The New Fall Films Are Here!

Questions abound at the movies this fall: questions about love and war, questions simple and profound - and questions about which Hollywood gambles will pay off at Oscar time.

"Anything that has any potential for an Oscar - especially for acting and Best Picture - will come out in these two or three months," said Kenneth Turan, film critic for the Los Angeles Times, and author of "Now in Theaters Everywhere."

Turan spoke with CBS Sunday Morning correspondent Bill Whitaker about the films he's looking forward to seeing this fall.

The one he's most looking forward to is "American Gangster," starring Oscar winners Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe. It's director Ridley Scott's true tale of a charismatic drug kingpin and the cop who hunted him down.

"These are guys who both own the screen," Turan said, "who can handle themselves against anybody. And to see them kind of face off against each other, I think it's gonna be terrific."

In "Michael Clayton," a thriller about a lawyer with a conscience, George Clooney plays a. a troubled man. "He's kind of at the end of his rope. I was quite taken with him in this film," Turan said.

In "I Am Legend," Will Smith puts on a one-man show as perhaps the only man left on Earth.

"Will Smith is the guy who can do no wrong," Turan said. "He is one of the most popular actors on the planet, and anything he's in, people wanna see, including me. Because he has that gift of being someone you want to see on screen."

There are biographies, of a sort, like "I'm Not There," about the life of Bob Dylan, with six actors playing the singer - including the actress Cate blanchett.

Blanchett also appears in her second film playing Queen Elizabeth the First, "Elizabeth: The Golden Age," and Emile Hirsch stars in the true story of a young man's deadly adventure, "Into the Wild."

Film festivals helped launch a number of movies this season, like "No Country for Old Men" at Cannes. It's the Coen Brothers' tale of a killer out to retrieve his drug money, starring Javier Bardem, Tommy Lee Jones and Josh Brolin.

"It's a very masterfully-made film," Truan said. "All very, very strong performances, and you just sit there with your mouth open as the story unfolds."

"The Savages" played well at Sundance, with Philip Seymour Hoffman and Laura Linney as siblings who reconnect to care for their father.

"Lust, Caution," an erotic thriller from director Ang Lee, earned the top prize at the Venice Film Festival … and an NC-17 rating here in the U.S.

The dramedy "Juno," about a pregnant girl who decides to give up her baby for adoption, had audiences at the Toronto Film Festival buzzing.

And speaking of buzz … there's "Bee Movie, " an animated feature with an A-list pedigree of voices. Jerry Seinfeld is the bee who sues the human race for stealing honey.

From Disney comes the tale of a cartoon princess banished to the real world where she meets her Prince Charming, in "Enchanted." And Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig star in the fantasy "The Golden Compass," based on the first of a trilogy of books about a parallel universe by Philip Pullman.

"It's spectacular material," Turan said, "it's a great cast and just everyone's crossing their fingers and hoping that it works out."

Hollywood set box office records this summer with mostly fantasy fare, like "Spider-Man," "Shrek" and "Harry Potter." But fantasy meets hard reality at the multiplex this season, with as many as ten movies dealing with some aspects of terrorism and war.

Among them: "The Kingdom," with Jamie Foxx, Jennifer Garner and Chris Cooper as a special FBI unit investigating a terrorist attack in Saudi Arabia.

Heavyweights Tom Cruise, Meryl Streep and Robert Redford consider war and politics in "Lions for Lambs," which Redford directed.

And in "Rendition," Reese Witherspoon finds things are anything but okay when her Egyptian-born husband becomes a terrorist suspect.

"What's happening in Iraq is still very much front-and-center, I think, on every American's mind," Turan said. "And as so, I think the movies are trying to in some ways capitalize on that. The risk is that people are gonna say, 'I read it on the news. I'm fed up with it. I don't wanna hear it anymore.'"

Had enough real life? Try "Dan in Real Life." Steve Carrell plays a widower who falls for his brother's girlfriend in one of several promising comedies this season.

"This is off-beat, comic, romantic," Turan said. "I mean, this is, I think, the film that a lot of adults have been looking for for a while."

Ben Stiller stars in a remake of "The Heartbreak Kid," about a man who falls for one woman … while on his honeymoon with another.

And Ryan Gosling falls for … yes … a real doll in "Lars and the Real Girl."

From the bookshelf come a number of fall films, like "The Jane Austen Book Club," about women who find meaning for their own lives in what they read.

Keira Knightly stars in "Atonement," from the Ian McEwen book.

Even the olde English poem "Beowulf" gets the Hollywood treatment.

"Having read 'Beowulf,' I don't remember anyone in there that's at all like Angelina Jolie," Turan mused. "But you know, that's the way it goes in Hollywood."

Yes, that's the way it goes in Hollywood.

The fall films are here. Have a blast.