First Looks at Bradley Cooper, Christian Bale, and Amy Adams in 'American Hustle'

Now that the summer season is winding down, the awards-worthy dramas are starting to flaunt their stuff. And there's no other film with more reason to strut than David O. Russell's American Hustle. The Oscar-nominated director has reunited much of his Silver Linings Playbook and attracted a wealth of other A-list stars for the political thriller dealing with a real life scandal that brought down careers. Sounds like intense, significant material, but as these first photos show, the 1970s setting also sets the stage for some amazing hairdos.

USA Today has released the new stills which feature an unrecognizable Bradley Cooper, a tarty Amy Adams, and Christian Bale in full Les Grossman mode. The story is based on the 1970s-80s Abscam sting operation, in which a con artist (Bale) and his lover/accomplice (Adams) team up with an FBI agent (Cooper) to root out Congressional corruption. While the images suggest this could be a quirky sort of political comedy, the tone is said to be serious and in keeping with a film that Sony clearly has high Oscar hopes for.

Also starring Jeremy Renner, Robert De Niro, Louis C.K., Jennifer Lawrence, Alessandro Nivola, Elisabeth Rohm, Dawn Olivieri, Jack Huston, and Michael Pena, American Hustle opens in limited release on December 13th before going wide Christmas Day.