The Fall Films, From ‘Pat’ to the Monster

Here is a selective list of the major releases due out this fall, through Nov. 11:

Friday

A Good Man in Africa. Bruce Beresford directs Sean Connery (as a doctor) and Colin Friels as a diplomat assigned to a post at a newly independent African state. Louis Gossett Jr. and John Lithgow also star. (Gramercy)

Rapa Nui. A tale of man vs. man during the late 17th Century on Easter Island. Jason Scott Lee and Esai Morales star. (Warner Bros.)

Sept. 16

Blue Sky. The late Tony Richardson directed Tommy Lee Jones and Jessica Lange as a nuclear engineer and his wife, who are transferred to a military base and find themselves in a nuclear bomb test cover-up. Powers Boothe co-stars. (Orion)

It’s Pat. Julia Sweeney brings her one-gender-fits-all “Saturday Night Live” character to the wide screen. (Touchstone)

Quiz Show. Robert Redford directs and is a producer on this intense look into the game show phenomenon of the late ‘50s. Starring Ralph Fiennes and John Turturro. (Hollywood Pictures)

Timecop. This futuristic actioner sends Jean-Claude Van Damme back through time to see if he can stop a corrupt politician from changing the future. (Universal)

Sept. 23

The Shawshank Redemption. Banker Tim Robbins is carted off to prison, questionably convicted of murder. Co-starring Morgan Freeman. (Castle Rock/Columbia)

Sept. 28

Ed Wood. Director Tim Burton makes a film about notoriously bad filmmaker Wood, with Johnny Depp starring. (Touchstone)

Sept. 30

The River Wild. Meryl Streep and husband David Strathairn hope to patch up their marriage with a white-water rafting trip, but are threatened by strangers. Curtis Hanson directs. (Universal)

The Scout. Albert Brooks plays a talent recruiter for the Yankees about to be let go when he discovers a major baseball force south of the border. (Fox)

Oct. 7

Only You. Norman Jewison directs Marisa Tomei and Robert Downey Jr., with Tomei on her way to Italy to find the soul mate chosen with the help of a Ouija board. (TriStar)

Pulp Fiction. Quentin Tarantino follows up his cult fave “Reservoir Dogs” with this homage to criminal life, blood, lust and good ol’ greed. Bruce Willis, John Travolta, Uma Thurman and Harvey Keitel star. (Miramax)

The Specialist. Sylvester Stallone, Sharon Stone and James Woods star for “Sniper” director Luis Llosa in this high-intensity major-budget action thriller and shoot-’em-up set on the mean streets of Miami. (Warner Bros.)

Oct. 12

The Browning Version. Professor Albert Finney decides to leave his post at England’s exclusive Abbey School for boys after more than 20 years. Mike Figgis directs. (Paramount)

Oct. 14

Exit to Eden. Director Garry Marshall brings Anne Rice’s novel alive, with Dana Delany playing the lead mistress of Eden, the Disneyland of sexual fantasies. (Savoy)

I Like It Like That. In a Bronx Latino community, a very young couple is raising three children when a power outage triggers some events--both humorous and otherwise--in the ‘hood. Directed by Darnell Martin. (Columbia)

Imaginary Crimes. Harvey Keitel is a con artist with plenty of dreams but is a tad bereft in the luck department. But he does have a lovely teen in Fairuza Balk who loves her widower dad. (Warner Bros.)

Love Affair. Originally a 1939 Leo McCarey romantic comedy hit, then remade as 1957’s “An Affair to Remember.” Now, Warren Beatty and Annette Bening star, with Katharine Hepburn. (Warner Bros.)

S.F.W. A grubby suburbanite who becomes a nationwide celebrity during a monthlong convenience-store hostage standoff. Stephen Dorff stars. (Gramercy)

Oct. 19

Hoop Dreams. A look at five years in the lives of two inner-city youths and their dreams of playing in the NBA. starring William Gates and Arthur Agee. (Fine Line)

Oct. 21

Bullets Over Broadway. Woody Allen’s inaugural film, a comedy, from his Sweetland Films association stars John Cusack, Chazz Palminteri and Dianne Wiest. (Miramax)

Clerks. The life and times of two cashiers at a New Jersey convenience store. (Miramax)

Radioland Murders. George Lucas came up with the story and exec-produces this comic murder-mystery that unfolds on the debut night of a new radio station in the late ‘30s. (Universal)

Oct. 26

The Last Seduction. John Dahl (“Red Rock West”) directs the film noir tale of a woman who convinces her medic husband to get involved in a drug heist. (October Films)

Oct. 28

The Beans of Egypt, Maine. A look at the trashy Bean family whose scandal-ridden lives are the center of town gossip. Starring Martha Plimpton, Kelly Lynch and Rutger Hauer. (IRS)

Curse of the Starving Class. An adaptation of the Sam Shepard play about the gradual demise of the family Tate, whose grasp on the American dream is slipping. Starring James Woods and Kathy Bates. (Trimark)

Nobody’s Fool. Robert Benton directs this drama set in rural New York. Paul Newman has the opportunity to rejoin the family he left decades ago, with Jessica Tandy, Bruce Willis and Melanie Griffith. (Paramount)

The Road to Wellville. Anthony Hopkins plays turn-of-the-century vegetarian crusader Dr. John Harvey Kellogg in this comedy from Alan Parker. Also starring Bridget Fonda and Matthew Broderick. (Columbia)

Nov. 4

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Robert De Niro plays the creature to Kenneth Branagh’s Dr. Frankenstein in this latest version of the 19th-Century classic, which Branagh also directs. (TriStar)

Oleanna. Written and directed by David Mamet (and based on his play); a student charges one of her college professors with sexual harassment. (Samuel Goldwyn)

Vanya on 42nd Street. Louis Malle’s film is based on David Mamet’s contemporary adaptation of “Uncle Vanya,” the classic play by Anton Chekhov. (Sony Pictures Classics)

Nov. 11

The Santa Clause. Tim Allen is a divorced dad vying for the affection of his young son when St. Nick tumbles off Allen’s roof Christmas Eve. (Hollywood)

The War. Kevin Costner and Elijah Wood star in a family drama about a turf battle over a treehouse. Jon Avnet directes. (Universal)