Oscar®-winning actor Sean Penn (Best Actor, Mystic River, 2003), two-time Academy Award® nominee Jude Law (Best Supporting Actor, The Talented Mr. Ripley, 1999; Best Actor, Cold Mountain, 2003), four-time Academy Award® nominee Kate Winslet (Best Supporting Actress, Sense and Sensibility, 1995; Iris, 2001, Best Actress, Titanic, 1997; Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, 2004), and Oscar® winner Anthony Hopkins (Best Actor, The Silence of the Lambs, 1991) star in this riveting story of a humble man's rise to political power and the destructive force of corruption and betrayal that would ultimately unravel his soul, based on Robert Penn Warren's 1946 classic Pulitzer Prize-winning novel.

Willie Stark (Penn) is an ordinary man from a rural town, demanding that crooked politicians and shady businessmen in Lousiana be held accountable for the collapse of a poorly built school. Urged to run for Governor by a dubious political advisor, Tiny Duffy (three-time Emmy® Award winner James Gandolfini, Lead Actor in a Drama Series, The Sopranos, 2000, 2001, 2003) Stark, finds his voice as a charismatic man of the people. He then befriends a young idealistic journalist, Jack Burden (Law), who eventually ends up working for him. But when Stark asks Burden to dig deep for damaging information on an old family friend, Judge Montague Irwin (Hopkins), Burden begins to question his own morality and Stark's surprising transformation into an inflexible leader that will stop at nothing to remain in power.

Sean Penn gives an electrifying performance as rising politician Willie Stark in ALL THE KING'S MEN, the second film based on Robert Penn Warren's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. (In 1949, the original ALL THE KING'S MEN, directed by Robert Rossen, was a huge hit, earning Oscars for Best Picture, Best Actor [Broderick Crawford], and Best Supporting Actress [Merceded McCambridge].) But whereas the novel and first film set the story of pride, ambition, jealousy, and dirty politics in pre-World War II Louisiana, writer-director Steven Zaillian (SEARCHING FOR BOBBY FISCHER) moves the action to the 1950s, a much different time in American history, with the Great Depression and the war over and McCarthyism just around the corner. Stark starts out as a man of the people, proud to be a hick, wanting to make a difference to the struggling families in his community. But the smell of power leads to back-room corruption, lies, and betrayal. Stark surrounds himself with smart, well-connected people, including journalist (and narrator) Jack Burden (Jude Law), right-hand man Tiny Duffy (James Gandolfini), and doctor Adam Stanton (Mark Ruffalo), using them as both willing and unwilling players in his march to the top. The all-star cast also includes Kate Winslet as Stanton's sister and a former love of Burden's, Anthony Hopkins as a compromised judge, and Jackie Earle Haley as a Stark thug. The film is gorgeously shot by Pawel Edelman, with an emotional soundtrack by James Horner and period music supervised by T Bone Burnett (O BROTHER, WHERE ART THOU'). Interestingly, Zaillian chose not to watch the original film, basing his screenplay solely on the novel. The remake was the brainchild of former Bill Clinton adviser James Carville, who is one of the executive producers of this stirring political film.