A guide to movies playing at theaters 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].

★ '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)

★ 'Barbershop: The Next Cut' (PG-13, 1:52) Ice Cube returns as Calvin Palmer, whose Chicago haircutting establishment is once again the scene of much sexual, political and race-conscious banter. In this reprise of the popular comic franchise, directed by Malcolm D. Lee, the high spirits are shadowed by violence and anxiety, and the blend of comedy and social consciousness is unusually potent. With Common, Nicki Minaj and, of course, Cedric the Entertainer. (A.O. Scott)

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

'A Beautiful Planet' (G, 45 minutes) Astronauts aboard the International Space Station filmed this documentary, which features breathtaking images of vast oceans and cities at night. (Ken Jaworowski)

★ 'A Bigger Splash' (R, 2:04) Tilda Swinton stars in Luca Guadagnino's seductive, reluctant thriller about a rock star, her lover, her former lover and a pretty young thing vacationing under the beautiful Italian sun. Bad things happen, because, you know, life is pain — in the meantime, do enjoy the magnificent digs, the designer threads and the frolicking nude stars. (Manohla Dargis)

★ '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 Boss' (R, 1:39) In her new laugh-in, Melissa McCarthy plays an investment guru with a motivational racket who ends up selling you-go-girl inspiration. The movie isn't much good, but Ms. McCarthy can't help but make you laugh. (Dargis)

'Compadres' (No rating, 1:41) In this cross-border comedy, a former Mexican police officer (Omar Chaparro) enlists the help of a young American hacker (Joey Morgan) to track down some bad guys and their money. The film is trying for the dynamic of a buddy-cop movie but succeeds only part of the time, and the plot is more chaotic than it ought to be. (Neil Genzlinger)

'Criminal' (R, 1:53) Kevin Costner gets to show off his collection of tics and other eccentricities in this slick thriller. He plays a convict who is on the receiving end of a neural transplant, a radical procedure the C.I.A. authorizes in an effort to preserve the information in the head of one of its operatives who has been killed. It's all pretty ridiculous, and the ending goes overboard, but Mr. Costner keeps it entertaining. (Genzlinger)

'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)

'Dough' (No rating, 1:34) All sorts of bridges are built in this pat but pleasant film about an aging Jewish baker who takes on a young Muslim apprentice and sees business boom after marijuana finds its way into the dough. Racial, religious and generational stereotypes are overcome, mutual respect is earned, and traditions are preserved. Yeah, it's fiction. (Genzlinger)

'Elvis & Nixon' (R, 1:27) Michael Shannon stars as Elvis in Liza Johnson's recreation of the 1970 meeting that the King had with President Nixon (Kevin Spacey). Mr. Shannon's casting makes no sense until you realize that he's the only one that you're paying attention to. (Dargis)

★ '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)

★ 'Eva Hesse' (No rating, 1:48) Marcie Begleiter's documentary is a conscientious and moving portrait of the German-born American painter and sculptor, who died in 1970 at 34. Full of arresting images of her work and revealing interviews with friends and colleagues, it is also enriched by generous excerpts from Hesse's letters and diaries. (Scott)

★ 'Everybody Wants Some!!' (R, 1:56) The last weekend before the start of classes at a Texas college in the fall of 1980. Weed is smoked, beer is drunk, skirts are chased. This rambling, nostalgic excursion, courtesy of Richard Linklater, is sweet and wholesome and surprisingly absorbing, given how little of consequence seems to happen. (Scott)

★ '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)

'The Family Fang' (R, 1:47) Jason Bateman (who also directed) and Nicole Kidman star as the struggling children of self-serving performance artists (Christopher Walken and Maryann Plunkett). After an unexpected family reunion, the kids finally try to grow up. (Dargis)

'The First Monday in May' (PG-13, 1:30) The Metropolitan Museum of Art teams up with Anna Wintour for a costume exhibit and benefit gala. Andrew Rossi's film is a very controlled peek behind the scenes that could have used more visual splendor and more genuine candor. (Kenny)

'Francofonia' (No rating, 1:27 in French, German and Russian) The latest film by the Russian director Alexandr Sokurov is a meditation on art, war and accountability, focusing on the fate of the Louvre and its artworks during the Nazi Occupation of France. (Scott)

'Green Room' (R, 1:35) A punk band on a hand-to-mouth tour of the Northwest falls afoul of a gang of white supremacists in this nasty, witty siege movie, craftily directed by Jeremy Saulnier ("Blue Ruin.") Anton Yelchin, Alia Shawkat and Imogen Poots are all good, but Sir Patrick Stewart steals the movie as a menacing skinhead graybeard. (Scott)

'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)

'A Hologram for the King' (No rating, 1:37) This film ponders a modern world in the thrall of illusions. Of what essential use a holographic teleconferencing system is, we are never told. In their semi-reality, the King's Metropolis of Economy and Trade and the ghostly holograms being sold might just as well be a desert mirage. Tom Hanks's performance elevates an ominous downbeat reflection on American decline and runaway technology into a subdued absurdist farce with dark geopolitical undercurrents. (Holden)

'The Huntsman: Winter's War' (PG-13, 1:48) Maybe not the worst movie of the year, but an impressive anthology of all the ways a movie can be bad in an age of soulless franchise entertainment. With Chris Hemsworth in the title role, and a lot of other people we can look forward to seeing in other projects. (Scott)

'The Jungle Book' (PG, 1:46) Stuffed with computer-generated flora and fauna (a real boy plays Mowgli), Disney's latest take on the Rudyard Kipling tales is being touted as a live-action movie but there's scarcely anything alive in it. The whole thing is lightly diverting, and canned. (Dargis)

'Keanu' (R, 1:40) In the first movie to showcase Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele together, they play a couple of regular guys who infiltrate the underworld to rescue a kitten; unfortunately they forget to bring along the big laughs. (Dargis)

'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)

'L'attesa' ('The Wait') (No rating, 1:40, in Italian and French) In this scenic melodrama — the first feature by Piero Messina — Juliette Binoche plays a Frenchwoman who is living in isolated splendor on a Sicilian estate and reeling from the sudden death of her only son. When the young man's girlfriend, Jeanne (Lou de Laâge) arrives for a visit, Anna neglects to tell her the tragic news, setting in motion a series of misunderstandings and increasingly intense psychological games. Not too intense, though. Mr. Messina prefers an atmosphere of teasing elegance to the pursuit of the deeper existential questions that nonetheless hover at the edges of his exquisitely composed frames. (Scott)

'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 Man Who Knew Infinity' (PG-13, 1:48) Dev Patel (the "Best Exotic Marigold Hotel" movies) plays yet another earnest, well-meaning character in this portrait of the early-20th-century mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan, who was mentored by the Cambridge professor G. H. Hardy (Jeremy Irons) and surmounted racism to become the first Indian to hold a fellowship at Trinity College. The film is tidy, handsome and, yes, earnest. (Andy Webster)

★ 'The Meddler' (PG-13, 1:40) Susan Sarandon plays one half of an insistently winning, hopelessly irresistible mother-daughter duet (Rose Byrne plays the daughter) in Lorene Scafaria's enjoyable, touching comedy. Cecily Strong and J.K. Simmons co-star. (Dargis)

'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)

★ 'Miles Ahead' (R, 1:40) In this pleasurably impressionistic movie, Don Cheadle plays Miles Davis as a mercurial fantasy figure who's part boxer, part gangster, part time-traveler and 100 percent enigmatic genius. Purists may howl at the portrait, but Mr. Cheadle – who also directed and cowrote – understands that some legends are bigger than any one telling. (Dargis)

'Mother's Day' (PG-13, 1:58) Julia Roberts, Jennifer Aniston, Kate Hudson and Jason Sudeikis do director Garry Marshall's uninspired bidding in this not-at-all opportunistic holiday-themed "comedy." While it's still in theaters, you can see it as the filmmakers intended, that is, with your brain turned off. (Kenny)

'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)

★ 'Our Last Tango' (No rating, 1:25) This documentary by German Kral is a combination of things, all fascinating: a portrait of the former partnership of the tango dancers María Nieves and Juan Carlos Copes; a stylized staging of their romantic and artistic history by young dancers; and a celebration of the tango itself, which still bewitches with its gently jagged grace and torrid suggestiveness. (Webster)

'Papa: Hemingway in Cuba' (R, 1:46) Based on a autobiographical screenplay and shot at Finca Vigía, the author's home near Havana, this film by Bob Yari bristles with authentic detail, down to the very typewriter Ernest Hemingway used. But in the end, with a less-than-powerful actor dispatching that author's thunderbolts of emotion, the film is more artifact than art. (Verongos)

'Ratchet & Clank' (PG, 1:34) This computer-animated adaptation of a successful video game offers minimal wit and a dearth of ideas, despite formidable names (Paul Giamatti, Rosario Dawson) in its voice cast. What it has is a lot of product to sell. (Webster)

'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)

'Sin Alas' (No rating, 1:24, in Spanish) Ben Chace's memory story, shot entirely in Cuba with a Cuban cast, follows an old man who reacquaints himself with an obsession who dazzled him and consumed him, and, finally, like many ideals, become impossible to hold onto. (Dargis)

'Sing Street' (PG-13, 1:45) John Carney, best known for "Once," is a filmmaker with many songs in his heart and his heart on his sleeve. This sweet, rough-edged romance, set in Dublin in the 1980s, stars Ferdia Walsh-Peelo as a teenager who starts a pop band to impress a girl (Lucy Boynton). (Scott)

★ 'Tale of Tales' (No rating, 2:13) Weaving the wondrous into the everyday, Matteo Garrone's adaptation of three 17th-century Neapolitan fables braids magic and familiar fairy-tale characters (among them an imperiled princess, an ogre and two ugly sisters) into a colorful and kinky exploration of what women want. (Catsoulis)

★ '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)

'Transfixed' (No rating, 1:15) This surprisingly tender documentary follows a couple with Asperger's syndrome, one of whom is soon to undergo a sex change. (Jaworowski)

★ 'Vita Activa: The Spirit of Hannah Arendt' (No rating, 2:05, in German, English and Hebrew) This rigorous, thoughtful documentary, directed by Ada Ushpiz, restores Arendt to her rightful place as an indispensable thinker about the nature of totalitarianism, past, present and future. (Scott)

★ 'Viva' (R, 1:40) An exhilarating hybrid of social realism and feel-good aspirational entertainment, Paddy Breathnach's "Viva" is an oddity by its very pedigree: an Irish movie set in Havana, where it was filmed with a keen eye to that city's dinginess in tropical light. Its hero, Jesus (Héctor Medina), is a gay hairdresser who dreams of becoming a drag entertainer at a nightclub. The film infuses a too-familiar story with so much heart that you forgive it for retracing a well-worn path. (Holden)

★ '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

Labor of Love: 100 Years of Movie Dates (through May 17) Moira Weigel, author of "Labor of Love: The Invention of Dating," a new book on the history of modern courtship, is a co-curator of this eclectic series about romance (and anti-romance) on screen. The lineup is not what you might expect; many of the selections would make terrible date movies. Alongside "You've Got Mail" and "Pretty Woman," expect such dark titles as the never-on-DVD "Looking for Mr. Goodbar," in which Diane Keaton plays a schoolteacher drawn to one-night stands, and William Friedkin's "Cruising," in which Al Pacino plays a cop posing as a member of New York's gay leather scene in order to catch a serial killer. A full schedule is online. BAM Rose Cinemas, 30 Lafayette Avenue, Brooklyn, 718-636-4100, bam.org[3]. (Ben Kenigsberg)

Modern Matinees: Fifteen by Otto Preminger (through June 30) The Museum of Modern Art dusts off its collection of prints by the director Otto Preminger, who could infuse nearly any genre with a prickly ambiguity. Several of his greatest works ("Advise and Consent," "Bonjour Tristesse," "Bunny Lake Is Missing") will play along with titles ripe for re-evaluation ("Daisy Kenyon"), although there are also notable omissions. (Where is "Anatomy of a Murder"?) The program includes "Laura," Preminger's sort-of ghost story from 1944, in which Dana Andrews, investigating a murder, begins to fall in love with the dead woman (Gene Tierney). Clifton Webb has a memorable turn as a newspaper columnist who writes "with a goose quill dipped in venom." 11 West 53rd Street, 212-708-9400; a full schedule is at moma.org/film[4]. (Kenigsberg)

New York Indian Film Festival (Saturday through May 14) This weeklong festival, presented by the Indo-American Arts Council and now in its 16th year, provides a survey of subcontinental cinema drawn largely from the last two years. Among the highlights is "Aligarh," which dramatizes the true story of a gay professor. The movie, which was met with praise when it opened in India, has been cited as an example of Bollywood's increasing open-mindedness[5] in depictions of gay characters. The festival takes place at two locations in Manhattan: City Cinemas Village East Cinemas, 181-189 Second Avenue; and Skirball Center for the Performing Arts, 566 La Guardia Place. A full schedule is at iaac.us/NYIFF2016[6]. (Kenigsberg)

Panorama Europe 2016 (Friday through May 22) Presented by the European Union National Institutes for Culture, this grab bag of a festival stocks up on recent titles from all over the E.U. The offerings include documentary portraits of refugees and marginalized communities ("Lampedusa in Winter," "Spartacus & Cassandra") as well as genre fare like "The Lure," a tale of vampire mermaids who, after going ashore, find work in a Warsaw burlesque club. The festival will be held at two locations: Museum of the Moving Image, 35th Avenue at 37th Street, Queens; and Czech Center New York, Bohemian National Hall, 321 East 73rd Street, Manhattan. A full schedule is at movingimage.us/panoramaeurope[7]. (Kenigsberg)

'Trouble Every Day' (Friday and Saturday) Never one to let sense get in the way of a good reverie or metaphor, the French director Claire Denis threw her fans for a loop with this gory 2001 tone poem. Part of Nitehawk Cinema's late-night series "Nitehawk Nasties," it stars two of the planet's most animalistic actors (Vincent Gallo and Beatrice Dalle) as characters whose sexual proclivities place them somewhere on a spectrum between vampires and cannibals. Perhaps the least-loved of Ms. Denis's features since her 1999 breakthrough, "Beau Travail," the film nevertheless has a fervent — dare we say rabid? — following and a haunting title song by the Tindersticks. (The movies start at 12:15 a.m. Saturday and Sunday, but Nitehawk recommended arriving by 11:45 p.m. on Friday and Saturday for seating.) 136 Metropolitan Avenue, Brooklyn, 718-384-3980, nitehawkcinema.com[8]. (Kenigsberg)

'Under the Cherry Moon' (Friday and Saturday) Ever the renaissance man, Prince made his directorial debut in 1986 with this proudly personal approximation of a Depression-era musical — a choice of style and genre that, at the time, mostly left "Purple Rain" fans befuddled and dismissive. The musician stars as an American playboy on the French Riviera who, with his partner (Jerome Benton), conspires to fleece an heiress (Kristin Scott Thomas, in her first feature). The 35-millimeter print should do justice to Michael Ballhaus's nostalgic black-and-white cinematography, not to mention the movie's celebrated backbeat. IFC Center, 323 Avenue of the Americas, Manhattan, 212-924-7771, ifccenter.com[9]. (Kenigsberg)