Drama

The sparks between Richard Gere and Diane Lane--so memorable in Unfaithful--smolder again in the sweepingly romantic Nights in Rodanthe. Based on a novel by Nicholas Sparks, the film is unapologetically sentimental, and enjoyable completely on its own terms--a small gem of an escape, complete with storm-tossed coastline. Lane plays Adrienne, a wronged wife whose husband (Christopher Meloni) was a heel, but begs for another chance. She goes to clear her head at a remote North Carolina inn, where the sole occupant is Paul, a doctor, played by Gere, who is battling his own demons.

Magnetic Rob Lowe ('the West Wing ), Oscar nominee Meg Tilly (The Big Chill) and sultry Kim Cattrall (Sex in the City ) star in this sexually charged mystery about a wealthy woman who falls for the wrong man.Olivia (Tilly) seems to have it all: good looks, good breeding and a two-hundred- million dollar fortune. But behind the serene façade of her Easthampton seaside estate, something is missing: passion. Enter Tim (Lowe), the sexy sailing instructor and playboy who's not ashamed of sleeping with his boss insatiable wife (Cattrall) or social climbing for sport.

Unapologetically audacious, I'm Not There is more post-modern puzzle than by-the-numbers biopic. A title card sets the scene: "Inspired by the music and many lives of Bob Dylan." Yet the film features no figure by that name. Instead, writer/director Todd Haynes presents six characters, each incarnating different stages in the artist's career. Perfume's Ben Whishaw, a black-clad poet, serves as a slippery sort of narrator.

Up in the Air transforms some painful subjects into smart, sly comedy--with just enough of the pain underneath to give it some weight. Ryan Bingham (George Clooney) spends most of his days traveling around the country and firing people; he's hired by bosses who don't have the nerve to do their layoffs themselves. His life of constant flight suits him--he wants no attachments.

James Clavell's blockbuster novel of rivalry extortion and murder comes to life in this mesmerizing miniseries set in the high stakes business world of Hong Kong. Ian Dunross (Pierce Brosnan) is named "Tai-Pan" (supreme leader) of the powerful British-East Asiatrading company Struan & Co. just as rival (John Rhys-Davies) attempts a hostile takeover. Suddenly plunged into a criminal uworld of international espionage deception and financial crises Dunross turns up the heat by engaging in a dangerous romance withhis nemesis's aide (Deborah Raffin).

Helen Mirren reigns supreme in The Queen, a witty and ingenious look at a moment that rocked the house of Windsor: the week that followed the sudden death of Princess Diana in 1997. Diana's death came at just the same time that Prime Minister Tony Blair (played by the bright Michael Sheen) was settling into his new government--and trying to figure out the delicate relationship between 10 Downing Street and Queen Elizabeth II (Mirren).

An exercise in moral complexity, 21 is based on Ben Mezrich's book Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six M.I.T. Students Who Took Vegas for Millions. Jim Sturgess (Across the Universe) plays brilliant, blue-collar scholar Ben Campbell, whose doubts that he'll win a scholarship to Harvard Medical School compel him to join a secret, M.I.T. gang of math whiz kids. Under the silky but chilling command of a math professor (Kevin Spacey), Jim and the others master card counting, i.e., the statistical analysis of cards dealt in blackjack games.

The Hoax is a happy surprise. Surprise because, for once, having a film's release date bumped back half a year didn't mean it's a dog. Happy because Lasse Hallstrˆm's dancing-on-eggshells comedy about a notorious literary scandal of the 1970s is bounteously entertaining, with more solid laughs and certainly slyer wit than, say, the latest Will Ferrell romp. The subject is the world-shaking con an unsuccessful writer named Clifford Irving (Richard Gere) ran on some supposedly sharp cookies in the highest echelons of Manhattan publishing.

Danny Boyle (Sunshine) directed this wildly energetic, Dickensian drama about the desultory life and times of an Indian boy whose bleak, formative experiences lead to an appearance on his country's version of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" Jamal (played as a young man by Dev Patel) and his brother are orphaned as children, raising themselves in various slums and crime-ridden neighorhoods and falling in, for a while, with a monstrous gang exploiting children as beggars and prostitutes.

In a "riveting performance" (The Hollywood Reporter) that stunned critics and audiences alike, Farrah Fawcett is the heart and soul of this "edge-of-your-seat suspense drama" (The Film Journal) about a woman who turns the tables on a would-be rapist. Nominated for a Golden Globe, Fawcett "is genuine, pathetic and heroic here" (Los Angeles Times) and her "unadorned artistry singes" (Time)! After narrowly escaping an attempted rape, Marjorie (Fawcett) is haunted by the fact that her attacker (James Russo) knows where she lives.