Hold Your Fire is a bona-fide thriller, its elements in delicate balance.

There’s so much going on that one loses track of how inane so much of it is, but “A New Era” is also a pleasure, guilty or otherwise: Mr. Fellowes doesn’t go very deeply into any character, his frictionless repartee gliding by.

It’s a deranged story, one that offers all kinds of opportunities for examining changes in the state of artificial insemination, medical ethics, the ways in which the human body has been opened up like an evidence locker, and the catchup that legislation has to play with technology.

An uneven but likable horror film with one of the better plot twists in recent memory.

It’s largely a two-character drama with two capable actors, though neither Mr. Teague nor Ms. Richardson (who is usually quite good) are given much with which to win our sympathy.

The attitude of Mr. Navalny and his colleagues is fearless, in a country governed by fear. Thrillers are rarely so inspiring.

There’s no glory in the pugilism of The Survivor, save for the last, exquisite shot of Haft in his Marciano fight, which is alarmingly beautiful, a catharsis for Haft and a moment of aesthetic delirium for the viewer.

What you see is exactly what you think you’re seeing from the moment of your first guess. What you feel is another story—one of calm, almost inexplicable enchantment.

One of the pleasures—even privileges—of watching a film like this is seeing what superb actors are able to do with material that doesn’t aspire to greatness. The story is charming, the performances are exceptional.

Loving it is not the issue, of course—the level of amputating, eviscerating, decapitating violence transcends good nasty fun. The challenge is taking it in, watching it without averting your eyes—I can’t say mine stayed fixed on the screen—and seeing it for what it is, a tumultuous, graphically gorgeous entertainment for our time as well as an ineffably somber meditation on our species’ seemingly inexhaustible reservoir of savagery.

The film isn’t just about their search for love and the vagaries of modern dating, but the craziness of life as it’s lived by passionate, gifted people with insufficient channels for their passion and shabby containers for their gifts.

Productions can go wrong. Certain elements can fail to ignite or cohere. Bad stuff happens all the time, especially in industrial enterprises of this magnitude, but usually there’s some good stuff to dilute the debacle. Not here, though.

Funny, wry, emotionally potent, and like most films by Hirokazu Kore -eda (“Shoplifters,” “Nobody Knows,” “After Life”) operates on multiple levels—usually some kind of domestic tragicomedy under which lies profound existential disquiet.

A romance, bromance and good-natured send-up of teenage obsession.

It’s a return to dramatic accounts of blastoffs, followed by soul-filling footage from beyond our sheltering atmosphere and implacable gravity; a portrait, by reflected light from fiery boosters, of one of Earth’s most curious (in every respect) overachievers; and a testament to failing upward—far, far upward.

In this action adventure, the apotheosis of his career thus far, cheerful idiocy occasionally rises to the level of delectable lunacy. For the most part, though, it’s entertainment as punishing paradox, a high-speed slog.

This film is what it is, a particularly generic genre piece that the bean counters at a once-great studio must have had reason to believe would turn a profit, mostly in the foreign market. Very possibly it will.

It’s a piece of urban history seen through the lens of magic realism, a fragile but beguiling fantasy, tethered now and then to gritty reality, about a do-gooder doing the best he can against daunting odds.

While the romantic comedy is hobbled by the lack of onscreen chemistry between the stars, it’s never in doubt that both actors are giving these exertions their all—each excels individually, but they just can’t kiss like they mean it. Instead, their rapport is that of professional colleagues who complement each other’s work, and Ms. Bullock allows Mr. Tatum to showcase his brilliance at playing dumb.

Despite their wundercabinet of delights, the filmmakers most want to celebrate human beings in all their contradictions. Each of us, the movie says, is capable of everything.

Deep Water is a wickedly funny potboiler about sex, gossip and hypocrisy that Mr. Lyne has transplanted from the suburban Northeast to New Orleans, a city that sweats menace despite the film’s chilly blue cinematography and coldly erotic score.

The story’s pleasures are more literary than cinematic. On screen, it’s more obvious that Mr. Moore’s ideas don’t quite line up.

Ms. Leo is in the kind of role that befits her particular gifts—a character overwhelmed by her own emotions, who sucks the air out of whatever room she finds herself in. But Measure of Revenge moves with too much trepidation—or too much style, one might say—for a convincing urban thriller.

The film, written by the director and Thomas Reider, is often brutal in content and spare in style, a celebration of unquenchable tenacity and the sustaining power of love.

The climax as a whole is cheerfully chaotic, if not over the top, but who cares about perfection when a movie is as good as this one?

What’s lovely about The Adam Project is its treatment of grief, the love between mothers and sons and, to a slightly lesser extent, fathers and sons.

The film, playing in theaters, is very long, relentlessly intense, murmured more often than spoken, and photographed, by Greig Fraser, with a glowering gorgeousness that must be seen to be felt. It’s also enthralling and tailored to our time, an extended rumination on finding one’s moral compass in a world of all-encompassing evil.

In a tale that touches on such a diversity of subjects—loneliness, mortality, adoption, family ties, the realm of the senses, artificial intelligence—it’s the ineffable things that count.