SO MANY MOVIES, SO LITTLE TIME : FILMMAKERS OFTEN DREAD HOLIDAY CRUSH.

Byline: Bernard Weinraub The New York Times

Listen to the sound of holiday cheer in Hollywood.

``Unbelievably nerve-racking,'' said Sherry Lansing, chairman of the Paramount Motion Picture Group, which has five films opening over the holidays. ``There's so much competition this year, so many choices, that good, quality films can get lost. We're literally cannibalizing each other.''

``It's insane - a ridiculous amount of movies are coming out,'' said Scott Rudin, a prolific producer who has three movies opening this season: ``Ransom,'' ``Mother'' and ``Marvin's Room.''

``I'm leaving town,'' said Stephen Herek, director of the forthcoming live-action version of Walt Disney's ``101 Dalmatians.'' ``It's too nailbiting.''

And Steve Golin, the producer of ``The Portrait of a Lady,'' observed, ``If you're not terrified, you're an idiot.''

In the real world, the holiday movie season begins on Thanksgiving weekend. In Hollywood the season is well under way, beginning Nov. 8 with the opening of the thriller ``Ransom,'' in which Mel Gibson plays a rich man whose young son has been kidnapped.

The strategy for the season sounds simple: start the race early, before the rest of the mob. It doesn't always work, of course. Last year the first studio hopeful was Jodie Foster's ``Home for the Holidays.'' It didn't make it.

The holiday movie season is always an anxious time in Hollywood, even scarier than summer, which is terrifically scary. This year the seasonal anxiety is particularly acute because so many films will spew forth.

At least 25 major films will open across the country in November and December, and at least 23 more will be seen briefly in a few major cities such as New York and Los Angeles. Last year, the holiday was equally crowded. Darwin could have used these seasons in Hollywood as a testing ground.

Part of the explanation is economic. The five weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas account for as much as 15 percent to 20 percent of annual ticket sales. Each day between Christmas and New Year is, according to exhibitors, like Saturday at the movies. And in contrast with 1995, the holidays this year fall in midweek, making the weekends potentially even more lucrative. So from a financial point of view, the glut makes sense.

But the issue is more complicated. In addition to the desire to score big at the box office, there is the desire to cram as many potential Oscar candidates - whether for best picture of best actor or actress - into that little envelope before year's end, when Oscar voters will presumably have the best chance of remembering possible nominees.

Christmas-themed movies are, of course, a natural for this time of year, as are movies that simply feel all snuggly and warm, whether or not they have explicit holiday themes.

Finally, the frenzy seems to beget its own frenzy, as moviemakers simply pile in, as if driven by some lemminglike urge to compete. The studios are seemingly indifferent to the fact that there may be such a thing as too many movies in too short a time.

Every holiday needs to have an action film. Whatever the quality of ``Daylight'' (opening Dec. 6), in which Sylvester Stallone saves a bunch of New York motorists trapped in a tunnel beneath the Hudson River, it is the only big special-effects action movie of the season.

``We've got a built-in audience with a big star and a great concept,'' said John David, the producer of ``Daylight.'' ``And there's nothing on the market quite like us.''

Similarly, Barbra Streisand's ``Mirror Has Two Faces'' is the only romantic comedy arriving before Thanksgiving, giving it a clear opening for predominantly women's audiences before a tide of comedies opens around Christmas. (Other films that are aimed at specific audiences and that seem to have a clear field include ``Star Trek: First Contact'' and ``Beavis and Butt-head Do America.'')

At one end of the spectrum are holiday films intended for children, like ``101 Dalmatians,'' starring Glenn Close as the wicked Cruella De Vil; ``Jingle All the Way,'' an Arnold Schwarzenegger comedy, and ``Space Jam,'' a $100 million extravaganza that pairs the basketball star Michael Jordan with the Looney Tunes animated gang, about which Gerald M. Levin, the chairman of Time Warner, offered an amazingly candid description: `` `Space Jam' is not a movie. It's a merchandising event.''

Also in this category is Tim Burton's ``Mars Attacks!'' with Jack Nicholson and Close, which might be seen as a children's movie for adults.

At the opposite end of the spectrum are films considered Oscar-worthy. In December, just before the awards season, comes a surge of serious Hollywood movies in limited runs. The rationale? Good movies that opened much earlier in the year will somehow be forgotten by the academy voters and that odd group of journalistic hangers-on called the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, whose raison d'etre is to award the Golden Globes in January.

Is it really necessary to set off a flood of quality films after five or six arid months? Of course not. Academy Award winners like ``Silence of the Lambs,'' ``Forrest Gump'' and ``Dances With Wolves'' were released earlier in the year without losing Oscar momentum - or suffering at the box office.

In fact, only one of last year's nominees for best picture, ``Sense and Sensibility,'' came out during the holidays. The others - ``Apollo 13,'' ``Babe,'' ``Braveheart'' and ``The Postman'' (``Il Postino'') - were released much earlier in the year. ``Braveheart,'' the big winner, was released in May.

Similarly, this year the academy may remember earlier entries, like Frances McDormand in ``Fargo,'' Denzel Washington in ``Courage Under Fire,'' Samuel L. Jackson in ``A Time to Kill,'' John Sayles's film ``Lone Star'' and fall movies like ``Michael Collins'' with Liam Neeson, Stanley Tucci's ``Big Night,'' Mike Leigh's ``Secrets and Lies,'' and perhaps Brenda Blethyn from that movie.

But Hollywood persists, however illogically, in loading Oscar candidates into the last five weeks of the year. This year's Oscar buzz surrounds films like ``Shine,'' an Australian film about a troubled pianist; ``The Crucible,'' the movie adaptation of Arthur Miller's play; Milos Forman's ``People vs. Larry Flynt,'' about the pornographer; ``The English Patient,'' which opened Friday; Kenneth Branagh's ``Hamlet''; ``Evita,'' the movie musical about Eva Peron; and Jane Campion's ``Portrait of a Lady,'' which stars Nicole Kidman.

In addition, Oscar hopes are being pinned on certain performers in holiday movies, among them, Debbie Reynolds in the comedy ``Mother,'' Shirley MacLaine in ``The Evening Star'' (the not-quite sequel to ``Terms of Endearment''), Emily Watson in ``Breaking the Waves,'' Helen Mirren in ``Some Mother's Son,'' Joan Allen for her supporting role in ``The Crucible,'' James Woods for his supporting role in ``Ghosts of Mississippi,'' Diane Keaton in ``Marvin's Room,'' Woody Harrelson and Courtney Love in ``The People Vs. Larry Flynt,'' Kristin Scott Thomas in ``The English Patient,'' Madonna in ``Evita,'' possibly Denzel Washington for ``The Preacher's Wife,'' and someone (maybe Goldie Hawn) in Woody Allen's musical, ``Everyone Says I Love You.''

Sometimes studios and filmmakers seem to go out of their way to maneuver their movies into the holiday season, despite the horrendous traffic jam, on the ground that their movies feel so, well, Christmasy.

Take ``One Fine Day,'' a romantic comedy starring Michelle Pfeiffer and George Clooney as single parents who collide in New York. ``We were thinking of next year, maybe late winter or early spring,'' said Peter Chernin, until recently chairman of Fox. ``But audiences loved it, and we thought if there's such a thing as a holiday mood, this plays into it.''

Another movie that got wedged into the end-of-the-year sweepstakes is ``Jerry Maguire,'' in which Tom Cruise plays a slick sports agent who loses his job and finds his soul.

``I knew we were heading into heavy traffic,'' said Cameron Crowe, the writer and director. ``But I just felt this movie had a December feeling. This time of year, people take stock. They think about their lives. I do. There's a happy-sad kind of hoping for the best. It was just - right for December. Of course it helps to have Tom Cruise.''

Also big this year are films featuring angels, among them ``Michael,'' a Nora Ephron comedy in which John Travolta plays an unlikely and unshaven angel, and ``The Preacher's Wife,'' Penny Marshall's remake of ``The Bishop's Wife,'' about an angel who comes to help a troubled ministry, starring Whitney Houston alongside Washington.

Another movie with a hopeful message is the widely anticipated ``Shine.'' ``The summer would have been inappropriate in terms of how this feels as a movie,'' said Ruth Vitale, president of Fine Line Features, which bought the movie at the Sundance Film Festival. ``This is a serious but a feel-good movie, and releasing it at the end of the year, when it's fresh in people's minds in terms of the Oscar, is perfect for us.''

Finally, there are films like ``Marvin's Room,'' based on the much-praised Scott McPherson off-Broadway play about a family coping with terminal illness. It ended up in the holiday rush whether or not anyone had intended it that way.

``At one point we thought of September for `Marvin's Room,' '' said Mark Gill, president for marketing at Miramax, which is distributing the film. ``But then Diane Keaton came out in `First Wives Club,' and it became inappropriate to release it then. We also thought we'd have better luck if we went later.''

In addition to Keaton, the ensemble cast of ``Marvin's Room'' includes Meryl Streep, Robert De Niro, Leonardo DiCaprio, Gwen Verdon and Hume Cronyn.

Although official numbers show that Christmas really is a bonanza for movie makers, it still feels as if Hollywood is overdoing things this time of year. But the competitive mind-set endures.

``It's like saying my `child is better than your child,'' said John N. Krier, president of Exhibitor Relations, a company that monitors box office and film trends.

Or, as Lansing added, with some bewilderment, ``Who's going to see 10 films in one week?''

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3 Photos

Photo: (1) Martin Short and Lis Marie star in Tim Burton's much-anticipated holiday release, ``Mars Attacks!''

(2) A late release may make ``The Crucible,'' with Winona Ryder, stick in Oscar voters' minds.

(3)Will ``Jerry Maguire'' stand out from the pack? It stars Tom Cruise, left, as a sports agent, and Cuba Gooding Jr. as his client.