Ratings and running times are in parentheses; foreign films have English subtitles. Full reviews of all current releases: nytimes.com/movies[1].

★ 'Aferim!' (No rating, 1:46, in Romanian) This wide-screen, black-and-white Romanian quasi-western, directed by Radu Jude, takes place in the mountainous region of Walachia in 1835. A constable and his son are dispatched by a local aristocrat to hunt down an enslaved Gypsy who has run away, and their search illuminates the cruelty and sensuality of this corner of 19th-century Europe. Mr. Jude's vigorous, unsentimental humanism allows him to acknowledge decency and compassion without sugarcoating the essential awfulness of our species. (A. O. Scott)

'Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip' (PG, 1:26) The latest big-screen adventure of the unkillable singing chipmunks, the fourth in the franchise, features a simpler plot than the previous two films. It also puts the focus back on Alvin, Theodore and Simon, leaving the female trio, the Chipettes, in the background. The boys are worried about what they think are the engagement plans of their human minder, Dave, and take a road trip to disrupt them. Catchy songs abound. (Neil Genzlinger)

'Anomalisa' (R, 1:30) Directed by Charlie Kaufman and Duke Johnson, this sad, stirringly painful stop-motion puppet whatsit centers on a floundering soul (voiced by David Thewlis) who, while on a business trip, has an affair with a stranger (Jennifer Jason Leigh). An invaluable Tom Noonan voices everyone else. (Manohla Dargis)

★ 'The Big Short' (R, 2:10) Adam McKay's adaptation of the Michael Lewis best seller is a wildly entertaining movie that leaves you nauseated and shaking with rage. That's as it should be, since Mr. McKay and his energetic cast (including Steve Carell, Christian Bale, Brad Pitt and Ryan Gosling) set out to capture both the giddy thrills of the economic bubble of the mid-2000s and the moral corruption that fueled it. Rooting for the film's designated good guys means rooting for economic collapse, and you feel the awfulness of this contradiction. (Scott)

'Bleak Street'(No rating, 1:39, in Spanish) Arturo Ripstein's film, based on a real-life Mexican murder case, is by turns funny and grotesque, surreal and sad. It chronicles the fateful encounter between two pint-size wrestlers and a pair of aging prostitutes in a dreamlike, noir-tinged demimonde. (Scott)

'The Boy' (PG-13, 1:38) Lauren Cohan, of "The Walking Dead," plays Greta, an American nanny hired by a couple in a creepy British mansion to watch their son, who turns out to be a porcelain doll. For most of the way it's a psychological thriller, Greta wondering about her sanity as she begins to think the doll may indeed be alive. But a twist ending brings a sharp turn in tone. "The Boy" is still a reasonably engaging horror movie, but you may wonder what it might have been like had it stayed on course till the end. (Genzlinger)

★ 'Bridge of Spies' (PG-13, 2:15) In this gravely moody, perfectly directed thriller about a real 1962 spy swap, Steven Spielberg returns you to the good old bad days of the Cold War and its fictions, with their bottomless political chasms and moral gray areas. Tom Hanks leads a terrific cast that includes Mark Rylance as a Soviet mole and Scott Shepherd as a C.I.A. operative. (Dargis)

★ 'Brooklyn' (PG-13, 1:51) Saoirse Ronan gives a remarkably lively and subtle performance as Eilis Lacey, a young woman who emigrates from Ireland to New York in the early 1950s, in John Crowley's lovely adaptation of the novel by Colm Toibin. (Scott)

★ 'Carol' (R, 1:58) Todd Haynes's gorgeous adaptation of a Patricia Highsmith novel stars Rooney Mara as Therese Belivet, a young woman in early-1950s New York who falls for an older suburban housewife played by Cate Blanchett. The blossoming of their love affair is related in subdued colors and whispered words, and it lingers in the air like an old song. (Scott)

'Concussion' (PG-13, 2:03) This fact-and-fiction hybrid stars Will Smith as a crusading doctor — the real Dr. Bennet Omalu — who sets out to discover why some professional football players are dying too young. Written and directed by Peter Landesman, the movie has a cause and heart but not enough real tension. (Dargis)

★ 'Creed' (PG-13, 2:13) The "Rocky" saga, revised and reborn, with the Italian Stallion in the role of the grizzled trainer, helping a young contender prepare for his shot at the title. The contender is Adonis Johnson (Michael B. Jordan), the love child of Apollo Creed, Rocky's erstwhile nemesis and eventual best friend. The director is Ryan Coogler ("Fruitvale Station"), at 29 a rising champion in his own right. (Scott)

'Daddy's Home' (PG-13, 1:36) An ugly psychological cockfight posing as a family friendly comedy, the father-stepfather competition pits a meek Will Ferrell against a feral Mark Wahlberg. It is best avoided unless a movie that has the attitude of a schoolyard bully happens to be your thing. (Holden)

'The Danish Girl' (R, 2:00) The story of a transgender pioneer, Lili Elbe, becomes a tasteful, sensitive and somewhat inert costume drama in the hands of Tom Hooper ("The King's Speech"). Eddie Redmayne plays Lili, whom we first encounter as Einar Wegener, a Danish landscape painter. His wife, Gerda (Alicia Vikander), also an artist, is the emotional center of the film, in part because Mr. Redmayne's performance, while technically flawless, keeps the audience at a distance from Lili's experience. (Scott)

'Dirty Grandpa' (R, 1:42) Dan Mazer's mindlessly crude, puerile comedy stars Robert De Niro as a horny, foul-mouthed senior dragging his uptight grandson on a spring-break-style trip. That's probably all you need to know in order to laugh — or cry — and most of the comedy is on the level of phallic graffiti on a subway poster. (Nicolas Rapold)

'The Forest' (PG-13, 1:33) If you aren't bothered by the use of real-life suicides as the inspiration for a horror movie, "The Forest" is a decently made creeper. Natalie Dormer plays both halves of a pair of twins: Jess, who has disappeared in the so-called Suicide Forest at the base of Mount Fuji in Japan, and Sara, who travels there to look for her. In real life, the forest is where many people have gone to end their lives. In the movie, it has a supernatural pull, causing anyone who ventures into it to lose touch with reality. Ms. Dormer handles the deterioration convincingly. (Genzlinger)

★ '45 Years' (R, 1:35) Andrew Haigh's new film is a loving, devastating portrait of a long, happy marriage that encounters an unusual crisis. Charlotte Rampling and Tom Courtenay play Kate and Geoff Mercer, whose plans for an anniversary party are disrupted by news about an old, long-dead girlfriend of Geoff's. (Scott)

'The Hateful Eight' (R, 2:48) More talking and killing from Quentin Tarantino, this time in a frontier outpost after the Civil War. Some interesting ideas about the racial politics of the Western genre peek out amid the verbiage and the violence, but Mr. Tarantino's grandstanding gets in the way. With Kurt Russell, Jennifer Jason Leigh and Samuel L. Jackson, whose performance as a former Union officer almost lifts the film out of its self-conscious rut. (Scott)

★­'The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2' (PG-13, 2:16) Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) returns to finish the fight, defeat the enemy and send off a big-screen series that has had an astonishing run both in cold-cash terms and in its meaningful symbolism. She's ready (and so are you). (Dargis)

'Joy' (PG-13, 2:04) Jennifer Lawrence, at her tough, radiant best, plays Joy Mangano, an entrepreneur stymied by her family in David O. Russell's rousing and chaotic fable of bootstrap capitalism. (Scott)

'Macbeth' (R, 1:52) The best reason to see this slick version of the sanguineous tragedy is Michael Fassbender's exceptionally fine title performance, though the writing isn't bad, either. A mushy-mouthed Marion Cotillard co-stars; Justin Kurzel directed. (Dargis)

★ 'The Martian' (PG-13, 2:21) Matt Damon stars in Ridley Scott's space western and blissed-out cosmic high about an American astronaut who, like a latter-day Robinson Crusoe, learns to survive on his own island of despair. Funny, loose and optimistic. (Dargis)

★ 'Mustang' (PG-13, 1:37, in Turkish) Full of life, "Mustang" is a stunning debut feature by Deniz Gamze Ergüven about five sisters in rural Turkey. Confined to their grandmother's house, the girls bridle against losing their freedoms in a story grounded in both laughter and tears, and in the resilient strength of these girls against soul-deadening strictures. (Rapold)

'Norm of the North' (PG, 1:33) An entirely misbegotten animated movie about a "funny" polar bear trying to block condos in the Arctic. "The Revenant," which is no kind of kid's movie at all, is nevertheless a better kid's movie. (Glenn Kenny)

★ 'Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict' (No rating, 1:37) Lisa Immordino Vreeland's sleek, entertaining portrait of the collector who assembled one of the great troves of modern art is well organized, with hundreds of beautiful images spanning decades of artists Guggenheim knew, galleries she ran, parties she hosted. Using tapes of interviews before she died in 1979, the documentary is imbued with Guggenheim's presence, even as art-world denizens dish on her foibles and vanities. (Daniel M. Gold)

'The Revenant' (R, 2:36) By turns soaring and overblown, this American foundation story from the director Alejandro G. Iñárritu ("Birdman") features a battalion of very fine, hardworking actors. None are more diligently committed than Leonardo DiCaprio, as a 1823 mountain man who endures a crucible of suffering. (Dargis)

'Ride Along 2' (PG-13, 1:42) A lot like the first "Ride Along," only less so. Ice Cube and Kevin Hart reprise their oil-and-water buddy-cop routine. Nothing new to see, but not too painful either. (Scott)

'Room' (R, 1:58) Brie Larson and an exceptional child actor, Jacob Tremblay, play mother and son in the adaptation of Emma Donoghue's novel. Written by Ms. Donoghue and directed by Lenny Abrahamson, the movie flickers with grace and imagination during its initial half but devolves into a dreary, platitudinous therapy movie in its second. (Dargis)

'Sisters' (R, 1:58) It's always fun to watch Amy Poehler and Tina Fey together, but it would be more fun if this movie weren't such a cobbled-together mess of tired raunch and weak sentimentality. (Scott)

'Son of Saul' (R, 1:47, in Hungarian, German, Yiddish and Polish) This debut feature from the 38-year-old Hungarian filmmaker Laszlo Nemes is a powerful but ungainly blend of allegory and thriller set in a Nazi death camp. Saul (Geza Rohrig) is a member of the Sonderkommando, Jewish inmates assigned to assist in the murder of their fellow prisoners in exchange for meager privileges. In his company, the viewer is given a tour of horror that is unnerving both for its harshness and for the sense of slick, self-congratulatory artifice that lurks around the edges of the frame. (Scott)

'Spectre' (PG-13, 2:28) Bond, James Bond, etc. (Dargis)

★ 'Spotlight' (R, 2:07) A team of Boston Globe investigative reporters — played by Michael Keaton, Brian d'Arcy James, Rachel McAdams and Mark Ruffalo — takes on the local archdiocese in this powerful fact-based newspaper procedural, directed by Tom McCarthy. The movie, with a superb cast and a tightly constructed script, is an unflinching investigation of systemic moral rot and a rousing defense of the values of professional journalism. (Scott)

'Star Wars: The Force Awakens' (PG-13, 2:15) It's good! (Dargis)

'13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi' (R, 2:24) A pummeling slog, Michael Bay's latest revisits the 2012 attack on the diplomatic mission in Libya that resulted in the deaths of four Americans, including Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens. Mr. Bay again proves that coherency (visual, etc.) isn't a prerequisite for his style of blunt-force cinema. (Dargis)

★ 'The Treasure' (No rating, 1:29, in Romanian) The latest film from Corneliu Porumbiou, Romania's master of deadpan existential proceduralism, observes two hard-pressed middle-class guys digging for riches that may or may not be buried in a backyard. Their adventure is part fairy-tale, part farce, and an astute examination of the social and moral state of Europe in an age of economic crisis and political malaise. (Scott)

'Trumbo' (R, 2:04) This clunker about the blacklisted screenwriter Dalton Trumbo (Bryan Cranston) tells a great-man story with a patchwork of fact and fiction, mixing in the odd bit of newsreel with a great many dull, visually flat and poorly lighted dramatic scenes. Jay Roach directed. (Dargis)

'Youth'(R, 2:04) Paolo Sorrentino follows the luxurious melancholy of "The Great Beauty" with this weary rumination on aging, set in a spectacular Alpine resort. Michael Caine and Harvey Keitel play old friends — a composer and a filmmaker — who feel their erotic and creative powers waning as the world goes on its decadent way. (Scott)

Film Series

All That Jack (Cole) (through Thursday) The Museum of Modern Art's series looks at Jack Cole (1911-1974), a choreographer who helped to popularize the "theatrical jazz" style associated with Jerome Robbins and Bob Fosse. He is also responsible for some of the most memorable numbers put on film, including Rita Hayworth's rendition of "Put the Blame on Mame" in "Gilda" (Wednesday) and Marilyn Monroe's shimmying to "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend" in "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" (Monday). Cole himself appears as a character in Vincente Minnelli's 1957 marital farce "Designing Woman" (Thursday). As the choreographer friend of a wealthy fashion designer (Lauren Bacall), Cole annoys her new husband, a sports reporter (Gregory Peck), by crashing into a card table; later, he puts his dancer's dexterity to heroic use in a climactic brawl. Museum of Modern Art Roy and Niuta Titus Theaters, 212-708-9400, moma.org[2]. (Ben Kenigsberg)

American International Pictures, Part 3 (through March 21) Concluding a series that began last summer, Anthology Film Archives continues its retrospective on American International Pictures, a B movie studio known both for the speed and stinginess of its productions from the 1950s through the 1970s, as well as for nurturing then-rising talent like Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola. This installment of the program covers the company's transition from horror pictures, like "Scream and Scream Again" (Friday, Sunday and Feb. 6) and the racy "The Vampire Lovers" (Monday and Feb. 6), to the blaxploitation films of the 1970s, including "Blacula" and "Foxy Brown." 32 Second Avenue, East Village, 212-505-5181, anthologyfilmarchives.org[3]. (Kenigsberg)

Jane and Charlotte Forever (Friday through Feb. 7) The Film Society of Lincoln Center's generation-bridging retrospective covers the careers of not one but two of the screen's most adventurous Anglo-French actresses: Charlotte Gainsbourg and her mother, Jane Birkin. The eclectic lineup includes relative rarities (Jacques Rivette's "Love on the Ground," with Ms. Birkin, on Wednesday and next Friday); "Slogan" (Saturday), a Swinging Sixties time capsule that pairs Ms. Birkin with Charlotte's father, the singer Serge Gainsbourg; and early work from Ms. Gainsbourg (like "The Little Thief," from a script by François Truffaut, Sunday and Thursday). The two women will participate in a joint Q. and A. session on Friday, between screenings of films that feature two of their most extreme performances — Ms. Birkin in Jacques Doillon's "La Pirate" at 6:30 p.m. and Ms. Gainsbourg in Lars von Trier's "Antichrist" at 9. Wal ter Reade Theater, Lincoln Center, 165 West 65th Street, 212-875-5601, filmlinc.com[4]. (Kenigsberg)

Modern Matinees: A Pioneer Cowboy (through Feb. 26) Even in the 1910s, when stage-trained actors with unconventional looks could mosey their way onto the big screen more easily, William S. Hart and his melancholy woodcarving of a face cut a jarring figure. An acquaintance of Wyatt Earp and an accomplished Shakespearean actor on Broadway, Hart didn't arrive in Hollywood until he was 49. He made up for lost time, appearing in more than 60 films in just over a decade. This Museum of Modern Art retrospective includes the boisterous 1916 Western "Hell's Hinges," in which Hart's gunman sees the light when a preacher and his sister arrive in the titular territory, described in the film's intertitles as "a gun-fighting, man-killing, devil's den of iniquity that scorched even the sun-parched soil on which it stood." On various days, a detailed schedule is at moma.org. (Grode)

See It Big! Documentary (Friday through Feb. 21) Whatever your preconceived notions of documentaries may be, this all-nonfiction edition of the Museum of the Moving Image's recurring "See It Big!" series means to broaden your horizons. The selections are, without a doubt, designed for the immersion of a theater. They include Errol Morris's "Fast, Cheap and Out of Control," a four-strand character study whose subjects, among others, are a robot designer and a topiary gardener; "Lessons of Darkness," Werner Herzog's survey of burning Kuwaiti oil fields; and "Leviathan," Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Véréna Paravel's abstract portrait of life on a fishing vessel. The program's opening weekend includes Godfrey Reggio's Philip Glass-scored "Qatsi" trilogy, beginning with "Koyaanisqatsi" (7 p.m. on Friday). 35th Avenue at 37th Street, Astoria, Queens, 718-784-0077, movingimage.us[5]. (Kenigsberg)