Kate Winslet photographed by David Appleby

Well, the cast ain't bad: Two Oscar nominees (Kate Winslet and Laura Linney) and one two-time winner (Kevin Spacey) star in this political thriller. Spacey plays Gale, a University of Texas professor and advocate of abolishing the death penalty. When a fellow activist (Linney) is murdered, Gale is falsely convicted of the crime. Winslet's the reporter try to get Gale's story. Despite the trio's pedigree, director Alan Parker (Angela's Ashes) reports his stars were surprisingly unstarlike. "I'm grateful for actors who are around as opposed to forever [in] their trailers," he says. "It sounds cliché, but I'm quite outspoken about people when they're badly behaved." (Fall)