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The Greatest Psychological Horror Films on Netflix in 2021

Psychological horror films are a special type of scary films that go beyond simple jump scares. These films employ unsettling slow burns that penetrate the depths of our minds. Although they can depict ghosts or witches, these horror features primarily fall back on human fear and paranoia. If you want to wrap your head around a mind-boggling horror, Netflix has an extensive library of movies that will unleash all of your deep-seated fears. from Bird feeder to In the tall grass, here are the scariest psychological horrors the streaming site has to offer – you might want to see them with the lights on!

– Additional coverage from Hannah Abrams and Kalyn Womack

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Greatest Films For Adults on Disney Plus

As POPSUGAR editors, we independently choose and write things that we love and that we believe you will like too. If you buy a product that we recommend, we may receive an affiliate commission, which in turn supports our work.

While it is certainly suitable for families, there are plenty of adult films on Disney +! The streaming platform has already built a reputation as a place for families to find titles to watch together, or for adults to relive some of their childhood favorites, but there are some films out there that might be more suited to adult audiences are.

From darker entries in long-standing franchises to teen comedies with a bite to documentaries, Disney + is definitely not just for kids. Check out some of our favorite adult films on Disney + beforehand. There is also plenty of magic to discover in films with an older audience.

Do not miss these films. Sign up for Disney + today ($ 7.99 per month).

– Additional coverage from Kalyn Womack

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12 Reveals and Motion pictures to Watch on Netflix Earlier than They Expire in September

Tony-winning playwright and Oscar-nominated screenwriter John Logan created this brilliant Showtime series that mixes a delicious stew of Victorian-era monsters, mythology and literary flourishes. Eva Green is a wonder – creepy, funny, entertainingly self-confident – as a monster hunter, her adventures in London in the late 19th century Jekyll and Mr. Hyde “as well as various gunslingers, werewolves and aliens. Those who know the characters and the books they live in will eagerly devour the references and overlap, but even newbies can easily cling to the show’s dark humor, intricate narrative, and copious gore.

Stream here.

Mainstream audiences who discovered the charismatic Hong Kong actor Tony Leung Chiu-wai through Marvel’s “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” would be well advised to watch this martial arts drama from 2013, one of the actor’s many collaborations with the dazzling one Director Wong Kar-wai. Leung plays Ip Man, master of the South China Kung Fu style known as Wing Chun, who trained a young Bruce Lee. But Wong’s film is less of a biopic than a Lee-style adventure, filled with breathtakingly photographed battle sequences and action set pieces. Netflix is ​​streaming the US version of the film, which is shorter and simplified but less impressive. Still, “The Grandmaster” is an overwhelming experience even in this abbreviated form.

Stream here.

“Get off my plane!” growled Harrison Ford in this 1997 action extravaganza that is simply “Die Hard” on the President’s plane. Ford plays President James Marshall, who is on his way from Moscow to the White House when a group of terrorists kidnap Air Force One and take his family and employees hostage. But Marshall is a combat vet and decides to back up his “no negotiating with terrorists” rhetoric with action. Director Wolfgang Petersen knows how to direct claustrophobic action (his breakthrough film was “Das Boot”), and Ford is a strong anchor who maintains credibility even in the silly moments of the script. Meanwhile, Gary Oldman has a lot of fun and eats a lot of landscape as the leader of the kidnappers.

Stream here.

With season two of this supernatural drama migrating from CBS to Paramount +, it’s not too surprising that the first year is leaving Netflix to join it. Katja Herbers, Mike Colter and Aasif Mandvi play as three “assessors” for the Roman Catholic Church, almost like a Ghostbusters team for properties that are sent to check the validity of such encounters. But “Evil” isn’t just another “exorcist” rip-off; It has a classic pedigree penned by Robert and Michelle King, the team behind “The Good Wife” and “The Good Fight”. It is lifted by its unusually intelligent dialogues and pointed characterizations – and then it delivers the genre goods.

Stream here.

It’s forgivable to assume that this 2008 family favorite was DreamWorks’ transparent attempt to recreate the success of Shrek: a potentially franchise starter, computer-animated feature film full of pop culture references and all about the personality of a comic book superstar. And these assumptions are not wrong. But “Kung Fu Panda” is fun despite its unmistakable formula, especially because of the unmistakable charisma of its star Jack Black; he is at the same time funny, cuddly, personable and inspiring like a slapstick-prone panda who has to fulfill his destiny as a “dragon warrior”. (The first sequel will also leave Netflix on September 30.)

Stream here.

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Turner Traditional Motion pictures Is Altering. And Attempting to Keep the Identical.

Sometimes a classic also needs a little retouching.

Turner Classic Movies will get a facelift from Wednesday. TCM, the cable television that is home to countless vintage films, will have a colorful new aesthetic in its on-air promotions, new openings for shows like “The Essentials” and “Noir Alley,” new sets for hosts like Ben Mankiewicz new logo and branding that emphasizes the interplay between past and current cinema history.

And as Mankiewicz said recently, he is already preparing how these changes will be received.

“My first reaction had nothing to do with me and everything to do with our audience,” he said. “What was, ‘Uh-oh'”

TCM executives and talents say the overall mission will stay the same and that this latest update is an aesthetic one that is meant to help keep the cable channel relevant and reach a wider audience.

While preserving and celebrating the past, TCM also thinks about its future. In an era increasingly dominated by streaming television, how can it continue to thrive as a linear cable channel and transfer its experience to other platforms? How can TCM, owned by WarnerMedia, add to that company’s own HBO Max streaming service without being swallowed up?

At the same time, TCM does not want to alienate its existing audience, which appreciates the curation of films and their commentary. And as TCM is rebranding, it realizes that even cosmetic changes can seem like harbingers of fundamental changes in philosophy.

As Mankiewicz said, “I want the fans to understand that what is important to them does not change. But they will still have a small heart attack. “

Pola Changnon, a veteran TCM executive who became general manager in January 2020, said she and her colleagues had been thinking about updating the channel for several months.

Looking back on TCM’s 27-year history, Changnon said the channel has always satisfied a core audience “who really just want their Doris Day films, the expected classic catalog. But there are people who are more adventurous, who want to learn differently and want to get involved. “

To that end, TCM has already started adding programs like “Reframed,” a series that re-examines films like “The Jazz Singer,” “Gone With the Wind,” and “Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” which have been criticized for their outdated treatments by race , Gender and sexuality.

“You can still enjoy the movie, but you acknowledge some of the things that can be difficult for contemporary eyes,” said Changnon. “We don’t want to cancel these films – we prefer to talk around them.”

The redesign, introduced on Wednesday, features a light palette that is supposed to be reminiscent of the Technicolor logo. The TCM logo has a new font and an animated letter C on the screen that takes on various shapes and sizes before resting in a shape that resembles a camera lens or a movie running through a projector.

A new advertising campaign and slogan, “Where Then Meets Now” will highlight the connections that TCM seeks to make with its program to appeal to Cinephiles while inviting newcomers. For example, visitors to this month’s Telluride Film Festival will be greeted with banners with works of art, scenes from the remakes by George Cukor and Bradley Cooper of “A Star Is Born” or the John Wayne and Jeff Bridges incarnations of Rooster Cogburn from their versions of “True Grit “.

Tricia Melton, Chief Marketing Officer of Warner Bros. ‘ Global Kids, Young Adults and Classics Division, said these changes to TCM should emphasize “how the past can affect the present.”

While other channels and streaming sites can offer large film libraries, TCM was characterized by “the ability to bring curation and context into these films – why they are still resonating today, why they are important”.

“You don’t want a brand to ever stagnate,” Melton said. “We also have to move with the culture.”

That cultural shift was accelerated by the advent of HBO Max, which debuted in May 2020 and has since become a pivotal stage for WarnerMedia’s films and television programming. On this page, TCM only exists as one of several hubs with a library of several hundred films. (The channel also has its own on-demand service, Watch TCM, which offers live streaming and part of its catalog.)

Tom Ascheim, the President of Warner Bros. ‘ Global Kids, Young Adults and Classics Division, said it was simply a reality of the current media landscape that TCM needed to develop a streaming presence.

“To get one of the most obvious things about our industry, more people are streaming than before,” he said. “It would be pretty silly for us to ignore that.”

While he and his colleagues are looking for new ways for TCM to use HBO Max, Ascheim pointed to this year’s TCM Classic Film Festival, which took place in May as a virtual event entirely on TCM and HBO Max, as proof that the two platforms can coexist and complement each other.

“We have the chance to make the power of curation on a streaming service much louder than some of our competitors who compete on volume and algorithm,” he said. “Barrel TV is not that great. A television that was carefully selected for me, by someone I really trust, who feels good all day. “

Ascheim said the broadcaster’s expansion of its streaming presence is not a sign that TCM is giving up traditional cable television or its own underlying values.

“There is no intention of converting TCM to Cinemax, just like a number of films from the current moment,” he said. “As long as Linear is around, we will be there with pride.”

But even the reference to changes in TCM is enough to arouse skepticism among the audience. When a short teaser video was posted on Twitter last week showing Mankiewicz painting his own set, it generated a number of questioning comments. Sam Adams, a senior editor at Slate, tweeted: “Suppose this means a change to ‘HBO Classic’ or something similar”

But TCM staff said this type of second guess was part of the process. Mankiewicz said he faced a similar test when he joined TCM as a permanent host in 2003 – a role that until then had only been played by the network’s signature personality, Robert Osborne.

“Not for a month or two, but for years I felt: Who the hell is this guy?” Mankiewicz remembered. “It was only after two or three years that they said, this guy is talking about the films, it’s okay, we’re fine.”

All that was updated, Mankiewicz said, was the network’s outward appearance and logo, its set, and perhaps its clothing. “My wardrobe is likely to change a bit,” he said. “I can’t come out in shorts. That will not happen.”

As technology and platforms continue to evolve, Mankiewicz said, TCM’s goal remains unchanged of getting its films and commentary to all of these places.

“I am very confident that what you are experiencing at TCM will be what you will be able to experience in 25 years,” he said. “I’m not smart enough to say exactly how it will be delivered to you. But will you see curated films with an introduction by the host who puts the films in context? And will everything look as amazing on the channel as it does now? Yes, I’m 100 percent sure of that. “

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The Sexiest Horror Films Ever Made

You may find adult and horror movies to be weird bedfellows, but you shouldn’t – sexy horror movies are absolutely a thing, and with so many good ones to choose from, they probably deserve their own genre. We’ve picked out the sexiest horror films, showing everything from blood-sucking vampires to carnal werewolves to crazy serial killers, with loads of sex. If you have a strong stomach (believe us, some of these films do.) The operations on Grey’s Anatomy look like a game of operation) then you might have 40 new adult thrillers to choose from on your next date night.

– Additional coverage from Lauren Harano and Kalyn Womack

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5 Motion Films to Stream Now

For action movie fans looking for new thrills to watch at home, there are a lot of car chases, explosions and fights (knife, sword and fist) to sift through. We’re helping to make the choice easier by providing some streaming highlights.

Rent or buy on Google Play or FandangoNow.

I’m a sucker for family-centered, postapocalyptic survivalist films like “A Quiet Place” and “It Comes at Night.” On a smaller scale, “F.E.A.R.” a.k.a. “Forget Everything And Run,” directed by Geoff Reisner and Jason Tobias, mirrors those works for sharp thrills. In a secluded mountain wasteland, the weary parents Josephine (Marci Miller) and Ethan (Tobias) subsist with their young son, Josh (Danny Ruiz), in a cold, dilapidated cabin. The government quarantined their tiny town after a chemical leak from a local plant created a Zombie-making virus.

You can be infected by a bite or by drinking contaminated water, but you may not know because your Zombie-conversion could be asymptomatic. The couple’s infected teenage daughter, Mia (Cece Kelly), wasn’t one of the lucky ones.

The family survives on scarce supplies, but a band of marauding cannibals led by Desiree (a vicious Susan Moore Harmon) depletes the stores further, forcing Ethan to venture into the snowy terrain in search of both medicine and food. Packed with bloody eye-gouging and savage head shots aimed at the fast-moving undead, “F.E.A.R” provides suspense and feverish shocks.

Stream it on Netflix.

As a mob enforcer, Ferry (Frank Lammers) shows the world a somewhat misleading persona in this Dutch-language gangster flick by Cecilia Verheyden.

Beneath Ferry’s bruising, beer-keg-shaped frame is a well of sweetness. His mob boss, Brink (Huub Stapel), a salt of the earth type, treats the bleached-blonde Ferry like a son. But when Brink’s own son, Matthijs (Tim Linde), is killed, he wants Ferry to avenge his death, pitting his enforcer’s unquestioning loyalty against his softer heart.

Join Times theater reporter Michael Paulson in conversation with Lin-Manuel Miranda, catch a performance from Shakespeare in the Park and more as we explore signs of hope in a changed city. For a year, the “Offstage” series has followed theater through a shutdown. Now we’re looking at its rebound.

While tracking Matthijs’s three killers southward, Ferry is forced to reconnect with his estranged sister Claudia (Monic Hendrickx), who has cancer. Along the way, the ferocious Ferry falls for the bubbly Danielle (Elise Schaap), but his happiness is short-lived when he learns a startling truth about her. Switching between puffy-faced barbarism and bashful sweetness, Lammers gives a wonderful physical performance. Watching him grapple with the enforcer’s internal turmoil subverts the tough guy trope by making “Ferry” an absorbing gangster character study.

Stream it on Netflix.

Detective Jodie Snyman (Erica Wessels) doesn’t distance herself from victims. She heads a child trafficking task force in Johannesburg, South Africa. Assisting her on the case is Ntombizonke Bapai (Hlubi Mboya), a forensic crime-scene investigator with a grim past. In 1994, Ntombizonke and five other Black girls were abducted. More than two decades later, armed with a pistol and silencer, donning a black hood and mask, she’s seeking revenge against the ring of pedophiles who kidnapped her along with many others.

“I Am All Girls,” a harrowing procedural and vigilante thriller directed by Donovan Marsh, is propelled by the grounded performances of Wessels and Mboya. The pair hold together a wide narrative that intertwines the present-day investigation with disquieting flashbacks to Ntombizonke’s traumatic childhood. Her fits of roving retribution bear passing similarities to Regina King’s Sister Night in “Watchmen.” And a queer romance develops between the forensic investigator and Snyman, making “I Am All Girls” more than a police story with gunplay. Marsh’s action film beats with a big heart for the oppressed and the forgotten.

Rent or buy it on Amazon.

There’s a mole in the Wor Lok Tung triad. And the orange-haired gangster Ting Cheuk Fei (Michael Tse Tin Wah) is their prime suspect. Ting first infiltrated the mob three years ago but has gotten nowhere since. A prominent mob leader, Brother Hei (Hui Shiu Hung), is nearing a megadeal with the head of the Eastern Trade Company, the drug lord Sung Jing Kwong (Ken Chan). Ting needs to sabotage the deal, but a couple of obstacles lie in his way: way: The young Chief Inspector investigating the gangsters lives comfortably on Sung’s payroll by dishing classified tips to him. Also, Brother Hei’s close associate, Kam Chiu Nin (Ben Ng), deeply suspects Ting of being the mole.

The director Ka Fai Wong’s mobster thriller set in China, “The Infernal Walker” has a highly convoluted plot featuring swift back-stabbing, secret clues, wild diversions and obnoxious schemes. I found the whole barrage — fast car chases featuring luxe Mustangs and Lamborghinis and parkour pursuits through dank claustrophobic alleyways — extremely entertaining. Intermittent bits of silly melodrama run through this thuggish romp, but “The Infernal Walker,” endowed with sharp, up-tempo pacing, fulfills that craving for a triad movie.

Stream it on Netflix.

You’ve got to admire the ingenuity to make a chop shop a kill house where wrenches become axes and screwdrivers emerge as projectiles. Daniel Benmayor’s revenge movie set in Barcelona is a melting pot of ingenious kills and familiar action references. Maximo (Teo García), a top lieutenant to an aging mobster (and a mirror of Maximus in “Gladiator”), wants out so his adoptive brother, the ruthless Lucero (Óscar Jaenada), orders the murders of Maximo and his young son. Maximo is believed dead, but he survives.

Two years later, Maximo teams with Lucero’s scorned adoptive sister María (Andrea Duro) and a teen named Leo (Óscar Casas) to get vengeance. Referred to by his opponents as John Wayne, Bruce Lee or Jackie Chan, the silent Maximo delivers top-notch brawling. In one clever sequence set in a kung fu den, Benmayor sets the combatants’ silhouettes against foggy backgrounds so their agile movements pop, another touch that makes “Xtreme” an entertaining battle royal.

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Like ‘Mommie Dearest’? Stream These Films for Pleasure Month

It’s Pride Month, and that means it’s time to talk about camp. Not the summer kind. The movie kind.

One of the delightful things about the word “camp” is its semantic resilience. It can be used as an adjective, noun, verb or the most fabulous interjection (“Camp!”).

Camp movies are just as versatile. There’s camp horror, camp documentaries and camp sci-fi. Of course there’s “Mommie Dearest,” camp’s cinematic apogee, which turns 40 this year and is the starting point for any Camp 101 watch party. (It’s on Amazon Prime.)

Here are five films to stream that show the breadth of camp’s sensational, depraved, glam and very gay exuberance.

This film begins with a bald prostitute in a bra beating her pimp with her pocketbook — and gets more bonkers from there.

Written and directed by the genre mastermind Samuel Fuller (“Shock Corridor”), this black-and-white oddity stars Constance Towers as Kelly, a hooker who leaves sex work behind to become a small town nurse who works with disabled children. Kelly figures her relationship with a local rich guy, Grant (Michael Dante), will be her ticket to respectability.

But in one of the film’s most lurid twists, Grant’s sexual interests turn out to be not just perverted, but evil: a “Lolita complex of no mean proportions,” as The New York Times put it.

Prostitution, murder, talk of abortion: “The Naked Kiss” wasn’t afraid to break its era’s cinematic taboos, making it a shocker still. When Kelly gives a beat down to Candy, a local bordello madam, it’s a brawl that camp dreams are made of.

Stream it on HBO Max.

Faye Dunaway’s portrayal of Joan Crawford in “Mommie Dearest” is a camp-on-camp tour de force. But Crawford herself offers camp gold in this bizarre murder mystery, directed by Jim O’Connolly.

Crawford plays Monica, the “cougar” owner of a traveling circus who develops the hots for the hunky young high-wire walker (Ty Hardin) she hired after his predecessor died in a freak accident during a performance.

For a year, the “Offstage” series has followed theater through a shutdown. Now we’re looking at its rebound. Join Times theater reporter Michael Paulson, as he explores signs of hope in a changed city with Lin-Manuel Miranda, a performance from Shakespeare in the Park and more.

After a mysterious black-gloved killer gruesomely kills Monica’s business partner — other bodies also start piling up — Scotland Yard starts sniffing around, putting the circus on edge.

There’s no shortage of late-career Crawford camp, and while “Berserk!” doesn’t have the creature feature appeal of “Trog” or the exploitation lunacy of “Strait-Jacket,” it does have Crawford playing a ring-mistress who wears her hair in a challah-looking chignon and runs a circus plagued by violent deaths. The movie ends with a doozy of a horror-camp twist.

Rent or buy it on Amazon Prime, Google Play, Vudu.

Camp, according to RuPaul, is when you “see the facade of life, the absurdity of life, from outside yourself.” Sounds like a drug, and when it comes to drugs — sorry, dolls — there’s nothing as camp as this soapy and scandalous film, regarded as one of camp’s crowning achievements, from Mark Robson. It’s hard to argue with Lee Grant, who stars in the film, when she called it “the best, funniest, worst movie ever made.”

Based on Jacqueline Susann’s best-selling 1966 novel, the film is about a group of friends facing fame, misfortune and addiction. There’s the ingénue Anne (Barbara Parkins), whose ambition takes her from secretary to star model. The singer Neely (Patty Duke), after being ousted from a Broadway show by her jealous co-star Helen (Susan Hayward), moves to Hollywood and becomes addicted to drugs and alcohol. Jennifer (Sharon Tate, a victim of the Manson family murders) is a gorgeous actress whose fate is the most tragic.

Bosley Crowther panned the film in The New York Times, calling it “an unbelievably hackneyed and mawkish mishmash of backstage plots and ‘Peyton Place’ adumbrations in which five women are involved with their assorted egotistical aspirations, love affairs and Seconal pills.” In other words: Camp!

Rent or buy it on Amazon, Google Play, Vudu.

Next to “Mommie Dearest” in the pantheon of queer camp cinema is “What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?,” Robert Aldrich’s 1962 horror spectacle starring Bette Davis as Jane, an aging movie star who holds captive her paraplegic sister Blanche, played by Joan Crawford, in their decaying Hollywood mansion.

This ABC movie remake stars two acting heavyweights, the sisters Lynn and Vanessa Redgrave, as Jane and Blanche. Directed by David Greene, it’s an under-the-radar deep dive worth taking because the Redgraves offer something Davis and Crawford, who couldn’t stand each other, did not: actual sisterhood. The sisters’ scenes together have an “utterly unselfish interplay” with “real emotional verisimilitude,” as Michael Wilmington put it in The Los Angeles Times.

Camp needs commitment and urgency, which Davis and Crawford had to spare. The Redgraves seem hampered by the original, and don’t quite give it their all. But that shouldn’t keep camp die-hards away. There’s still plenty to make this film satisfying, including the disheveled makeup and costumes that make Lynn’s Jane look like a club-kid Raggedy Ann variation of Davis’s monstrously maquillaged original.

Stream it on Tubi, Pluto TV.

In her integral 1964 essay, “Notes on Camp,” Susan Sontag says that in addition to “Swan Lake” and Tiffany lamps, camp is “stag movies seen without lust.” That about sums up the camp eroticism at play in this film from the director Paul Verhoeven and the writer Joe Eszterhas about Nomi Malone (Elizabeth Berkley), an ambitious heart-of-gold exotic dancer navigating violent, backstabbing Las Vegas.

From the cheeseball dance numbers to the trifling dialogue (“I’m not a whore”), “Showgirls” is like “A Star Is Born” gone horribly wrong and therefore spectacularly camp. Over the years, it’s morphed from critical whipping boy to a reconsideration as an outrageously decadent, ludicrously trashy camp demi-masterpiece, with the French director Jacques Rivette among its fans.

It’s also a queer camp favorite, thanks to the steamy synergy between Nomi and her mentor-rival Cristal (Gina Gershon, a flirtation artiste). Jeffrey McHale, the director of a “Showgirls” documentary said Nomi’s decision to follow her dreams, find a chosen family and use her sexuality to fend for herself is “a story that many queer people understand.”

Stream it on MaxGo.

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Summer season Motion pictures 2021: Right here’s What’s Coming to the Massive (and Small) Display screen

Here is a list of noteworthy films scheduled this summer. Release dates and platform are subject to change and reflect the latest information as of deadline.

CHANGING THE GAME (on Hulu) This documentary profiles three transgender athletes and their high school sports careers, with a particular focus on Mack Beggs, a transgender man who as a teenager wanted to compete in boys’ wrestling but, because of a rule in Texas, could only wrestle against girls.

ALL LIGHT, EVERYWHERE (in theaters) The biases of surveillance — by the eye, by police body cameras and in the composite photography of the eugenics proponent Francis Galton, for example — are the subject of this haunting, wide-ranging essay film from the Baltimore experimental director Theo Anthony (“Rat Film”). It won a special jury prize at Sundance.

THE ANCIENT WOODS (in theaters) The biologist and filmmaker Mindaugas Survila investigates the floral and faunal mysteries of a mostly untouched forest in Lithuania. Film Forum says the movie, poised between nature documentary and folklore, is suitable for children “whose attention spans have not been destroyed by technology.”

BAD TALES (in virtual cinemas) This Italian feature, winner of best screenplay at the Berlin International Film Festival last year, pulls back the facade of family life in a seemingly idyllic Rome suburb.

THE CARNIVORES (in theaters and on demand) The illness of a dog triggers the unraveling of a couple (Lindsay Burdge and Tallie Medel). The trailer promises ample servings of the dark and the grotesque.

CITY OF ALI (in virtual cinemas) Other documentaries have captured the highlights of Muhammad Ali’s career, but “City of Ali” deals specifically with his life in Louisville, Ky., where he was born and raised.

THE CONJURING: THE DEVIL MADE ME DO IT (in theaters and on HBO Max) Ed and Lorraine Warren (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga) return for what’s either the third or the eighth “Conjuring” movie. (Spinoffs like “Annabelle” and “The Nun” only sort of count.) This one involves the case of Arne Cheyenne Johnson (Ruairi O’Connor), who was convicted of manslaughter but who some believe was possessed. Michael Chaves (who directed another spinoff, “The Curse of La Llorona”) assumes the helm from the “Conjuring” director James Wan.

THE REAL THING (in virtual cinemas) Koji Fukada (the Cannes prizewinner “Harmonium”) directed this four-hour feature, based on a manga and condensed from a 10-episode series, about a toy seller who rescues a woman from being hit by a train and gets a whirlwind of adventure as his reward.

SLOW MACHINE (in virtual cinemas) In a fractured narrative, Stephanie Hayes plays an actress who has a series of bizarre encounters with a man who identifies himself as a New York City police intelligence specialist. The movie was shown in an experimental section of last year’s New York Film Festival.

SPIRIT UNTAMED (in theaters) The daughter (voiced by Isabela Merced) of a legendary horse rider (voiced by Eiza González) hops into her mother’s saddle in this computer-animated feature. Julianne Moore, Jake Gyllenhaal and Andre Braugher round out the vocal cast.

UNDINE (in theaters and on demand) Interweaving mythology and the history of modern Berlin, the German director Christian Petzold reunites the stars of his acclaimed “Transit” for a love story of sorts between a recently spurned tour guide (Paula Beer) and a diver (Franz Rogowski) who repairs bridges. What the film means is as slippery as the protagonists, who get soaked when a fish tank explodes during their meet-cute and are continually drawn to water.

THE AMUSEMENT PARK (on Shudder) In one of the stranger collaborations in cinema history, George A. Romero, just a few years removed from “Night of the Living Dead,” accepted an assignment from the Lutheran Service Society of Western Pennsylvania to make a film about the mistreatment of the elderly. True to form, he turned it into a horror movie. Made in the early 1970s and rarely shown until the recent arrival of a restored version in 2020, it will be widely available for the first time.

AWAKE (on Netflix) A cataclysm knocks out Earth’s power grids and gives the world’s population insomnia; the collective exhaustion leads to “Purge”-like conditions. Gina Rodriguez plays a former soldier whose daughter is somehow immune to the sleeplessness, but harnessing the cure isn’t as simple as giving everyone valerian tea. Jennifer Jason Leigh and Frances Fisher co-star.

TRAGIC JUNGLE (on Netflix) Yulene Olaizola directed this 1920s-set magical-realist feature, shown at the Venice and New York film festivals last year. It centers on a fleeing woman (Indira Andrewin) who finds herself in the company of gum workers in the Mayan rainforest.

THE WOMAN WHO RAN (in theaters) In the latest film from the prolific South Korean director Hong Sang-soo, a character played by Hong’s frequent star Kim Min-hee visits with three friends. There is also an argument with a neighbor about whether it’s all right to feed stray cats.

ASIA (in theaters) Shira Haas of “Unorthodox” plays a Russian immigrant in Israel who faces challenges both with her health and her mother (Alena Yiv). Ruthy Pribar directed, and it won the top prize from the body that gives out Israel’s equivalent of the Academy Awards.

CENSOR (in theaters) Shown at Sundance, this stylized British horror film is set in the 1980s, when what became known as “video nasties” — violent, cheaply made movies available on cassette — were all the rage. Niamh Algar plays a censor who does her utmost to protect the public (but maybe wasn’t so great at protecting her sister years earlier). Prano Bailey-Bond directed.

DOMINO: BATTLE OF THE BONES (in theaters) No, it’s not a sequel to Tony Scott’s 2005 movie “Domino,” in which Keira Knightley played a bounty hunter, or one to Brian De Palma’s recent film of the same title. Rather, it’s the story of how a man and his stepgrandson compete in a domino tournament. Baron Davis, the former N.B.A. star, directed and co-wrote.

HOLLER (in theaters and on demand) Jessica Barden plays a promising Ohio student who begins working in scrap-metal yards to keep her family together. Nicole Riegel directed; Pamela Adlon and Gus Halper co-star.

IN THE HEIGHTS (in theaters and on HBO Max) Expected to have been a huge hit in the summer of 2020, now destined to be a return-to-the-movies toe-tapper in 2021, this film adaptation of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s best-musical Tony winner — the one before “Hamilton,” that is — stars Anthony Ramos (a.k.a. Philip Hamilton) as Usnavi, the bodega owner Miranda played on Broadway. Stephanie Beatriz (“Brooklyn Nine-Nine”) and Miranda also appear. Jon M. Chu, who showed his skill with screen musicals in two of the better “Step Up” movies, directed from a screenplay by the musical’s book writer, Quiara Alegría Hudes.

THE MISFITS (in theaters) Pierce Brosnan, two decades from his turn in the “Thomas Crown Affair” remake, plays another thief who joins forces with a group to steal gold bars that a businessman (Tim Roth) uses to finance terrorists. Renny Harlin directed.

PETER RABBIT 2: THE RUNAWAY (in theaters) James Corden returns as the voice of Beatrix Potter’s famous hare, although Glenn Kenny of The Times wrote that the first film, from 2018, dispensed “with the sweetness and light and lyricism of the books.” Here, Peter ventures out of the garden to make trouble.

SKATER GIRL (on Netflix) Rachel Saanchita Gupta plays a teenager in northwestern India who discovers skateboarding and begins to dream of competing at a championship level.

SUBLET (in theaters) John Benjamin Hickey plays a grieving travel journalist (for The New York Times, no less) who rediscovers his zest for life in Tel Aviv. Eytan Fox directed.

WISH DRAGON (on Netflix) Jimmy Wong provides the voice of a college student and John Cho the voice of a wish-granting dragon in this animated feature, which is set in Shanghai and counts Jackie Chan among its producers.

REVOLUTION RENT (on HBO Max) How does “La Bohème” transplanted to Alphabet City play when it’s transplanted to Cuba? This documentary follows Andy Señor Jr., the son of Cuban exiles, as he works to put on an American-produced staging of “Rent” in that country. Señor directed with Victor Patrick Alvarez.

AN UNKNOWN COMPELLING FORCE (on demand) This documentary delves into the murky matter of what killed nine hikers in the Ural Mountains in 1959. (A study published earlier this year said it was quite possibly an avalanche.)

THE HITMAN’S WIFE’S BODYGUARD (in theaters) “Samuel L. Jackson is the hit man. Ryan Reynolds is the bodyguard. What more do you want me to say?” A.O. Scott wrote of “The Hitman’s Bodyguard” in 2017. Well, Salma Hayek played the hit man’s wife in that movie, too, and now they’re all back for a sequel. Antonio Banderas and Morgan Freeman also star.

A CRIME ON THE BAYOU (in theaters) Nancy Buirski (“The Rape of Recy Taylor”) directs this documentary about Gary Duncan, who was convicted of simple battery in Louisiana after trying to stop a skirmish near an integrated school. The Supreme Court ultimately found that he had a right to a jury trial.

FATHERHOOD (on Netflix) Kevin Hart plays a widower adjusting to life as a single father in this drama directed by Paul Weitz. It’s adapted from a book by Matthew Logelin.

LUCA (on Disney+) In Pixar’s latest, two sea monsters disguise themselves as boys to experience the wonders of the Italian Riviera on land. Jacob Tremblay and Jack Dylan Grazer voice the two main characters; Enrico Casarosa (the Pixar short “La Luna”) directed.

RISE AGAIN: TULSA AND THE RED SUMMER (on National Geographic and Hulu) This documentary from Dawn Porter (“John Lewis: Good Trouble”) looks at the 1921 massacre in Tulsa when white residents destroyed what was known as “Black Wall Street.”

RITA MORENO: JUST A GIRL WHO DECIDED TO GO FOR IT (in theaters) The EGOT-winning actress revisits her career, recounting her experiences with discrimination in Hollywood, her breakthrough role in “West Side Story” and more. Mariem Pérez Riera directed.

SIBERIA (in theaters and on demand) The idea of Abel Ferrara directing Willem Dafoe as a bartender in Siberia will be irresistible to fans of a certain brand of uncompromising cinema. In an interview, Ferrara described it as “an odyssey movie.”

THE SPARKS BROTHERS (in theaters) Edgar Wright directed what feels like the definitive portrait of the band Sparks, a.k.a. the brothers Ron and Russell Mael, who straddle an almost imperceptibly thin line between the comic and the earnest and whose most consistent trait over 50 years has been their interest in reinventing their sound. Their first movie musical, “Annette” (Aug. 6), also comes out this summer.

SUMMER OF 85 (in theaters) François Ozon directed this tale of young summer romance, which was selected for the canceled Cannes Film Festival last year. A boy (Félix Lefebvre) is saved from a boating accident and then taught worldly ways by his rescuer (Benjamin Voisin).

SWEAT (in theaters) Another selection from the Cannes-that-wasn’t, this Polish feature from Magnus von Horn stars Magdalena Kolesnik as a “fitness influencer” who faces the burdens of being extremely online.

SWEET THING (in theaters) Alexandre Rockwell, a mainstay of American independent filmmaking in the 1990s with films like “In the Soup,” directs his children in a coming-of-age film about a long and fantastical day.

TRUMAN & TENNESSEE: AN INTIMATE CONVERSATION (in theaters and virtual cinemas) The documentarian Lisa Immordino Vreeland puts Truman Capote and Tennessee Williams in an artistic dialogue with each other. Jim Parsons reads Capote’s words in voice-over and Zachary Quinto reads Williams’s.

12 MIGHTY ORPHANS (in theaters) Luke Wilson, Vinessa Shaw and Martin Sheen star in this true story of a how an orphanage’s football team went to compete for championships in Texas during the Great Depression.

SISTERS ON TRACK (on Netflix) Three sisters — Tai, Rainn and Brooke Sheppard — raised in tough circumstances in Brooklyn won medals in the Junior Olympics and were declared “SportsKids of the Year” for 2016 by the children’s edition of Sports Illustrated. This documentary tells their story, on the track and off.

AGAINST THE CURRENT (in theaters) No, it’s not a “Great Gatsby” spinoff. It’s a documentary about Veiga Gretarsdottir, a transgender kayaker who sets out to circumnavigate Iceland in the more difficult counterclockwise direction.

F9 (in theaters) Just when Dom (Vin Diesel) and Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) thought they had settled into a quiet family life, Dom’s brother (John Cena) — who is every bit the driver Dom is, and also an assassin — turns up to settle scores. Justin Lin directed.

FALSE POSITIVE (on Hulu) Ilana Glazer and Justin Theroux play a couple trying to get pregnant who discover that their doctor (Pierce Brosnan) has a dark side.

I CARRY YOU WITH ME (in theaters) The documentarian Heidi Ewing (“Detropia”) turns to dramatized filmmaking, though not entirely (to say more would be a spoiler), with this story of the love between two Mexican men (Armando Espitia and Christian Vázquez) and how their bond endures after one, with his eye on working as a chef, crosses into the United States.

THE ICE ROAD (on Netflix) Liam Neeson plays a badass big-rig driver trying to rescue entombed miners in the frozen reaches of Canada.

KENNY SCHARF: WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE (in theaters and on demand) Malia Scharf, with Max Basch, directed this look at her father, who emerged from the East Village art world of the 1980s.

WEREWOLVES WITHIN (in theaters) Holed up in a snowstorm, the residents of a small town must contend with lycanthropy. Josh Ruben directed; Milana Vayntrub and Sam Richardson star.

WOLFGANG (on Disney+) Not Amadeus Mozart, but Puck. David Gelb (“Jiro Dreams of Sushi”) directed this portrait of the celebrity chef’s career.

AMERICA: THE MOTION PICTURE (on Netflix) With the voice of Channing Tatum as a “chainsaw-wielding” George Washington, this irreverent animated feature makes a travesty of key figures of the American Revolution. Jason Mantzoukas and Olivia Munn also supply voices. Matt Thompson directed.

LYDIA LUNCH — THE WAR IS NEVER OVER (in theaters and virtual cinemas) The New York underground filmmaker Beth B directed this portrait of another figure from the scene, the No Wave singer Lydia Lunch.

ZOLA (in theaters) A tale originally told in a viral 148-tweet thread (and then in a Rolling Stone article about the thread) is now a major motion picture, directed by Janicza Bravo (“Lemon”) and written by Bravo and the playwright Jeremy O. Harris (“Slave Play”). Taylour Paige stars as a waitress and occasional stripper who is taken on a wild trip to Florida by another stripper (Riley Keough). Colman Domingo also stars.

NO SUDDEN MOVE (on HBO Max) The pandemic hasn’t slowed down Steven Soderbergh. His latest feature is a crime thriller starring Don Cheadle as an ex-con who plots a convoluted scheme that goes awry. Benicio Del Toro, Ray Liotta, Jon Hamm and Amy Seimetz are among the many familiar faces populating Detroit in 1954, when the film is set.

BEING A HUMAN PERSON (in theaters) The Swedish commercial director turned deadpan filmmaker Roy Andersson is the subject of this documentary, which follows the making of his latest movie, “About Endlessness,” which opened in April.

FEAR STREET (on Netflix) R.L. Stine’s “Fear Street” books have become three feature films — set in 1994, 1978 and 1666, respectively — that will be released on a weekly basis starting July 2. Stine has said that the content won’t be toned down for children. Leigh Janiak directed all three movies, and cast members recur throughout.

FIRST DATE (in theaters and on demand) Tyson Brown plays a teenager who takes his dream girl (Shelby Duclos) on a misadventure-filled outing in a dilapidated Chrysler.

THE FOREVER PURGE (in theaters) In the “Purge” franchise, murder is made legal for one day a year. This fifth film in the series dares to ask, what if it were more than one day? Judging from the trailer, you should also count on commentary on United States-Mexico border politics.

SUMMER OF SOUL (… OR, WHEN THE REVOLUTION COULD NOT BE TELEVISED) (in theaters and on Hulu) In his first feature documentary as director, Questlove assembles joyous archival footage from the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival, a series of concerts that developed a reputation as the Black Woodstock. The film features electrifying performances from Nina Simone, Sly & the Family Stone, Ray Barretto and more.

TILL DEATH (in theaters and on demand) The “Jennifer’s Body” star Megan Fox plays a woman who wakes up handcuffed to her husband’s corpse in this thriller.

THE TOMORROW WAR (on Amazon). Chris Pratt, Yvonne Strahovski and J.K. Simmons are all tapped for a war effort against aliens that won’t happen until 30 years in the future. Time travel makes this possible.

BLACK WIDOW (in theaters and on Disney+) The Marvel universe continues to swallow promising actors by casting “Midsommar” and “Little Women” standout Florence Pugh as Yelena, who is brought together as a family with Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow. The Australian filmmaker Cate Shortland (“Berlin Syndrome”) directed.

SUMMERTIME (in theaters) Carlos López Estrada (“Blindspotting”) directed this vibrant panorama of life in Los Angeles. It’s like a musical, but instead of bursting into song, the characters share their emotions in poetry, written by the cast members, who are poets.

THE WITCHES OF THE ORIENT (in theaters) Julien Faraut, an archivist whose documentary “John McEnroe: In the Realm of Perfection” posed intriguing parallels between tennis and cinema, recounts how textile workers in Japan became an internationally celebrated volleyball team.

CAN YOU BRING IT: BILL T. JONES AND D-MAN IN THE WATERS (in theaters and virtual cinemas) The dancer Rosalynde LeBlanc and Tom Hurwitz direct a portrait of the choreographer as LeBlanc oversees a production of his 1989 work “D-Man in the Waters,” which addressed the AIDS epidemic in dance.

ESCAPE ROOM: TOURNAMENT OF CHAMPIONS (in theaters) Taylor Russell and Logan Miller, who played escapees in the first “Escape Room” (2019), find themselves ensnared again.

ROADRUNNER: A FILM ABOUT ANTHONY BOURDAIN (in theaters) Morgan Neville (“Won’t You Be My Neighbor”) directed this portrait of the “Kitchen Confidential” chef, who died in 2018.

SPACE JAM: A NEW LEGACY (in theaters and on HBO Max) In 1996, Michael Jordan joined the Looney Tunes on the basketball court. This time it’s LeBron James who assembles Bugs and the gang for a hybrid live-action/animated round of hoops, with a lot of other Warner Bros. intellectual property filling out the sidelines. Malcolm D. Lee directed.

AILEY (in theaters and on demand) Using archival footage and its subject’s words, the director Jamila Wignot’s documentary recounts the career of the dancer-choreographer Alvin Ailey (1931-89).

EYIMOFE (THIS IS MY DESIRE) (in theaters) The siblings Arie and Chuko Esiri directed this film set in Lagos, Nigeria, about two people separately trying to leave for Europe.

HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA: TRANSFORMANIA (in theaters) The transformation in this fourth feature of the animated franchise happens when a “monsterfication ray” turns humans into monsters and monsters into humans. But there’s a behind-the-scenes transformation, too: Dracula’s vocal cords aren’t supplied by Adam Sandler this time, but by Brian Hull.

THE LAST LETTER FROM YOUR LOVER (on Netflix). In this summer’s addition to the tear-jerker sweepstakes, Felicity Jones plays a journalist who uncovers an affair from the 1960s between another journalist (Callum Turner) and a married woman (Shailene Woodley).

MANDIBLES (in theaters and on demand) The French absurdist and electronic musician Quentin Dupieux (“Deerskin”) serves up another deadpan oddity, about two friends trying to train a giant fly.

OLD (in theaters) It wouldn’t be an M. Night Shyamalan film if the premise weren’t shrouded in mystery, but judging from the Super Bowl trailer, it stars Gael García Bernal and Vicky Krieps (“Phantom Thread”) as parents vacationing with their family on a beach that magically turns their children … old.

SNAKE EYES: G.I. JOE ORIGINS (in theaters) Based on the line of action figures, this franchise adds to its collection by giving an origin story to Snake Eyes, played by Ray Park in earlier movies and now embodied — during his ninja-training phase — by Henry Golding.

RESORT TO LOVE (on Netflix). Christina Milian plays a singer who aspires to superstardom but is reduced to performing at her ex’s wedding.

ENEMIES OF THE STATE (in theaters and on demand) Executive produced by Errol Morris, this documentary, directed by Sonia Kennebeck, unravels the case of Matt DeHart, a hacktivist who sought refuge in Canada and claimed the F.B.I. had tortured him.

THE GREEN KNIGHT (in theaters) Dev Patel has a seat at the round table as Gawain, the nephew of King Arthur, in the director David Lowery’s quest to revive the Arthurian legend onscreen. Alicia Vikander, Joel Edgerton and Sarita Choudhury also star.

JUNGLE CRUISE (in theaters and on Disney+) In 1916, a British researcher (Emily Blunt) travels to South America and hires a roguish, Bogartian skipper (Dwayne Johnson) as her guide through the Amazon. It’s based on a ride at Disneyland, and indirectly on a long lineage of Hollywood adventure films. Edgar Ramírez, Jesse Plemons and Paul Giamatti co-star. Jaume Collet-Serra directed.

THE LAST MERCENARY (on Netflix) French authorities falsely allege that a young man has been trafficking arms and drugs. Unfortunately for them, his father is played by Jean-Claude Van Damme.

NINE DAYS (in theaters) Winston Duke plays an interrogator at a way station of sorts, where he interviews people — actually unborn souls — some of whom will earn the right to be born as humans. Zazie Beetz plays an interviewee who confounds him. Edson Oda wrote and directed.

SABAYA (in theaters and on demand) This documentary trails intrepid volunteer workers in Syria who extract women and girls held captive as sex slaves by the Islamic State.

STILLWATER Tom McCarthy (“Spotlight”) directed Matt Damon as an American oil-rig worker whose daughter (Abigail Breslin) is imprisoned for murder in Marseille, France. She says she is innocent; he scrambles to help her.

ANNETTE (in theaters) While Edgar Wright’s documentary about the band Sparks (June 18) covers the cinephile musicians’ history of movie projects that never came to fruition, this feature film gives them their chance: They wrote the screenplay, the songs and the score for this love story, and Leos Carax (“Holy Motors”) directed. Adam Driver and Marion Cotillard star.

EMA (in theaters) The Chilean filmmaker Pablo Larraín directs this story of a dancer (Mariana Di Girolamo) and a choreographer (Gael García Bernal) whose lives are thrown out of whack after they return the boy they adopted.

JOHN AND THE HOLE (in theaters and on demand) At the age of 13, John (Charlie Shotwell) gains a measure of adult independence by drugging his immediate family (Jennifer Ehle, Michael C. Hall and Taissa Farmiga) and imprisoning them in a bunker. Pascual Sisto directed this detached, chilly open-ended allegory.

THE MACALUSO SISTERS (in theaters) The Italian playwright and theater director Emma Dante directed this story of five orphan sisters in living in Palermo. She adapted it from her play.

THE SUICIDE SQUAD (in theaters and on HBO Max) If it doesn’t work the first time, add a definite article. Poised somewhere between a reboot of and a sequel to “Suicide Squad” (2016), the movie sets several DC characters, including Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn, loose on a jungle island. James Gunn (“Guardians of the Galaxy”) wrote and directed. With Idris Elba, John Cena, Sylvester Stallone and Viola Davis.

THE KISSING BOOTH 3 (on Netflix) This entry in the series finds Elle (Joey King) getting ready for college.

CODA (in theaters and on Apple TV+) A crowd-pleaser (and awards-grabber, with four prizes) at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, the movie tells the story of a child of deaf adults (Emilia Jones) in a working-class Massachusetts fishing family. She wants to sing, a passion that is alien to her non-hearing parents (Marlee Matlin and Troy Kotsur) and brother (Daniel Durant). Sian Heder directed this remake of a French film.

DAYS (in theaters) A highlight of last year’s New York Film Festival, the director Tsai Ming-liang’s feature follows two men — one in Taipei, then Hong Kong (the Tsai regular Lee Kang-sheng); the other in Bangkok (Anong Houngheuangsy) — who in the second half meet, and for a little while are not alone.

DON’T BREATHE 2 (in theaters) In the first “Don’t Breathe” (2016), Stephen Lang played a blind veteran whose dark secrets were among that home-invasion tale’s surprises. There’s more on those in this sequel. Rodo Sayagues directed, co-writing with Fede Alvarez, who directed the original.

FREE GUY (in theaters) Ryan Reynolds plays a bank teller who finds out, “Truman Show”-like, that he is actually a background character in a video game. Shawn Levy directed. Jodie Comer and Lil Rel Howery also star.

THE MEANING OF HITLER (in theaters and on demand) The documentarians Petra Epperlein and Michael Tucker examine the rise of Nazi Germany and draw parallels with the rumblings of authoritarianism across the globe today.

THE LOST LEONARDO (in theaters) Andreas Koefoed’s documentary investigates the dealings that surround “Salvator Mundi,” the most expensive painting ever sold at auction, when in 2017 it was billed as a lost painting by Leonardo da Vinci. Unsurprisingly, not everyone agrees.

RESPECT (in theaters) Find out what it means to her: Jennifer Hudson plays Aretha Franklin in this biopic of the Queen of Soul, directed by the theater vet Liesl Tommy. With Mary J. Blige as Dinah Washington, Audra McDonald as Franklin’s mother and Forest Whitaker as Franklin’s father, the Rev. C.L. Franklin.

CRYPTOZOO (in theaters and on demand) It’s really more of a cryptid zoo, a cryptid being an animal that is the subject of lore but does not actually exist, like the dream-eating creature that everyone is after in this movie. It’s an animated film, from the graphic novelist Dash Shaw. Lake Bell, Michael Cera, Louisa Krause and Thomas Jay Ryan provided some of the voices.

THE NIGHT HOUSE (in theaters) Rebecca Hall plays a widow who discovers that her husband had a … thing for women who looked quite a bit like her, one of whom is played by Stacy Martin. What was he up to? David Bruckner directed, with an appetite for jump scares.

PAW PATROL: THE MOVIE (in theaters) The techno-fitted animated canines of the children’s TV series make the leap to the big screen.

THE PROTÉGÉ (in theaters) This is the second movie of the summer in which Samuel L. Jackson plays a hit man (after “The Hitman’s Bodyguard’s Wife”) — except that this one concerns the hit man’s daughter (Maggie Q), or at least the woman he raised like a daughter, a hit woman herself, who seeks revenge after he is murdered. Michael Keaton co-stars, also playing a killer. Martin Campbell (“Casino Royale”) directed.

REMINISCENCE (in theaters and on HBO Max) Lisa Joy, a creator of “Westworld,” wrote and directed this thriller, which casts Hugh Jackman as a sleuth who digs up lost memories. Rebecca Ferguson plays his latest customer.

WILDLAND (in theaters) This dark Danish feature concerns a teenager (Sandra Guldberg Kampp) who, after her mother’s death, goes to live with an aunt (Sidse Babett Knudsen) and an extended clan filled with criminality and addiction.

THE BEATLES: GET BACK (in theaters) Peter Jackson, who used archival footage to bring World War I back to life in “They Shall Not Grow Old,” uses tens of hours of restored footage and audio — billed as previously unseen and unheard — to showcase the Beatles as they were in 1969.

CANDYMAN (in theaters) Even without anyone saying Candyman’s name to a mirror, a haunting teaser trailer with only shadow puppets, from last year, set the bar high for this remake, directed by Nia DaCosta (“Little Woods”) and co-written by, among others, Jordan Peele. Interestingly, it appears to retain the milieu of Chicago’s mostly defunct Cabrini-Green housing project, where much of the 1992 original took place. Yahya Abdul-Mateen II and Teyonah Parris star. Colman Domingo also appears.

HE’S ALL THAT (on Netflix) Mark Waters (“Mean Girls”) directed this gender-swapped remake of “She’s All That.” Addison Rae plays an influencer who gives a dork (Tanner Buchanan) an image makeover.

VACATION FRIENDS (on Hulu) A couple (Yvonne Orji and Lil Rel Howery) is mortified when some casual friends from a vacation (Meredith Hagner and John Cena) crash their wedding.

THE BIG SCARY “S” WORD (in theaters) Spoiler alert: The word is “socialism,” and Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are among the interviewees in this documentary about its history in the United States.

FAYA DAYI (in theaters) When the director Jessica Beshir’s experimental documentary, shot in Harar, Ethiopia, played at New Directors/New Films in the spring, Beatrice Loayza, writing in The Times, called it “dreamy and visually dazzling.” The film, she wrote, considers the toll that the economics of khat — a plant that is used as a drug — takes “on a rural community across generations.”

MOGUL MOWGLI (in theaters) Riz Ahmed plays a rapper whose body begins to fail him, but it’s not “Sound of Metal” redux. Rather, it’s a story of British-Pakistani identity, and the character’s denial of his heritage may even be responsible for his autoimmune condition. Bassam Tariq (the well-regarded documentary “These Birds Walk”) directed.

Listings compiled with the assistance of Gabe Cohn.

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Entertainment

5 Current Science Fiction Motion pictures to Stream Now

Questions, questions: at their best, science-fiction films ponder and ask, then are so compelling that you forget you ever wanted an answer. This month’s selection will particularly reward viewers who have no patience for easy resolutions — or distinct genre classifications.

Stream it on Netflix.

The Taiwanese director Cheng Wei-Hao’s ambitious movie will frustrate viewers who like their genres neatly defined. Set in 2032, it follows the efforts of the prosecutor Liang Wen-Chao (Chen Chang) to solve the gruesome death of a local business tycoon, slaughtered by his estranged son — at least that’s what it looks like. A giant question mark also hovers above the dead man’s second wife, Li Yan (Anke Sun, chilly and unsettling).

Liang is especially desperate to figure out what happened because he has cancer and this could be his last case.

Nothing in the convoluted plot is at it seems, and “The Soul” careers wildly from one red herring to another, from horror to procedural to science fiction to melodrama to thriller to romance, and back again.

For the most part Cheng succeeds in keeping his disparate themes in the air: It’s like watching someone juggle a knife, a ball, a pin and a glass, only occasionally dropping one. And underneath the “oh no, they didn’t!” plot twists, the movie’s bittersweet concern is our inability to accept the inevitable and let things — or people — go.

Buy or rent it on Amazon Prime, Google Play, Vudu.

Some movies come preloaded with lengthy exposition. Others dispense information in a slow, steady drip. And then there are those that dare audiences to embrace a state of puzzlement. “Doors” squarely belongs to that last category, and your reaction to it will vary based on your tolerance for unexplained events with a whiff of the metaphysical. If the last part of “2001: A Space Odyssey” drives you crazy, stay away from this anthology effort, in which millions of the title objects appear overnight, with no clue about their origin.

The best of the movie’s three distinct parts are the first and last. In the introductory “Lockdown,” the director Jeff Desom conjures up a mini-horror movie as a group of kids taking a test must figure out what to do about a door that popped up in a hallway. Saman Kesh’s meandering “Knockers” takes place after millions of people have disappeared through the doors and into … another reality?

“Lamaj,” directed by Dugan O’Neal, is back on solid footing as Jamal (Kyp Malone, from the band TV on the Radio) monitors a door deep in the woods. One day, the door talks to him — not to explain what is happening, though. For that, we still have to use our imagination.

Buy or rent it on Amazon Prime, Google Play, Vudu.

There’s little science in this new Swedish movie, and even less fiction: It’s hard not to think that the events could happen all too easily.

“The Unthinkable” squarely belongs to the pre-apocalyptic genre: Mysterious explosions paralyze Stockholm, the Swedish power grid collapses, nobody can figure out what’s happening, and in no time the country completely falls apart. As is typical in survival tales, the movie — which is credited to the film collective Crazy Pictures — follows a small group of archetypes trying to make it through the ordeal: a tormented guy (Christoffer Nordenrot, who helped write the screenplay) trying to reconnect with his childhood sweetheart (Lisa Henni), herself desperately looking for her small daughter; a conspiracy theorist (Jesper Barkselius) who may or may not be right about what’s happening; a high-ranking government official (Pia Halvorsen) trying to do the right thing.

The movie’s first third feels like a fairly run-of-the-mill family drama, complete with flashback to traumatic childhood events. And then the machine clicks into high gear and you’re too distracted by the impressive set pieces to be bothered by the murky explanations — an unnecessary coda during the end credits feels like a jokey cop-out. And the biggest question remains unanswered: How the heck did Crazy Pictures pull this off on a $2 million budget?

Stream it on Hulu.

Try not to get stuck on the convoluted plot — time-travel paradoxes are hell on screenwriters. What matters in this Australian eco-dystopia is the human element. More specifically Kodi Smit-McPhee’s performance as Ethan, a lowly worker who is sent from 2067, when an oxygen-starved Earth is in its death throes, to a time centuries ahead that may hold the key to salvation. Tall and slightly gaunt, with wide-spaced eyes that give him a haunted look, Smit-McPhee — first noticed 12 years ago as the young boy in the adaptation of the Cormac McCarthy post-apocalyptic novel “The Road” — does not resemble the he-men usually assigned to single-handedly rescue the world. But that’s exactly what makes him so distinctively appealing here.

Seth Larney’s film does not always make sense, and you wish it made better use of Ryan Kwanten and Deborah Mailman in key supporting roles. But Smit-McPhee is a strong anchor. That Ethan accepts the mission less for the sake of saving humanity and more for that of saving a single person (his wife), makes terrible sense.

When a crisis hits onscreen, characters often seem to instantly become experts in survival, no matter their jobs — remember, Tom Cruise was a simple longshoreman in “War of the Worlds.”

But what if the folks facing an alien invasion were woefully inept, for a change? That’s the case in this very funny satire from Alex Huston Fischer and Eleanor Wilson. A couple of Brooklyn hipsters, Jack (John Reynolds, from “Search Party”) and Su (Sunita Mani, “GLOW”), are spending an off-the-grid week upstate when mysterious fur balls crash-land from space. Lacking follow-through and entirely devoid of practical skills — the movie suggests that an overreliance on smartphones is partly to blame — our two earthlings sink rather than rise to the occasion, and soon Su and Jack are on the run, screaming, from the killer “pouffes” (whose resemblance to the Tribbles of old “Star Trek” cannot be fortuitous).

The movie pokes fun both at science-fiction conventions and coddled millennials, while besting many other comedies by miraculously not running out of gas halfway through.

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Stream These 13 Motion pictures and Reveals Earlier than They Go away Netflix in Could

After one of the most unusual and controversial Oscar ceremonies, Netflix is ​​saying goodbye – at least for now – to several previous nominees and major winners. And it’s your last chance to play some exciting crime series as well as some top-tier indies that are well worth your time. (The dates reflect the last day a track was available.)

One of the joys of watching Steven Spielberg’s career is watching his slow but steady development from a young upstart with effect branding to a classic Hollywood-style storyteller – the kind of filmmaker he and his “film -Gören “of the 1970s were perceived as reproving. But Spielberg always had those traditional instincts (he just dressed them up in fancy new guys), and few of his recent films have underscored that legacy, like his 2011 adaptation of the children’s novel “War Horse” from 1982. This simple story of a boy and his Horse is reminiscent of “The Black Stallion” (or even Spielberg’s own “ET”), but the straightforward style and unapologetic sentimentality show that the director is showing his guilt to John Ford and William Wyler’s movies.

Stream it here

Dustin Hoffman was in his 70s when he finally took the plunge into directing this 2013 adaptation of the Ronald Harwood play. And he put together an enviable cast: Maggie Smith, Michael Gambon, Tom Courtenay, Pauline Collins and Billy Connolly (among others) perform as residents of a British retirement home for musicians who revive their glory days for a benefit concert once a year. But old broken hearts and rivalries reappear with the arrival of a legendary diva (Smith). The stakes are pretty low (and there’s little doubt about the outcome), but as you’d expect from an actor of Hoffman’s caliber, the movie’s cast members have ample opportunity to show off their stuff.

Stream it here

The basic premise of this BBC series, which ran sporadically in short seasons from 2010 to 2017, was simple: the characters of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories were relocated to modern London and inserted into a contemporary series of police trials. It could have been a nice gimmick, but the show’s creators, Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat, cleverly used the tension between past and present to explore the specifics of these already beloved characters and translate them into our contemporary understanding of psychology and trauma. Thanks to the season and movie stars of Benedict Cumberbatch as Holmes and Martin Freeman as Watson, this feels less like a television series than a new franchise worth comparing to the old Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce films of the 1930s and 40s Years.

Stream it here

Bryan Cranston received an Oscar nomination for best actor (his first) for his work as a screenwriter on the blacklisted Dalton Trumbo in this 2015 biopic by director Jay Roach (“Bombshell”). Trumbo was a prolific writer, industry fanatic, and unapologetic communist who found his seemingly unstoppable career on the runners when he and nine other industry insiders – the so-called Hollywood 10 – were “unkind” witnesses of the House Un-American Activities Committee have been classified. The storytelling is too simplistic, but the lively supporting cast keeps things alive, especially Helen Mirren as infamous gossip columnist Hedda Hopper and John Goodman and Stephen Root as cigar-eating exploitative producers who give Trumbo a job when no one else is.

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John Ridley, Oscar winner of “12 Years a Slave,” created this ABC anthology series that tells a different story each season with different characters, often played by a recurring cast. (The regular cast includes Timothy Hutton, Benito Martinez, and Lili Taylor, plus Regina King, who won two Emmys for her work.) She never found an audience – perhaps because her slow-burning, serialized storytelling sense is more common over cables and streamers than im Network TV – but it’s a sharp and thoughtful series that covers current issues such as race, class, gender, and crime with welcome nuances.

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Marilyn Monroe was such an icon, a seemingly inimitable blend of charisma, naivety and sexuality, that recreating her screen seems like an especially daunting task. But Michelle Williams did just that, well enough to earn an Oscar nomination for Best Actress of 2011. Director Simon Curtis and screenwriter Adrian Hodges make a careful decision not to create a cradle-to-grave biopic, but instead focus on one moment of the career crossroads for Monroe: the making of “The Prince and the Showgirl”, the 1957 film that brought her together with well-respected actor and director Laurence Olivier to test her skills and talent. The title’s “mine” refers to Colin Clark (Eddie Redmayne), a member of the film crew who grew up near Monroe during his production. With his unique perspective on the life of the actress, the result is an unusually personal and human portrait of a real legend.

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Elisabeth Moss and Mark Duplass play the lead role of a married couple trying to solve their problems during a private, therapeutic getaway in this clever indie drama with the heart of a winding thriller. Director Charlie McDowell and screenwriter Justin Lader are seasoned illusionists: They use the shiny object to distract you from self-help buzzwords and relationship problems as you sneak into clever topics like identity, expectation and personal development. It’s a strange, unpredictable movie, and a fun, knowing movie.

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Few films can rightly claim to have changed cinema, but this indie horror classic from 1999 isn’t just able to do so because of the ubiquity of found footage thrillers in the years that followed. It had no stars, a microscopic budget, and digital video photography that was barely above home videos. But it also told a compelling story with personable and recognizable characters, while directors Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez used the handcrafted aesthetic to give the film a terrifying authenticity.

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Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal showcase the best of their careers as Ennis and Jack, two rough-hewn ranch hands who unexpectedly and passionately fall in love over a summer alone in the mountains. But as soon as they are back at sea level, things look very different for them. They are expected to bottle their relationship and live a life that turns into decades of lies, and both actors convey that undeniable heartbreak in haunting ways. Ang Lee won his first Oscar for his sensitive directing that turns her 20-year history into a miniature epic and subtly tracks the changes in American culture through this special relationship.

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Nora Ephron’s last feature film was also one of her most ambitious and skilful, adapting two memoirs at the same time: Writer Julie Powell’s chronicle of her years of trying to assign each dish in Julia Childs “Mastering the Art of French Cooking” and Childs own “My Life” cooking in France. “Ephron’s witty script makes the most of the pairing, finding cunning similarities and differences in their lives, relationships and (of course) culinary styles. Streep received an Oscar nomination for her earthy work that went beyond easy imitation goes to joyous embodiment, and Stanley Tucci is divine as her husband in love.

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The life of Harvey Milk, the first openly gay person to be elected to political office in California, comes to life in this masterful 2008 biopic by director Gus Van Sant. Sean Penn picked his second best actor Oscar of the decade for his powerful round of titles, which beautifully captures not only Milk’s compassion and drive, but also his considerable warmth and humor. Josh Brolin was nominated for an Oscar for his complex work as Dan White, Milk’s colleague on the San Francisco board of directors who murdered him in 1978. Dustin Lance Black’s Oscar-winning script humbly pays tribute to Milk without making him a saint or martyr.

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Kurt Russell first became famous in a number of live-action Disney films in the late 1960s and early 1970s. So his appearance in that 2004 Disney sports drama has a wonderful circularity. It tells the true story of the 1980 U.S. Olympics hockey team, a ragged crew of amateurs and outsiders who unexpectedly (and inspiring in that cold moment in the Cold War) overthrew the highly-favored Soviet team. There’s not much tension in a well-known story, but director Gavin O’Connor (“The Way Back”) explores the interpersonal dynamics that make the story exciting. Russell’s finely tuned performance transforms the tough coach archetype into a real, complicated character.

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The true story of Chris Garner, a single father who went from homeless desperation to business success, comes to life in this 2006 drama from director Gabriele Muccino (adaptation of Garner’s memoir). Will Smith received his second Oscar nomination for his heartbreaking work as Garner, who finds his optimistic outlook and never-to-say worldview challenged by the struggle for work and the upbringing of his son, played by Smith’s own son, Jaden. The authenticity of this relationship translates well to screen, and while the story beats are predictable, its effectiveness cannot be denied.

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