THIS PAST WEEKEND marked the beginning of prestige season at the movies. The rollout of Quentin Tarantino’s “Kill Bill” will be followed in the coming weeks by “The Matrix: Revolutions,” “The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King,” “Cold Mountain,” “The Human Stain” and other high-profile releases. What you won’t see this fall–or winter, or spring, or summer for that matter–is a single movie about the war on terror. It’s a little hard to believe. Yes, we have had a small-screen documentary and the film version of a play (“The Guys”), both about Sept. 11 itself. And Showtime aired a TV original movie, “DC 9/11.” But that’s it. Contrast this with Hollywood’s output during World War II, when it seemed like every fifth movie was about America’s heroic struggle to fend off the Germans and Japanese. Clearly, something’s going on here.

But it’s a complicated something. When asked why Hollywood hasn’t made movies about the war on terror, the first-blush answer is almost always political correctness. “Who would you have as the enemy if you made a picture about terrorism?” Jack Valenti, the head of the Motion Picture Association of America, asks. “You’d probably have Muslims, would you not? If you did, I think there would be backlash from the decent, hardworking, law-abiding Muslim community in this country.”