It’s a tale of totality, not during an eclipse but during a brief conjunction that changes at least one life surprisingly, and one of the greatest pleasures of the movie year.

He’s (Oldman) superb in this one, a study in eccentric but magnetic leadership, and in masterly acting.

The film is exuberant and heartfelt, and the hero’s journey takes him through spectacular territory; the picturesque land of the living pales by comparison to what Miguel discovers in the Land of the Dead.

Mr. Gilroy’s new film doesn’t try for lean. When its lawyer hero isn’t citing legal precedent, he uses spectacularly florid language that reflects his unusual mental state. But there’s a disconnect between what we see and hear and what we’re meant to feel.

The battles to save the world are generic/titanic; the villain is a bloodless bore with a boom-box roar; and the screen, like the ragged story, is chockablock with such underdeveloped overachievers as Batman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Cyborg and the Flash.

The movie is, by turns — and sometimes simultaneously — darkly comic, blazingly profane, flat-out hilarious and shockingly violent, not to mention flippant, tender, poetic and profound.

The current cast is cursed with the director’s lust for gravitas. Searching for emotional truth in Agatha Christie, Mr. Branagh succeeds only in killing her playfulness.

Ms. Gerwig’s movie is very much a thanking situation. Once you’ve seen it — even while you’re watching it, with a grin stuck on your face — you want to give thanks for how wonderful it is, how wise and funny and full of grace.

The effort shows in all three performances. Spontaneity is in short supply. The comedy seems willed, the solemnity mechanical, the dialogue rhythms awkward and self-conscious.

Gradually, though, it wins you over with endearing performances and a clarity of purpose. If that sounds faintly patronizing, it isn’t meant to.

Suburbicon is not only unfunny, a bad sign for a black comedy, but deep-dyed dislikable.

The Square is too long at 150 minutes and occasionally falls into the sort of preciosity it loves to deride. But the film is full of delicious riffs.

Their homegrown spirit is so appealing, and their history so affecting, that you want to overlook the shortcomings of a dutiful, derivative script, with its several inspirational strands and dearth of essential details.

The buddies in Faces Places are perfectly matched, notwithstanding an age difference of 55 years, so the things that happen during their wanderings around rural France aren’t funny in a conventional sense. They are lovely, surprising and deeply moving.

If Human Flow has a chance of breaking through the noise and clutter of the media surround, it’s not because the demands Mr. Ai’s documentary makes on our attention are modest; just the opposite. This movie, a testament to the power of seeing, provides a long and uncommonly vivid look at a human crisis that’s changing the face of our planet.

Professor Marston & the Wonder Women stands head, shoulders, boots, tiara and lasso above many independent films of the moment. See it and you’ll come away with a new appreciation for the polywonder of creativity.

Marshall — a terrific performance by Chadwick Boseman — comes off at the outset as full of himself to overflowing. In other words, here’s an irreverent movie with a quirky ring of truth.

As in previous films, Mr. Baker mixes amateur and professional actors to exceptional effect.

Daring in its own right, this broodingly sumptuous saga explores the primacy of feelings, the nature of memories and the essence of being human, framed as the difference between being manufactured or born.

Ms. McGowan has a wonderful face, and director Jenna Mattison spends a lot of time there. But the effectiveness of The Sound really comes from its atmospherics, which are rich and disturbing and a credit not just to the director but to composer Aaron Gilhuis and the people at Urban Post Production in Toronto.

Each of the five superb actors gets a moment of dramatic glory out of Mr. MacLachlan’s screenplay, which is about guilt, roots and the selfishness of implacable conviction. Each makes the most of it.

A lot of Lucky is philosophical mischief, some of it is tediously ruminative, and some moments achieve a loveliness that belies the film’s craggy desert terrain, the earthiness of its characters and even the landscape of Mr. Stanton’s body.

American Made is one of the many children of “Goodfellas,” a true-crime story turned first-person narrative told by a charismatic ne’er-do-well surrounded by dubious characters and tantalizing subplots. None of these offspring, including American Made, have matched the chilling grandeur of Martin Scorsese’s 1990 masterpiece, with its multifaceted characters and visual fluidity.

Director David Gordon Green, working with screenwriter John Pollono’s adaptation of the book by Mr. Bauman and Bret Witter, maintains a brisk pace. There’s barely a maudlin moment, which is remarkable given the subject matter.

The split screen has a downside: It punctuates the lopsidedness of the script by Anneke Campbell and Will Lamborn, Miguel’s story being far less convincingly written than Mark’s.

An extremely good-natured, upbeat recounting of the infamous Bobby Riggs-Billie Jean King “man vs. woman” match of 1973.

It is the library as an urgent idea, and the obligations that the institution’s leaders have embraced, that win Mr. Wiseman’s admiration and attention.

When the film leaves the realm of the impolite or even criminal for something far more extreme, it achieves a level of excess that makes the whole enterprise increasingly cartoonish, rather than just awful.