MORE IS MORE

Fall movies run a bumper crop.

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JUST US Margaret Qualley and Ethan Hawke in Blue Moon

Fall means bounty in movies: Abundance is everywhere. The filmmaker Richard Linklater, never less than prolific, has two new films. There's Blue Moon (October), a witty, piercing study of creative decline, focused on the Broadway lyricist Lorenz Hart (Ethan Hawke) holding court at Sardi's on the opening night of Oklahoma!—a musical he did not write. That would be the triumph of his songwriting partner Richard Rodgers (Andrew Scott) with a new rival: Oscar Hammerstein II (Simon Delaney). Hawke has never been better—electric with jealousy and pride—as he blusters, drinks, and flirts with Yale student Elizabeth Weiland, played by Margaret Qualley. He's a genius with his light going out.

Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal in Hamnet

Linklater's Nouvelle Vague (October) tells the opposite story: Jean-Luc Godard (Guillaume Marbeck) is finally taking his stab at feature filmmaking at 28 after grinding away as a critic. Worried that he's already “missed the wave”—friends like Claude Chabrol, Éric Rohmer, and François Truffaut have found success as directors—he sets out not merely to make a movie but to create a new filmic language. The result is 1960's Breathless, starring the gamine Jean Seberg (played by a very likable, pixie-cut Zoey Deutch), fresh from