Film stars such as Will Smith might shine in hot-weather action comedies, cruising to box-office victory in souped-up vehicles with the top down. But the autumn movie season has always relied more on teamwork than on personal bests.

Autumn is when the major studios roll out multi-character literary adaptations and entertainment that relies more on fresh observation and risky subject matter, less on formula and shtick.

These movies require solid acting companies to put them over.

George Clooney is a smart star and vivid actor precisely because of his yen to relate individually and equally to everyone else in the cast. Clooney once again acts for the Coen brothers ("O Brother, Where Art Thou?") in "Burn After Reading," a parody caper set partly in a gym, with a cast that includes Brad Pitt, Tilda Swinton, John Malkovich and Frances McDormand.

It should be fun to see the Coens apply the newfound mastery they showed with "No Country for Old Men" to their old style of buffoonery blending "Ocean's 11" with "The Big Lebowski."

Robert De Niro is at his most subtle and expansive playing a beleaguered Hollywood producer in Barry Levinson's tip-top behavioral comedy "What Just Happened."

I loved a version of the film Levinson showed me a year ago and thought every actor, from Sean Penn and Bruce Willis to Catherine Keener and Robin Wright Penn, made his or her presence felt.

The cast Oliver Stone assembled for his President Bush biopic, "W.," makes it a must-see. Josh Brolin as W., Elizabeth Banks as Laura Bush, Thandie Newton as Condoleezza Rice, Richard Dreyfuss as Dick Cheney, Ioan Gruffudd as Tony Blair ... the list of potential coups goes on and on. Who could pass up watching James Cromwell as George Herbert Walker Bush, or Scott Glenn as Donald Rumsfeld?

Another Academy favorite, Clint Eastwood, directs Angelina Jolie as the mother of a kidnapped child in "Changeling," surrounding her with aces such as John Malkovich, Colm Feore and Amy Ryan.

Those charismatic and surprising actors Viggo Mortensen and Ed Harris played gangland combatants a few years back in David Cronenberg's "A History of Violence." In "Appaloosa," which Harris has directed (from a novel by Robert B. Parker), they play old buddies who turn lawmen.

These two might try to out-stoic each other, but with Renee Zellweger and Jeremy Irons in the cast the screen could be set for a frontier tour de force.

Almost all war movies, caper movies or Westerns are male ensemble pieces. Female crime-fighting teams didn't catch on after "Charlie's Angels." After the "Sex and the City" and "Traveling Pants" movies, though, we might be seeing more films like Diane (Murphy Brown) English's long-gestating "The Women," with an all-female cast.

It's a remake of the Clare Booth Luce stage comedy and 1939 George Cukor movie centered on a classy married woman (Norma Shearer in the original, Meg Ryan here) who divorces, then tries to win back her philandering husband as several other friends and acquaintances work through their own marital complications. Annette Bening, Jada Pinkett Smith and Bette Midler are sure to enliven the company.

Some of the fall's most dynamic duos arrive pretested. Richard Gere and Diane Lane, who did their darndest to light up "The Cotton Club" and "Unfaithful," play a man and a woman who resolve their separate midlife crises when each flees to the same coastal town — and they fall in love — in "Nights in Rodanthe." (It's from a Nicholas Sparks best-seller: an enticement to some, a warning to others.)

De Niro and Al Pacino in "Righteous Kill" play a New York cop team trailing a serial vigilante, extending to an entire movie the rapport they demonstrated in their few shared minutes of "Heat."

The recent deaths of Bernie Mac and Isaac Hayes have brought new resonance to the comedy "Soul Men," starring Mac and Samuel L. Jackson as R&B veterans who sing at a tribute concert for their soul group leader (played by John Legend). Hayes plays a bit part as himself. With Hayes, Mac and Jackson on board, it might live up to the name of the title characters' group: the Real Deal. And if this slew of movies with live-wire actors performs to expectations, the real deal is what audiences sick of computer-graphic fantasies will happily get this autumn, too.

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Comedian D.L. Hughley, pictured at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in 2024, said he enjoys coming to Atlanta because he's able to see his grandchildren, eat good food and have a good time.  (Paul Sancya/AP 2024)

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John Raulet, a partner in Raulet Property Partners, stands in the soundstage at Mailing Street Stageworks, Tuesday, August 26, 2025, in Atlanta. Raulet’s company has either converted or sold off all but one of its soundstages amid a downturn in film production in the U.S. (Jason Getz / AJC)

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