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)

★ '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. (A. O. 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. (Neil Genzlinger)

'The Boy and the Beast' (PG-13, 1:59) This anime fantasy from Mamoru Hosoda offers some gorgeously rendered settings: A drab Tokyo is evoked with surveillance-camera perspectives and crowd-paranoia angles, while an otherworldly realm populated by humanoid animals has lovely pastel hues. But the story, in which a hot-tempered runaway largely builds character through fight training, is generic. (Andy Webster)

★ '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)

'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)

'Cemetery of Splendour' (No rating, 2:02, in Thai) The latest feature from the Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul ("Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives") is another quiet surprise; a slow-paced, enigmatic account of an ailing soldier and two women looking after him. It is moving, engaging, and strangely sad. (Glenn Kenny)

'Colliding Dreams' (No rating, 2:14) The history of Zionism could easily fill multiple libraries. "Colliding Dreams" takes on the unwieldy task of condensing the topic into a feature documentary that capably if somewhat dryly covers more than a century. (Ben Kenigsberg)

'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. (Stephen 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)

'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)

'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)

★ '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)

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

'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)

'Here Come the Videofreex' (No rating, 1:19) An informative, brisk documentary account, directed by Jenny Raskin and Jon Nealon, of a politically engaged group of self-invented journalists taking advantage of then-new video technology in the late 1960s. (Kenny)

'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[2]" adventure flops, even with Leslie Mann and Rebel Wilson hard at work being funny. (Nicolas Rapold)

'King Georges' (Not rated, 1:17) Erika Frankel's humble food documentary about Georges Perrier, the vaunted chef of Le Bec-Fin, skips the usual drooling over dishes. Instead, this window on a bygone era plays up Mr. Perrier as a lovable old spark plug on the way out. (Rapold)

'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)

'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)

★ 'The Mermaid' (Not rated, 1:34, in Mandarin) Stephen Chow, master of Hong Kong comedy, stays behind the camera to deliver a manic but charming sci-fi/fantasy/slapstick eco-fable/romcom. Head-spinning fun. (Kenny)

★ 'Mountains May Depart' (No rating, 2:11, in Cantonese, Mandarin and English) The latest from the transformative Chinese director Jia Zhangke follows three ordinary people across (and beyond) a rapidly, dizzyingly changing China. Few filmmakers working today look as deeply at the changing world as he does, or make the human stakes as vivid. (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)

★ '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)

'Race' (PG-13, 2:14) To its credit, this standard inspirational biopic of Jesse Owens, the track-and-field star of the 1936 Berlin Olympics, doesn't soft-pedal the racism that Owens encountered at every turn. But this safe, by-the-numbers movie has no visual flair in showing his amazing athletic feats. (Holden)

'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)

'Risen' (PG-13, 1:48) Framed as a tale of religious conversion, Kevin Reynolds's clunky biblical procedural confronts the Resurrection with flat photography and a stoic Joseph Fiennes as a Roman Army tribune hunting for the vanished body of the messiah. (Jeannette Catsoulis)

'Road Games' (No rating, 1:35, in English and French) Two hitchhikers choose the wrong car in the French countryside in Abner Pastoll's halting thriller. Once they end up in a strange chateau with a creepy couple, Mr. Pastoll encourages us to let our suspicions float freely over everyone, but the story's left turns are less chilling than disappointing. (Rapold)

'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)

'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)

'Songs My Brothers Taught Me' (No rating, 1:34) A melancholic portrait of Lakota Indian life on the Pine Ridge Reservation in the South Dakota badlands, this movie suggests a Native American answer to "The Last Picture Show." As in the dying Texas town where that movie is set, a demoralizing stasis prevails along with a lingering pride in tribal rituals that preserve a sense of continuity. The directorial feature debut of the Chinese-American filmmaker Chloe Zhao blurs the line between documentary and narrative feature. (Holden)

★ '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)

★ 'Trapped' (No rating, 1:20) This documentary by Dawn Porter is an urgent, vital examination of Southern abortion clinics, which face so-called TRAP laws (targeted regulation of abortion providers), which, critics say, aim to close clinics or reduce their number by placing unaffordable or unfeasible demands on them. Meanwhile, the clinics contend with anti-abortion campaigners outside their doors. Essential viewing. (Webster)

'Triple 9' (R, 1:55) This lurid genre exercise features a lot of bad men and one very bad woman (Kate Winslet as a Russian-Israeli mob wife) engaged in the usual criminal nastiness. The director John Hillcoat wastes his fine cast on nonsense spiked with questionable representations. (Dargis)

'The Wave' (R, 1:45) The splashy star in this Norwegian thriller from Roar Uthaug waits for no one, including the family swept up by its big entrance. (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)

'Zoolander 2' (PG-13, 1:42) The extravagantly overproduced, chaotic, not very funny comic circus that is the tepid sequel to the 2001 hit has enough plot for several movies. They are so sketchy and jammed together that they more or less cancel each other out. (Holden)

★ '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

'A Brighter Summer Day' (Friday through Monday) One of the cornerstones of what is sometimes called the Taiwanese New Wave, this 1960s-set feature from Edward Yang ("Yi Yi") opened in its home country in 1991 but went 20 years before getting a release in the United States. Here, this four-hour coming-of-age story may have lost of some of the mystique it acquired from its rarity in the intervening years. Even so, "its imaginative authority and the scale of its achieved ambition make it not just a wonderful movie but also an essential piece of modern cinema," A. O. Scott wrote in The New York Times in 2011. Friday through Sunday at 2 p.m., Sunday and Monday at 7 p.m., BAM Rose Cinemas, 30 Lafayette Avenue, at Ashland Place, Fort Greene, Brooklyn, 718-636-4100, bam.org[3]. (Kenigsberg)

'Golden Days: The Films of Arnaud Desplechin' (Friday through Thursday) France's Arnaud Desplechin may be the most stylistically voracious of all modern filmmakers: His unclassifiable films blur distinctions between comedy and tragedy, performance and life, high art and low. This career-spanning retrospective is timed to the release of Mr. Desplechin's latest feature, "My Golden Days," a prequel of sorts to his 1996 hit, "My Sex Life (or How I Got Into an Argument)," an urbane portrait of a romantically frustrated eternal doctoral student (Mathieu Amalric). At various times at the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center and Walter Reade Theater at Lincoln Center. A full schedule is at filmlinc.com[4]. ( Kenigsberg)

'River of Grass' and Its Sources (Friday through Thursday) With "Old Joy," "Wendy and Lucy" and "Meek's Cutoff," the independent filmmaker Kelly Reichardt established herself as a poetic and political chronicler of loneliness and the American landscape. "River of Grass," her rarely screened, newly restored debut feature (1995), stars Lisa Bowman and Larry Fessenden as a bored odd couple in South Florida who, after possibly killing someone, go on the lam, in the loosest sense of the term. The fragmented, elliptical editing gives the film a distinct feel, but IFC Center is, at most showtimes, screening it on double bills (at most showtimes) with some classics of the genre, "Gun Crazy," "Angel Face," "Breathless," "Badlands" — all movies that Ms. Reichardt has selected as influences. At various times, IFC Center, 323 Avenue of the Americas, at Third Street, Greenwich Village; 212-924-7771, ifccenter.com[5]. (Kenigsberg)

See It Big! Jack Fisk (Friday through April 1) 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. The Museum of the Moving Image is showing Mr. Fisk's collaborations with David Lynch (including "Mulholland Drive," Saturday at 7 p.m.), Paul Thomas Anderson ("There Will Be Blood," Sunday at 7 p.m.) and Brian De Palma (not just "Carrie," showing Saturday, but "Phantom of the Paradise," a wild, glam-rock version of "The Phantom of the Opera," showing March 20). The series will also include all seven features Mr. Fisk made with Terrence Malick. At various times, 35th Avenue at 37th Street, Astoria, Queens, 718-784-0077, movingimage.us[6]. (Kenigsberg)