Stephen Holden

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, Embrace of the Serpent, a fantastical mixture of myth and historical reality, shatters lingering illusions of first-world culture as more advanced than any other, except technologically.

If Race is a standard inspirational biopic that exalts the legend of an athletic hero, at least it doesn’t soft-pedal the racism that Owens encountered at every turn.

Touched With Fire is an actor’s field day, and both Mr. Kirby and Ms. Holmes boldly meet the challenge of playing bright, high-strung artists struggling with depression.

There’s much in the movie to admire until it runs headlong into a stone wall.

Zoolander 2 has enough plots for several movies. They are so jammed together that they more or less cancel each other out.

This clumsy, poorly written action thriller is such a complete catastrophe that you wonder how actors with the stature of Mr. Hopkins and Mr. Pacino were bamboozled into appearing in it.

Beyond the arty trappings and flamboyant showmanship that are typical of Mr. Greenaway, 73, Eisenstein in Guanajuato is a brazen provocation.

The Finest Hours is a moderately gripping whoosh of nostalgia that shamelessly recycles the ’50s cliché of the squeaky-clean all-American hero.

Despite its deficiencies, Naz & Maalik feels authentic, and Mr. Johnson and Mr. Cook bring their characters completely alive.

So long as the camera is studying Franny maniacally bestowing his largess or throwing temper tantrums, The Benefactor is mesmerizing. But Mr. Gere’s flamboyant performance is the sole raison d’être for this melodrama.

This comic take on “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” and “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” is infused with a gleefully absurdist sense of humor while retaining a childlike sense of wonder.

Lacking epic pretensions and modest in scale, running under 90 minutes, Anesthesia is really closer in spirit to Rodrigo García’s delicate 2005 gem, “Nine Lives.” And it doesn’t waste a word or an image.

Daddy’s Home is an ugly psychological cockfight posing as a family-friendly comedy. Laugh-free — except for some farcical, life-threatening stunts at the expense of Will Ferrell’s character, Brad — it is best avoided unless a movie that has the attitude and mind-set of a schoolyard bully happens to be your thing.

Where to Invade Next is a sprawling, didactic polemic wittily disguised as a European travelogue.

The Emperor’s New Clothes is moderately effective agitprop.

Dreams Rewired is mostly content to entertain. Its explanations of how new inventions work are simplified to the point of superficiality.

The performances are so crackling that you can imagine Ms. Salazar and Mr. Pally, given richer material, becoming a slapstick comedy team: the spitfire and the nerd.

What makes A Royal Night Out palatable are the lead performances.

In Ms. Smith’s tough, levelheaded performance, Mary is an irascible termagant full of batty notions clutching on to life as best she can. She is hard to like, and that’s good.

Watching it is like slowly leafing through a giant scrapbook whose contents include the individual stories of a large extended family.

Although Ms. Berg’s enthralling film tells a story somewhat similar to “Amy,” Asif Kapadia’s recent documentary portrait of Amy Winehouse (who also died at 27), the demons that devoured Winehouse came from outside as much from within. Not so with Joplin.

This calm, hardheaded film never sacrifices its toughness for a swooning, misty-eyed moment of hope.

Sad to say: There is far more crackle in an average episode of “Law & Order.”

The movie never bothers to show you life inside a shelter dormitory or tries to convey a broader vision of the city’s street culture. It is too busy showcasing its star Jennifer Connelly (Mr. Bettany’s wife) in degrading situations.

Its abrasive portrait of contemporary New York as a place of noise and nerve-rattling turmoil captures the mood of the city more accurately than any recent film I can think of. And the jagged camera work exacerbates the film’s jarring sense of immediacy.

In Jacir Eid’s extraordinary performance, Theeb exhibits the composure, bravery and cunning of a little savage driven by animal instinct.

Ms. Chaplin, in one of her most touching screen performances, imbues Anne with a world-weary melancholy that makes your heart sink.

Jeffrey Schwarz’s documentary portrait Tab Hunter Confidential is as mild-mannered and blandly likable as its subject.