The Must List: September's Hottest Picks

Played by: Michael Douglas
Andrew Shepherd isn't just a White House widower; he's also the world's most eligible bachelor. In the 1995 movie, Michael Douglas gets romantic-comic mileage out of the difficulties the most powerful man on the planet has in his courtship of a lovely lobbyist (Annette Bening), like having to interrupt a date in order to bomb Libya, or trying to cuddle in privacy at Camp David while surrounded by Secret Service agents and paparazzi. Screenwriter Aaron Sorkin's movie plays like a dry run for his series The West Wing, whose President Bartlet (played by American President's chief of staff, Martin Sheen) is pretty much Andrew Shepherd without the libidinal baggage. —Gary Susman

Before Denzel's 2004 remake, Ol' Blue Eyes was the center of the mind-altering government scandal. When a group of American soldiers under Captain Bennett Marco (Frank Sinatra) are kidnapped by communists during the Korean War, they're brainwashed into becoming assassins. Only Sinatra knows what's up and tries to throw a wrench in the sinister plan of a former comrade (and his manipulative, power-hungry mother).