it quite clear that it’s going to be a holiday tearjerker.

Based on the novel by Jonathan Safran Foer, the story centers on a nine-year-old boy (Thomas Horn) whose father (Tom Hanks) dies on 9/11. He eventually discovers a key that his father left behind, and he ends up traveling all over New York City to find out what it unlocks. If you needed any more indication that this film is gunning for Oscars, it is directed by Stephen Daldry who was nominated for his previous films Billy Elliott, The Hours and The Reader. The cast also includes Sandra Bullock, James Gandolfini, Max von Sydow, John Goodman, Viola Davis, and Jeffrey Wright. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close hits select theatres on December 25th and opens wide on January 20th, 2012; check out the trailer after the jump.