What's Unavoidable, Unmissable and Uncovered This Fall

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With blond hair, ice-blue eyes and the profile of a professional boxer, Craig, 38, although a Brit, isn't an obvious choice to play the superspy--which is the point. Based on Ian Fleming's first novel, Casino Royale goes back to the beginning, when Bond was just as likely to tear up a bar as pull up to one for a shaken martini. Sent to bring down a terrorist group by beating its banker in a high-stakes poker game, Craig's Bond isn't Sean Connery charming or Roger Moore smooth. "He's rough around the edges, less refined than he becomes later in life," Craig says. Film audiences like their heroes conflicted. "He falls in love with a woman who's his equal, not just some dumb broad he beds."

Craig plays Bond pre-license to kill, giving him more freedom to make the spy his own. But fans can rest easy: "He's still Bond. I'm not screwing around with this iconographic figure." That means fast cars, shoot-outs and three new Bond girls. ("Hell on earth," Craig says, smiling.) Seems Brosnan was right: Bonds do have more fun.

The Stations of The Double Cross UNAVOIDABLE

Since he's done the gangs of New York more than once--not to mention their outpost in Las Vegas--you would think Martin Scorsese might be running out of underworld turf and wiseguy populations to explore. But we often measure a great filmmaker's merit by the power of his obsessions, by the helpless thrall in which they hold him.

So here he is, back on the vengeful streets again. The venue this time is new to him--Boston--and his story comes from even farther afield. It is an adaptation of the highly acclaimed Hong Kong action film Infernal Affairs (which a TIME critic named one of the year's 10 Best Movies in 2004). But even twice-told, the tale is wonderful--a desperate frenzy of bitter, brutal irony. The local mob boss (Jack Nicholson) has planted an informer (Matt Damon) in the élite police unit, the sole purpose of which is to break up his operation. The cops, in turn, have introduced a snitch (Leonardo DiCaprio) into his mob. Both sides are frantic to trap the intruding rats, with the possibilities of bloody betrayal rising exponentially as the movie unfolds.

From Scorsese's previous work we know the movie will have other strengths: fabulous performances, a sanguinary body count, dialogue that has the cunning and knockdown ferocity of a below-the-belt punch. Could The Departed finally bring Scorsese his long-deserved, long-denied Oscar? Probably not: genteel Hollywood admires his craft but not his New York address. The Departed is, nonetheless, one of the few fall films that knifes into the pulpy heart of American darkness and stirs the soul of those who still treasure the power of movies to wound our endless (and fatuous) good cheer.

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The Drama Of Comedy UNAVOIDABLE