A guide to movies playing in the New York City area, as well as select festivals and film series. Ratings and running times are in parentheses; foreign films have English subtitles. Full reviews of all current releases: nytimes.com/movies[1].

'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)

★ 'April and the Extraordinary World' (PG, 1:45) A tricky, eccentric, visually ravishing alternative-history animated sci-fi film from France. Marion Cotillard voices the title heroine, an intense young woman trying to find out who is abducting the great scientists of early-20th-century Europe. (Glenn Kenny)

'Baskin' (No rating, 1:37, in Turkish) This stylish, shape-shifting horror film from Turkey morphs from a sinuous psychological thriller into a buffet for gore enthusiasts, without ever totally losing its elegance — unless your definition of that word could never encompass a graphic disembowelment or an unexpected stabbing of an eye. (Ben Kenigsberg)

'Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice' (PG-13, 2:31) They fight. You lose. (A. O. Scott)

★ 'Born to Be Blue' (No rating, 1:38) In this moody biographical fantasia, Ethan Hawke gives what is arguably his deepest performance, playing the self-destructive jazz trumpeter and singer Chet Baker, who died in 1988 following years of heroin addiction. The portrait he creates is of a wounded boy genius who lives for only two things: his trumpet and his drugs. As a young man, Baker was movie-star beautiful ("the James Dean of jazz," some called him) and the romantic fantasy of scores of women, powerfully embodied by Carmen Ejogo as a fictional composite named Jane. (Stephen Holden)

'The Bronze' (R, 1:48) This sour comedy stars Melissa Rauch as a former Olympic bronze medalist in gymnastics who reluctantly agrees to coach her small Ohio town's next big star in the sport. Ms. Rauch's character, spoiled and vulgar, is so repellent that she's hard to stomach for the length of a feature film. (Neil Genzlinger)

'The Brothers Grimsby' (R, 1:18) Emphasis on the grim. (Dargis)

'Hail, Caesar!' (PG-13, 1:46) Joel and Ethan Coen lay siege to old Hollywood in this sly, off-center comedy set against the 1950s motion-picture business. One of those diversions that they turn out in between masterworks and duds, it features some wrangling over God, art and politics and a stable of frisky stars, including Josh Brolin, George Clooney and Scarlett Johansson. (Dargis)

★ 'City of Gold' (R, 1:31) Laura Gabbert's documentary about the Los Angeles Times food writer Jonathan Gold is a smart, ardent love letter to his city, his appetite and his art. (Scott)

'The Clan' (R, 1:50) Pablo Trapero's film, based on a true story, is a troubling exploration of fascist psychology. Behind a facade of middle-class normalcy, an Argentine family, enabled by the military dictatorship of the 1980s, goes into the business of kidnapping, torture and murder. Guillermo Francella, as the patriarch, brilliantly portrays not only the banality of evil but the evil of banality. (Scott)

'Deadpool' (R, 1:48) Jokes and bullets are tossed like confetti in "Deadpool," a feverishly eager-to-please comic-book movie about a supervillain (Ryan Reynolds) who suits up like a superhero. Bang, boom, splatter. (Dargis)

'The Divergent Series: Allegiant' (PG-13, 2:00) A flaccid blend of eugenics, purloined children, memory-wiping gas and laughably unlikely scuffles, this third installment (directed by Robert Schwentke) is so lacking in narrative momentum that we can almost hear the hum of a plot idling in neutral. (Jeannette Catsoulis)

'Eddie the Eagle' (PG-13, 1:16) This film is loosely based on the real-life story of Eddie Edwards, an improbable British ski jumper in the 1988 Winter Olympics, but it has been so loaded up with fictionalized clichés that it's a bit insulting to viewers; it doesn't trust them to recognize a good underdog story on their own. At least Taron Egerton, in the title role, and Hugh Jackman, as his reluctant coach, have charm. (Genzlinger)

★ 'Embrace of the Serpent' (Not rated, 2:05) This majestic, spellbinding film is a tragic cinematic elegy for vanished indigenous civilizations in the Amazon jungle. Viewed largely through the aggrieved eyes of a shaman whose tribe is on the verge of extinction at the hands of Colombian rubber barons in the 19th and 20th centuries, this complicated mixture of myth and historical reality shatters lingering illusions of first-world culture as more advanced than any other, except technologically. (Holden)

★ 'Eye in the Sky' (R, 1:42) This suspenseful film about an American drone attack[2] on a terrorist meeting place in Nairobi, Kenya, is grim farce in which unpredictable human behavior repeatedly threatens an operation of astounding technological sophistication. Helen Mirren, in one of her fiercest screen performances, plays the chilly officer in charge of an operation to capture a radicalized Englishwoman she has been pursuing for years. But as the moment of capture arrives, her plans abruptly change when a cyborg beetle, a small surveilla nce device, reveals two inhabitants strapping on explosives for a suicide mission. (Holden)

★ 'Fastball' (No rating, 1:25) Baseball fans will enjoy this documentary about the sport's most basic pitch. Stars from the present and past talk about throwing the fastball and trying to hit it. There is, of course, an analysis of whether today's pitchers throw faster than the stars of yore, and eventually a fastest-pitcher-ever crown is awarded. (Genzlinger)

'Get a Job' (R, 1:23) Generically written but featuring a promising cast, Dylan Kidd's long-shelved movie is mostly about 20-somethings entering the sink-or-swim labor force. Miles Teller, Anna Kendrick, Bryan Cranston, Marcia Gay Harden and Alison Brie star in an episodic comedy packed with evergreen bromides mingled with riffs on millennials. (Nicolas Rapold)

'Gods of Egypt' (PG-13, 2:07) Come for the spectacle. Stay for the kitsch. (Dargis)

'Hello, My Name Is Doris' (R, 1:30) An irresistible, stealthily touching Sally Field plays an outwardly ridiculous woman in her 60s who falls in love with a much younger man (Max Greenfield). The director Michael Showalter oversells the goods, but resistance is futile. (Dargis)

'How to Be Single' (R, 1:50) In this film adaptation of Liz Tuccillo's book, an innocent postcollegiate newcomer to New York, named Alice (Dakota Johnson), disappears down a rabbit hole of deadening life lessons and half-baked screenwriting. This reheated "Sex and the City[3]" adventure flops, even with Leslie Mann and Rebel Wilson hard at work being funny. (Rapold)

'I Saw the Light' (R, 2:03) This big-screen memorial stars a fine Tom Hiddleston as the music megastar Hank Williams in a movie that's as pretty as an old-fashioned, hand-tinted postcard and just as inert. Marc Abraham wrote and directed; Elizabeth Olsen co-stars. (Dargis)

'Jane Wants a Boyfriend' (No rating, 1:41) This drama, directed by William Sullivan, concerns two sisters: Jane (played by Louisa Krause), who resides on the Asperger-autism spectrum, and Bianca (the "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" alumna Eliza Dushku), a bartender and struggling actress. When Jane's longing for romance and autonomy meets the amorous overtures of one of Bianca's bar regulars, Bianca's protective instincts kick in. While the film takes a diagrammatic approach to the story's rich dramatic possibilities, it also offers tasty performances, not least from its well-matched leads. (Andy Webster)

'Knight of Cups' (R, 1:58) In Terrence Malick's latest movie, Christian Bale plays a Hollywood screenwriter grappling with spiritual crisis in the company of beautiful women. The real star is the cinematographer, the three-time Oscar winner Emmanuel Lubezki, who infuses Los Angeles with a transcendental glow. (Scott)

★ 'Krisha' (R, 1:22) A family drama in alternately appalling and queasily hilarious extremis, this first feature takes place over an epically terrible Thanksgiving. The young director Trey Edward Shults cast family members in central roles, including an aunt, Krisha Fairchild, and together they turn this modest movie into an expressionistic tour de force. (Dargis)

'Kung Fu Panda 3' (PG, 1:35) Jack Black again voices Po, the panda who saves China, in this beautifully animated addition to the franchise. Po is reunited with the father (Bryan Cranston) he thought was long dead and has to rediscover his panda roots to stop a soul-stealing monster. Young viewers might find the themes a bit more disturbing than in the previous two installments, but of course they'll know who's going to triumph in the end. (Genzlinger)

'London Has Fallen' (R, 1:39) In this sequel to "Olympus Has Fallen," the president of the United States once again is snatched by terrorists, and only his favorite Secret Service agent can save the day. It's dumb and uninvolving, a collection of ugly sentiments served via clumsy dialogue. (Genzlinger)

★ 'Marguerite' (R, 2:07, in French) "The self-deception that believes the lie." That phrase from the Rodgers and Hart song "I Wish I Were In Love Again" distills the theme of Xavier Giannoli's satirical comedy "Marguerite," about a rich, tone-deaf would-be opera diva who thinks she can sing. The character, beautifully played by Catherine Frot, is inspired by the life of the American socialite and aspiring soprano Florence Foster Jenkins, who was the butt of a cruel joke that everyone got but her. (Holden)

'Midnight Special' (PG-13, 1:51) The latest from Jeff Nichols ("Mud," "Take Shelter") is a lean and tense genre puzzle — a backwoods crime thriller that's also a heady science-fiction allegory. Michael Shannon and Kirsten Dunst give it emotional weight, playing the protective parents of an exceptional child. (Scott)

'Miracles From Heaven' (PG, 1:49) Jennifer Garner stars as a woman who loses her faith when one of her children falls ill. The movie smartly looks to be inspiring rather than preachy, and except for some mawkishness in its late scenes, comes off as unexpectedly watchable. (Jaworowski)

★ '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)

'My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2' (PG-13, 1:34) A washed-out recycling of ethnic clichés and exhausted jokes, Kirk Jones's embarrassingly awful sequel returns us to the smothering bosom of the Portokalos family — a yapping clan of upraised shoulders and upturned palms. (Catsoulis)

★ 'My Golden Days' (R, 2:00) A must see, this latest from the brilliant French filmmaker Arnaud Desplechin is an elegy for young love and its lingering ache that turns on a man (the great Mathieu Amalric) who looks back at his life and the love he let slip away. Two exciting young newcomers, Quentin Dolmaire and the luminous Lou Roy-Lecollinet, co-star. (Dargis)

'Perfect Match' (R, 1:26) A largely conventional but generally agreeable ensemble rom-com set in young, affluent L.A.; its most prominent thread is the old "player meets his match" gambit, enacted by the attractive performers Terrence J. and Cassie Ventura. (Kenny)

'Remember' (R, 1:35) Christopher Plummer turns in a fine performance, and the director Atom Egoyan proves himself an expert button-pusher, in this psychological thriller. Mr. Plummer's character, Zev, who is slipping into and out of dementia, is sent in search of a Nazi who escaped justice. Martin Landau plays the friend who is pulling Zev's strings. The ending is a bit of a cop-out, but the tension builds efficiently throughout. (Genzlinger)

'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)

'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)

'Sex and Broadcasting – A Film About WFMU' (No rating, 1:18) This affectionate documentary goes behind scenes of the Jersey City radio station (91.1 FM in the New York City area, and 90.1 in the Hudson Valley), which remains listener-supported at a time when corporate or umbrella funding is the norm. Professionally comfortable with improvising, the D.J.s make for affable company. (Kenigsberg)

★ '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)

★ '10 Cloverfield Lane' (PG-13, 1:46) Sneakily tweaking our fears of terrorism, Dan Trachtenberg's tale of a captive girl (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), her dour jailer (John Goodman) and whatever is lurking outside their shelter is a master class on narrative pacing and carefully managed jolts. (Catsoulis)

'They're Watching' (No rating, 1:34) Real estate reality shows are a familiar genre by now, and this horror movie uses the archetype to good advantage. A glib TV crew travels to Moldova to chronicle an expatriate's fixer-upper project, only to stumble into demonic goings-on in a creepy, remote village. (Genzlinger)

'Valley of Love' (No rating, 1:32) In Guillaume Nicloux's logy, woo-woo drama, a former couple (Isabelle Huppert and Gérard Depardieu), at the request of their dead son, travel to Death Valley to find some kind of answers. (Dargis)

'Whiskey Tango Foxtrot' (R, 1:52) Tina Fey plays a TV journalist thrust into war-ravaged Afghanistan in this adaptation of "The Taliban Shuffle," a memoir by Kim Barker, who is now a reporter for The New York Times. Directed by Glenn Ficarra and John Requa, the episodic film plays like a more serious extension of Ms. Fey's best-known persona as a nerdy workaholic, on more treacherous terrain and with an Afghan culture clash. Her character's rise-and-fade arc is sympathetically rendered, but Ms. Fey, though a talented comic, seems to be holding back a bit with this material. (Rapold)

★ 'The Witch' (R, 1:32) This finely calibrated shiver of a movie from Robert Eggers follows a Puritan family that, in 1630, sets off to live alone in the New England wilderness. Something wicked this way comes. (Dargis)

★ 'Zootopia' (PG, 1:48) This smart, funny animated film from Disney tells the story of a determined bunny named Judy Hopps who wants to become the first of her kind to be a police officer in Zootopia, a metropolis where animals live and work together, having set aside their genetic tendencies to eat one another. There are witty jokes for all ages and messages about inclusion and intolerance that are more nuanced than in most such fare. (Genzlinger)

Film Series

Chantal Akerman Films (through May 1) It is no exaggeration to say that the Belgian-born filmmaker Chantal Akerman, who died in October, changed the way that movies approach time and space. Because of their deliberate, experimental use of duration, her films are best appreciated in theaters. In what is probably an unprecedented instance of programming synchronicity, repertory houses across the city are showing her movies throughout the month. This week, Film Forum will screen her 1975 breakthrough, "Jeanne Dielman, 23, Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles," a three-hour suspense film of sorts that sensitizes viewers to the daily routine of a Belgian homemaker (Delphine Seyrig), along with the documentary "I Don't Belong Anywhere: The Cinema of Chantal Akerman." On Saturday and Sunday, the Museum of the Moving Image will show "D'Est" ("From the East"), an extraordinary 1993 travelogue that consists of footage Ms. Akerman shot in the former Eastern bloc shortly after its fall. Anthology Film Archives will provide her 2006 film, "Là Bas (Down There)," with its first New York run, beginning on April 15. And starting Friday, BAMcinématek will open Ms. Akerman's last feature, "No Home Movie" — in which the director attempts to engage her mother, an Auschwitz survivor, on the subject of the war — in tandem with a career-spanning retrospective that runs through May 1 and includes some of her hardest-to-see works (a full schedule is at bam.org/chantalakerman[4]). BAMcinématek, 30 Lafayette Avenue, Brooklyn, 718-636-4100, bam.org[5]. Film Forum, 209 West Houston Street, Manhattan, 212-727-8110, filmforum.org[6]. Museum of the Moving Image, 35th Avenue at 37th Street, Astoria, Queens, 718-784-0077, movingimage.us[7]. Anthology Film Archives, 32 Second Avenue, East Village, 212-505-5181, anthologyfilma rchives.org[8]. (Kenigsberg)

'Contempt' (Friday) Jean-Luc Godard's 1963 masterpiece — a commercial production to which the director applied his self-reflexive instincts — pivots on the dissolution of a marriage, after Camille (Brigitte Bardot) becomes convinced that her husband, Paul (Michel Piccoli), a screenwriter working on a film adaptation of "The Odyssey," has offered her to the crass producer (Jack Palance) for an affair. Amid the gorgeous Capri scenery, Mr. Godard muses on storytelling's evolution from the Homeric epic to the modern myth making of the movies, and on iconography's progression from bronze statues to Ms. Bardot. The Rubin Museum's current film program is a companion to Brainwave, an annual series that focuses on the way the mind works. Each film in this program is chosen to represent a particular feeling — in this case, not contempt, as you might expect, but love. At 9:30 p.m., Rubin Museum of Art, 150 West 17th Street, Chelsea; 212- 620-5000, rubinmuseum.org[9]. (Kenigsberg)

'Her Man': A Forgotten Masterwork in Context (through Monday) Tay Garnett's best-known film is almost certainly "The Postman Always Rings Twice" (1946), but this retrospective makes a case for the brilliance of "Her Man" (1930), an early talkie about a Havana showgirl who finds herself caught between a pimp and a sailor. In particular, the Museum of Modern Art cites the movie's forward-looking camera work. (The microphones of the early sound years severely restricted movement.) The museum is showing "Her Man" alongside other Garnett films and Chester Erskine and John H. Auer's "Frankie and Johnnie," a 1936 version of similar material. At Roy and Niuta Titus Theaters, 11 West 53rd Street, 212-708-9400, moma.org [10]. (Kenigsberg)

See It Big! Jack Fisk (through Friday) Nominated for an Oscar for "The Revenant," the production designer Jack Fisk may not have won this year, but his place as one of the great visionaries of movie scenery is secure. Few designers have created sets so integral to the work of so many directors. The Museum of the Moving Image is showing Mr. Fisk's collaborations with David Lynch, Paul Thomas Anderson, Brian De Palma and all seven features Mr. Fisk made with Terrence Malick — including their most recent collaboration, "Knight of Cups," which wraps up the series on Friday at 7 p.m. 35th Avenue at 37th Street, Astoria, Queens, 718-784-0077, movingimage.us. (Kenigsberg)

Three Wiseman (through April 14) The tireless documentary filmmaker Frederick Wiseman may be best known for his noninvolvement policy — he never asks questions or includes extraneous information — but he nevertheless shoots and cuts with an eye for the nightmarish qualities of American institutions. The Metrograph is screening three of his earliest features, including his debut, "Titicut Follies" (1967, showing through Thursday), a shocking portrait of the conditions at an institute for the criminally insane in Massachusetts, and the barely less grotesque "Hospital" (1970), shot at Metropolitan Hospital in New York City. 7 Ludlow Street, Lower East Side, 212-660-0312, metrograph.com[11]. (Kenigs berg)