Illustration by John Hendrix.

1. King Kong
Peter Jackson goes ape, with Naomi Watts as his damsel in distress.

2. The Producers
The Broadway musical, now just $10.25 a ticket.

3. Get Rich or Die Tryin’
In Queens, 50 Cent romanticizes his backstory.

4. The New York Film Festival
Opening night: George Clooney’s Edward R. Murrow film, Good Night, and Good Luck.

5. Rent
Rosario Dawson and the original cast star in Chris Columbus’s adaptation of the East Village musical.

6. Prime
Meryl Streep psychoanalyzes Uma Thurman on the Upper West Side.

7. Stay
In Marc Forster’s drama, a Brooklyn Bridge car crash bonds Naomi Watts, Ewan McGregor, and Ryan Gosling.

8. The Squid and the Whale
In Park Slope, Jeff Daniels plays a bad novelist—and worse father.

9. Capote
Philip Seymour Hoffman plays author Truman Capote.

10. Everything Is Illuminated
Liev Schreiber adapts the work of Brooklyn novelist Jonathan Safran Foer.

11. Jesus Is Magic
A film of Sarah Silverman’s raunchy one-woman comedy show, which opened at midtown’s Zipper Theatre.

12. Answering the Call
In this doc, ground-zero relief workers get their due.

13. New York Doll
A doc about the raucous band the New York Dolls, led by Arthur “Killer” Kane.

14. Flightplan
Jodie Foster plays a woman whose daughter is abducted on a gigantic plane bound for New York.

15. Weinstein Co.
Post-Miramax, Harvey and Bob Weinstein launch their new company in Tribeca.

16. Lord of War
Nicolas Cage plays a gun-runner so successful he can afford an apartment on Central Park West.

Related:

• Archive: “Features”
• Articles by Logan Hill
• Table of Contents: September 12, 2005 issue of New York | Subscribe!