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What to Watch on TV and at the Movies This Week

From a great Steve Martin doc to a charming French film perfect for the family, it’s a great week for watching screens big and small


spinner image Steve Martin in ​STEVE martin a documentary in 2 pieces
Steve Martin in "​STEVE! (martin) a documentary in 2 pieces."
Courtesy: Apple TV+

What’s on this week? Whether it’s what’s on cable, streaming on Prime Video or Netflix, or opening at the movie theater, we’ve got your must-watch list. Start with TV and scroll down for movies. It’s all right here.

On TV this week …

We Were the Lucky Ones (Hulu)

Georgia Hunter's novel inspired by her family's history is now an action-packed, eight-hour miniseries about the Kurc clan, who survived the Holocaust when 90 percent of Polish Jews did not. One character voices their philosophy: “Hope is not a crime. I think it a necessity.”

Watch it: We Were the Lucky Ones, March 28 on Hulu

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STEVE! (martin) a documentary in 2 pieces (Apple TV+)

Comic turned A-list actor Steve Martin, 78, gets the documentary treatment from A-list director Morgan Neville (Won’t You Be My Neighbor?).

Watch it: STEVE! (martin) a documentary in 2 pieces, March 29 on Apple TV+

A Gentleman in Moscow (Paramount+ with Showtime)​

All Creatures Great and Small auteur Ben Vanstone presents the tale of Count Rostov (Ewan McGregor, 52), sentenced by Bolsheviks to house arrest in the Metropol Hotel, where he watches Russian history unfold from 1922 to 1958 (if he steps outside, he’ll be shot). He deals with secret police, sips Châteauneuf-du-Pape, drinks in the beauty of a visiting movie star (McGregor’s real-life wife, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, 39), and observes, “It is the business of times to change, and gentlemen to change with them.”

Watch it: A Gentleman in Moscow, March 29 on Paramount+ with Showtime

Paramount+ pays AARP a royalty for use of its intellectual property and provides a discount to AARP members.

​​Parish, Season 1 (AMC, AMC+)

Liked Giancarlo Esposito, 65, as meticulous criminal Gus Fring in Better Call Saul? Try this twisty, pedal-to-the-metal crime show, with Esposito in the somewhat similar role of Gray Parish, a broke taxi-company owner whose self-sabotaging ex-con bestie (Skeet Ulrich, 54) gets him a gig with Zimbabwean gangsters invading New Orleans.

Watch it: Parish, March 31 on AMC, AMC+

⭐⭐⭐⭐☆ Chaplin (1992, PG-13)

Robert Downey Jr., 58, who just won his first Oscar for his supporting role in Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, first captured the Academy’s attention for his nominated turn as Hollywood legend Charlie Chaplin. Richard Attenborough’s biopic can be formulaic, but Downey nails Chaplin’s all-over-London accent (sometimes Cockney, sometimes posh) and his gift for sidesplitting slapstick. —Thom Geier (T.G.)

Watch it: Chaplin, April 1 on Prime Video

Don’t miss this: ‘Frasier’ Star Kelsey Grammer at 69: What I Know Now on AARP Members Only Access

​​Your Netflix Watch of the Week is here!

Sex and the City (Seasons 1-6)

Who says giant corporate streaming services can’t play nice? The iconic HBO series about 30-something besties in turn-of-the-millennium Manhattan strides to Netflix on its stylish Manolo Blahniks (the comedy will still be streaming on Max). It’s a great chance to catch up with Sarah Jessica Parker’s Carrie Bradshaw and all her tutu-wearing foibles in search of Mr. Right (or, in her case, Mr. Big).

Watch it: Sex and the City, April 1 on Netflix

Don’t miss this: The 12 Best Movies on Netflix Right Now

Don’t miss this: The 12 Best Things Coming to Netflix in April

Your Prime Video Watch of the Week is here!

House (2004-12)

For eight seasons, Hugh Laurie, 64, created an indelible portrait of a curmudgeonly, pill-popping physician with a unique ability to sniff out unusual diagnoses. The show continues to hold appeal for fans of hospital dramas, mysteries and WebMD.

Watch it: House on Prime Video

Don’t miss this: The 11 Best Things Coming to Prime Video in April

Don’t miss this: 8 Life Lessons from ‘So Help Me Todd’ Star Marcia Gay Harden on AARP Members Only Access

​​What’s new at the movies …

⭐⭐⭐⭐☆ Carol Doda Topless at the Condor, R

More nostalgic than risqué, Carol Doda Topless at the Condor focuses on the cocktail waitress turned go-go dancer turned topless lounge star. With fans from Frank Sinatra to Liberace, North Beach’s number 1 attraction based at the Condor Club gained fame and notoriety by entering the stage atop a signature white piano lowered from the ceiling. The blond bombshell came to define San Francisco’s Broadway strip club culture from the 1960s to the 1980s, when the popularity of the first public topless dancer sagged. The film, jam-packed with historical footage, is a fun and fascinating tour of a vice that seems benign in retrospect in the age of ubiquitous internet porn. Alas, Doda was an early user of silicone shot straight into her ever-growing breasts — a practice that had many negative medical outcomes as she aged. —Thelma M. Adams (T.M.A.)

Watch it: Carol Doda Topless at the Condor, March 29 in theaters

⭐⭐⭐⭐☆ A Cat’s Life, PG

Young Parisian Clémence (Capucine Sainson-Fabresse) discovers an adventurous brown tabby in her attic, adopts him despite maternal resistance and names the kitten Lou. As the furball grows up in this charming, low-tech French film dubbed in English, so does the freckled and curious Clémence. The months pass. They visit the countryside, where Lou gets in touch with his wild side — and a white female playmate — and his owner deals with attachment and loss. Her parents divorce. Lou disappears into the forest. Meanwhile, over time, both cat and kid develop a relationship with the salty loner lady of the countryside, Madeleine (the great comic actress and Captain Marleau star Corinne Masiero, 60). Lovable leaping and nail-biter escapes from wild animals ensue as Clémence discovers the great joys, and attached sadnesses, of loving a cat with a will of its own. She learns empathy and joy, one purr, one death-defying leap, one loss at a time in a rare family movie of gentle pleasures. —T.M.A.

Watch it: A Cat’s Life, March 29 in theaters

Also catch up with …

​​​Shirley, PG-13 (Netflix)

Oscar winner Regina King, 53, has generated plenty of advance buzz for her role as Shirley Chisholm, the first Black woman elected to the U.S. Congress. John Ridley’s biopic, which also stars Lance Reddick, 60, Terrence Howard, 55, and Lucas Hedges, focuses on Chisholm’s historic long-shot bid for the presidency in 1972.

Watch it: Shirley on Netflix

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⭐⭐⭐⭐☆ The Neon Highway, PG-13

In a dramatic musical showcase for Beau Bridges, 82, the amiable actor plays crusty Claude Allen, a once-famous country singer with a talent for self-sabotage who is on his final, broke, booze-fueled self-pity party. Then he encounters cable-guy-with-a-dream Wayne Collins (Rob Mayes), a blue-collar worker who once envisioned country stardom and still carries a surefire hit crumpled in his pocket. That original song is “The Neon Highway,” an ode to the dreams and disappointments of performing the honky-tonk circuit. If only Allen can record it, the road to redemption for both men is in sight. Mayes sings better than he acts; he’s no foil for that charmer Bridges, who makes every scene feel as comfortable as an old slipper and earns every tear that comes his way. —T.M.A.

Watch it: The Neon Highway, in theaters

⭐⭐☆☆☆ Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, PG-13

The surviving Ghostbusters — let’s call them Distinguished Gentlemen of the Supernatural — are back for the second time since 2021’s Ghostbusters: Afterlife. Frozen Empire dispenses with the heartland treacle of Afterlife and brings us back to the franchise’s New York origins. One cheer for that. The cast is appealing back to front: Dan Aykroyd, 71, Bill Murray, 73, Ernie Hudson, 78, and Annie Potts, 71. They even bring back William Atherton, 76, the EPA jerk from the 1984 picture, now the mayor. Paul Rudd, 54, Carrie Coon (The Leftovers), Finn Wolfhard (Stranger Things) and Mckenna Grace (The Handmaid’s Tale) are the newbies. Another cheer for that. But if only the filmmakers could’ve shoehorned some actual jokes into this overstuffed confection, or served up action that didn’t look like it was edited in a digital shredder! —Glenn Kenny (G.K.)

Watch it: Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, in theaters

Manhunt (Apple TV+)

In the ultimate American true-crime miniseries — if a bit fictionalized at points — Game of Thrones’ Tobias Menzies, 49, is Abraham Lincoln’s secretary of war, and Lili Taylor, 57, is Mrs. Lincoln, both driven to the brink of madness on the 12-day hunt for the president’s assassin, John Wilkes Booth (Anthony Boyle). Two-fisted, disreputable detective Lafayette Baker (Patton Oswalt, 55), who shared in the $100,000 reward for nabbing Booth before he could get a hero’s welcome in the South, is on the case, too.

Watch it: Manhunt on Apple TV+

Don’t miss this: How Accurate is ‘Manhunt’? A History Professor Sorts Fact From Fiction

Palm Royale (Apple TV+)

Kristen Wiig, 50, plays a divorcée trying to break into 1969 Palm Beach high society in a highly promising miniseries with the most illustrious comedy cast of the year: Carol Burnett, 90, Laura Dern, 57, Allison Janney, 64, Julia Duffy, 72, Josh Lucas, 52, and Ricky Martin, 52.

Watch it: Palm Royale on Apple TV+

Don’t miss this: 10 Quick Questions for Carol Burnett on AARP Members Only Access

Grey’s Anatomy (ABC)

In the 20th season of the steamy hospital drama, we’ll see the aftermath of multiple cliff-hangers featuring two crucial smooches and two near-death experiences, by a patient (Sam Page) and his surgeon (Kim Raver, 54). The titular Dr. Grey (Ellen Pompeo, 54), won’t be a regular anymore, but she’ll do voice-overs and maybe even appear on screen. “It’s not a complete goodbye,” Pompeo says.

Watch it: Grey’s Anatomy, Thursdays, 9 p.m. ET on ABC

Don't miss this: Broadcast TV Preview 2024: The 20 Best Free Shows Headed Your Way

And don't miss this: 9 Quick Questions for Chandra Wilson of ‘Grey's Anatomy’ on AARP Members Only Access

⭐⭐⭐⭐☆ One Life, PG

“Whoever saves one life saves the world entire,” to paraphrase the Talmud. In One Life, a fact-based Holocaust drama, modest English stockbroker Nicholas Winton ferries Jewish children to London from Czechoslovakia at great risk. Nazi forces hover at, then cross, the border as WWII looms. In the movie’s most suspenseful sequences, bespectacled young Winton (Johnny Flynn) sweats and worries, scrambling to do the right thing by the endangered children. Decades later, a retired Winton (Anthony Hopkins, 86, shuffling meaningfully) remains obsessed with his guilt over the lost and unsaved. He channels his obsession by trying to raise attention for this forgotten effort that preserved over 600 kids. Then, in 1988, the BBC’s That’s Life program reunites Winton with some of the survivors and their 6,000 heirs. In a karmic kiss, their reconnection enriches Winton’s life. Hanky, please, for the humanitarian the U.K. press dubbed the “British Schindler.” —T.M.A.

Watch it: One Life, in theaters

⭐⭐⭐⭐☆ Remembering Gene Wilder, NR

If Young Frankenstein and The Producers rank high among your favorite comedies, have we got a documentary for you! Remembering Gene Wilder juggles hilarious movie clips with talking heads (Mel Brooks, 97, Carol Kane, 71) and TV interviews with the likes of Dick Cavett, 87. The comic, born Jerome Silberman in 1933 in Milwaukee, found inspiration in Danny Kaye and his wild side onstage. Wilder’s Broadway debut fell flat, but the show’s star, Anne Bancroft, introduced the wide-blue-eyed actor to her future husband, Brooks. Beginning with The Producers (1967), Brooks and Wilder launched a comedy collaboration to rival Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro’s dramatic partnership. Wilder’s life wasn’t all laughs, including his short marriage to SNL darling and ovarian cancer victim Gilda Radner; a challenging but fruitful partnership with Richard Pryor; and the Alzheimer’s that led to his 2016 death at 83. If the engaging documentary inspires a Wilder streaming marathon, so much the better. —T.M.A.

Watch it: Remembering Gene Wilder, in theaters

⭐⭐⭐☆☆ Knox Goes Away, R

How’s this for a high-concept premise: An assassin has rapid onset dementia? When the hitman’s estranged son (James Marsden, 50) gets into a violent pickle that requires dad’s special skills, John Knox (Michael Keaton, 72) is up against a ticking clock. He must cover up the crime and outfox the police before he loses the meticulous mental tools of his trade – and his only chance at family reconciliation. Oscar-winner Keaton, making his directorial debut, gives a realistic feel to his far-fetched fiction. From Batman to Beetlejuice and beyond, Keaton has proven himself to be as adept at action seriousness as antic comedy. In Knox, his hand is steady, his unflashy performance grounded and his humor sly as Keaton surrounds himself with actors he clearly loves: a tender Marcia Gay Harden, 64, as his ex-wife, and a relaxed and relatively low key Al Pacino, 83. —T.M.A.

Watch it: Knox Goes Away, in theaters

⭐⭐⭐⭐☆ Arthur the King, PG-13

Spoiler alert: The dog lives! If you’re like me, the prospect of a movie costarring a heroic animal can invoke PTSD from childhood classics like Old Yeller, Bambi or Marley & Me. You still might still need some Kleenex for Arthur the King, but they’ll be happy tears. Scrappy Arthur, the wounded street dog that endurance athlete Michael Light (Mark Wahlberg, 52) meets on the streets of the Dominican Republic and feeds a meatball, winds up tailing Light’s team of adventure racers through a brutal 10-day, 435-mile trek, kayak and climb through the jungle. Arthur becomes part of the squad in its last-ditch bid to win the Adventure Racing World Championship. The setup can be formulaic and heartwarming with a capital H at times. But Wahlberg is so unaffected and authentic as the obsessive racer who wants to win at any cost – until he meets Arthur – that many of his scenes with the dog ring remarkably true. (The film is based on the true story of Swedish adventure racer Mikael Lindnord, who met the real-life Arthur in an Ecuador race and brought him back to Sweden to live with his family.) A modest film that says a lot about what winning really means. —Dana Kennedy (D.K.)

Watch it: Arthur the King, in theaters

The Gentlemen, Season 1 (Netflix)

Guy Ritchie, 55, gives us another high-style gangster classic in this series about law-abiding British duke Eddie Halstead (Theo James, The White Lotus) who inherits a 15,000-acre estate and discovers it’s got a vast cannabis plantation underground. Multiple colorful thugs try to take it over, including natty Stanley Johnston (Giancarlo Esposito, 65) and East End tough Bobby Glass (Ray Winstone, 67). Kaya Scodelario is marvelous as Bobby’s daughter and Halstead’s deadly gangster frenemy Susie Glass, who dresses even more impeccably than the Duke does. The plot twists are as exquisite as her taste.

Watch it: The Gentlemen on Netflix

⭐⭐⭐⭐☆ Dune: Part Two, PG-13

Oppenheimer director Christopher Nolan compares this incredibly epic film of Frank Herbert’s SF classic to The Empire Strikes Back, which outdid the original Star Wars. He’s got a point. It’s an eye-popping, sonically stunning, highly original story with massively more action, character and plot than the 2021 Dune: Part One. Timothée Chalamet is more vibrant as Paul, the hero battling the Nazi-esque Harkonnens, and the grownups are great: Javier Bardem, 54, and Josh Brolin, 56, as his friends and mentors, Christopher Walken, 80, as the evil Emperor and Stellan Skarsgård, 72, as the Jabba the Hutt-like Baron Harkonnen. The amazingly confusing plot mostly holds your interest, but it’s the images that stick with you: Paul riding the giant sand worm, warriors erupting from the ground like skeletons in Jason and the Argonauts, rallies straight out of Triumph of the Will, fabulous battles. It’s like a trip to other planets. —Tim Appelo (T.A.)

Watch it: Dune: Part Two, in theaters

Don’t miss this: Everything You Need to Know Before You Watch Dune: Part 2

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⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Io Capitano, NR

The engaging and insightful International Oscar nominee Io Capitano (“I, Captain”), presents an immigrant odyssey that puts a human face on disaster-trumpeting headlines. Seydou and Massa (Seydou Sarr, Moustapha Fall), teen cousins with stars in their eyes, leave their teeming Senegalese village for the alluringly moneyed land of milk and Chianti across the desert and over the Mediterranean: Italy. Their odyssey via Libya leads to near-death in the sand dunes, brutal labor, heartless human traffickers and unexpected allies. It climaxes with a dangerous voyage on a rickety, marginally seaworthy boat brimming with passengers. Io Capitano combines magic realism and ultrarealism to give audiences insight into the emotional journey of two lovely and loving young men who share a dream that threatens to tip over into nightmare. Harrowing and uplifting. —T.M.A.

Watch it: Io Capitano, in theaters

⭐⭐⭐☆☆ Bob Marley: One Love, PG-13

Kingsley Ben-Adir, who played Malcolm X in the Oscar-nominated 2020 One Night in Miami ..., delivers a smartly focused performance as reggae legend Bob Marley. He nails the late star’s Jamaican patois (you sometimes wish the film had subtitles), but what’s missing is the Soul Rebel who brought stadiums of fans to their feet. You can feel director Reinaldo Marcus Green straining against the family-approved biopic format, in which less attractive episodes such as infidelities and arrests get only a glancing mention. When the focus stays on Marley’s singular talent — for example, a lingering scene in which he and the band piece together the classic tune “Exodus” — One Love succeeds in getting things together so you can feel all right. —T.G.

Watch it: Bob Marley: One Love, in theaters

Don't miss this: Ziggy Marley reveals his father’s final words to him on AARP Members Only Access

⭐⭐⭐☆☆ This Is Me … Now: A Love Story, PG-13 (Prime Video)

Jennifer Lopez, 54, spent $20 million of her own dough on this genre-bending special timed to drop with her first studio album in a decade. It’s a full-on cinematic experience — with an autobiographical look at the pop diva’s life, including her tabloid-fodder romances. Yes, new hubby Ben Affleck, 51, appears, along with such stars as Fat Joe, 53, Post Malone, Keke Palmer, Sofia Vergara, 51, Derek Hough and Neil deGrasse Tyson, 65. The musical production numbers, with over-the-top sets, costumes and choreography, look epic. 

Watch it: This Is Me … Now: A Love Story on Prime Video

Read the full review here: Everything You Need to Know About Jennifer Lopez’s ‘This Is Me … Now’ Musical Biopic

Don’t miss this video: 8 Things You Didn’t Know About Jennifer Lopez

⭐⭐⭐⭐☆ Oppenheimer, R (Peacock)

Yes, it was better on Imax, but the Oscar front-runner biopic about the father of the A-bomb also packs a punch on the small screen — and now it’s streaming! The story ricochets through time and space fast as a photon, plotting the arc of J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy). The left-leaning, womanizing physicist passionately pursues pioneering atomic science. But he can’t live with his baby, the bomb that decimated Hiroshima, ending World War II. The sprawling drama is a dazzling cinematic achievement boosted by muscular performances from Robert Downey Jr., 58, Matt Damon, 53, and Jason Clarke, 54, and a huge cast of characters with complicated collisions. —T.M.A.

Watch it: Oppenheimer on Peacock (also in theaters and on demand)​​

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ The Taste of Things, PG-13

Not since Babette’s Feast has there been a culinary movie so delicious. In this sensual French period entry for the Oscar, which was overshadowed by the more serious contemporary best picture nominee Anatomy of a Fall, Juliette Binoche, 59, leads the way around a large, rustic kitchen in 1889 France. The actress is graceful, passionate and mysterious as Eugenie, a chef whose culinary talent and skills border on the mystical. Employed for two decades by the famed gourmet Dodin Bouffant (Binoche’s ex-partner Benoît Magimel, 49), the magnificent first act finds her cooking with mouthwatering detail, her hands never still or unsure, her concentration absolute. From this emerge the delicate flavors of her collaboration and consensual no-strings sexual relationship with Bouffant, the nurturing of an apprentice and an appreciation for food preparation as its own genius. The Taste of Things is a yummy version of a life well lived, where dinner isn’t a meal between dusk and dark, but a daily celebration of life for as long as it lasts. —T.M.A.

Watch it: The Taste of Things, in theaters

​Don’t miss this: 8 Quick Questions for Juliette Binoche on AARP Members Only Access

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ American Fiction, PG-13

Jeffrey Wright, 58, owns 2023. The brilliant actor delivered a mighty profile as Rustin’s Rep. Adam Clayton Powell and now carries Cord Jefferson’s brainy, acerbic comedy as the enraged Thelonius “Monk” Ellison, an academic whose latest erudite novel is a least-seller. When he encounters a Black woman novelist whose breakout debut employs young urban speech, the writer confronts market realities. As Monk attempts to prove that he, too, can write pandering fiction, he gets drawn back into his affluent family’s orbit. Mother Leslie Uggams, 80, and siblings Tracee Ellis Ross, 51, and Sterling K. Brown form a formidable family unit (with their New England beach house, the Ellisons are more seaside lane than city street). Both a family dramedy and a sharp take on publishing’s failures, American Fiction also reflects the concerns of a microcosm of Black artists working in Hollywood, navigating systemic racism while expected to deliver stories with “street cred,” whatever that means — and to whom — on any particular day. —T.M.A.

Watch it: American Fiction on demand

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ The Zone of Interest, PG-13

Among the most chilling photographs displayed at Berlin’s Topography of Terror museum is this image: smiling female Auschwitz guards enjoying their day off, steins raised, at a beer garden. Jonathan Glazer, 58, sets his Oscar-bound Holocaust drama The Zone of Interest nearby, at the compound of Camp Commandant Rudolf Höss (Christian Friedel, Babylon Berlin) and his wife, Hedwig (Sandra Huller, also in the much-buzzed Anatomy of a Fall). Their happy home, with its lush garden (fertilized with suspicious ash) and playful children, shelters a family striving for a bourgeois life within sniffing distance of the spewing chimneys at the infamous concentration camp. Like the photo at the Topography of Terror, the movie shows the banality of wickedness. For the Höss family, life goes on amid the scurrying, starving prisoner-servants underfoot as the patriarch rises due to his genocidal efficiency. Their prosperous garden of evil, fueled by denial, is an atrocity of complicity, and a timely remembrance. —T.M.A.

Watch it: The Zone of Interest on demand

⭐⭐⭐⭐☆ Poor Things, R

Emma Stone goes far out on a limb — and then leaps without a net — in her second outrageous collaboration with Yorgos Lanthimos, 50 (The Favourite). Stone delivers a sexy, physically demanding and outlandish performance that exists in an artistic universe far, far away from the mainstream gloss of Spiderman’s saucy girlfriend Gwen. She plays Bella Baxter, a young suicide given an electric shock at a second life by the compassionate but cray-cray scientist Dr. Godwin Baxter (a sublimely ridiculous Willem Dafoe, 68). His bumpy, scarred visage reflects his predilection for self-experimentation, while Bella is his beauty. Mark Ruffalo, 56, flexes his comic chops as a Bella-obsessed gent who has no idea what she’s capable of — or of his own limitations. Part Frankenstein, part Galatea, Bella has a learning curve that’s swift, unexpected and driven by unrestrained appetites. Although Poor Things occasionally careens into extreme whimsy, it’s a gorgeously shot, designed and costumed portrait of an incomparable woman on the verge of a fantastical breakthrough. —T.M.A.

Watch it: Poor Things, in theaters

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ The Boy and the Heron, PG-13

Long ago, when my two grown kids were little, I adored animation. Then it became something like eating too many hot dogs — I never again craved wieners or hyper cartoons. The major exception is the creations of Japanese genius Hayao Miyazaki, 82. His latest movie is true to form: unhurried, tender and wise. Nearly every frame of this artistic masterpiece inspires awe. His visions of undulating waters, flickering flames and sunlight cracking cloud cover have sublime detail, composition and color. The story itself offers wonder, humor and life lessons that don’t reduce to “Eat your broccoli.” The hero of this feature, which Miyazaki claims to be his last, is a motherless boy. Mahito encounters a heron, a magical creature symbolizing good luck, a fowl capable of moving among three elements: earth, water and air. Together, bird and orphan cross the thin membrane between life and death, encountering strange and marvelous creatures, and inhabiting a visually thrilling story that represents the very best in bold contemporary animation and popular art. —T.M.A.

Watch it: The Boy and The Heron, in theaters​​

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ The Holdovers, R

Director Alexander Payne, 62, made actor Paul Giamatti, 56, famous in his 2004 wine-country comedy Sideways. They reunite in an Oscar-touted, record-setting Toronto Film Festival hit about a curmudgeon (Giamatti’s specialty) who teaches at a New England prep school and is stuck on campus to babysit a few students over Christmas break in the early 1970s. He bonds with one chronic misfit kid (Dominic Sessa) and the school’s cook (Da’Vine Joy Randolph), who’s mourning her son, a former student at the school who was accepted at Swarthmore but, cash-poor, was sent to die in Vietnam. It’s a hilarious, poignant movie in a beautiful, character-rich retro-1970s style. It’s a Christmas movie as uplifting as the saddest of Christmas songs, and as full of hope against all odds. —T.A.

Watch it: The Holdovers on demand

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Anatomy of a Fall, R

Writers Sandra (standout Sandra Hüller) and Vincent (Swann Arlaud) share a remote alpine chalet with their 11-year-old son, Daniel, but their marriage is strained. What makes this elegant, gripping crime thriller (and Cannes Film Festival winner) unusual is that the pot never boils. When an attractive journalist comes to interview the more successful Sandra, an unseen Vincent blasts music to disrupt their conversation. How passive-aggressive — or is his behavior something angrier? Later, he tumbles from the third-floor window, bloodying the snow below. The narrative pivots, becoming a courtroom drama with Sandra in the dock, accused of suspicious death. Her vision-impaired son is the sole material witness. Daniel has knowledge of what occurred in the house — but how reliable is he? Is he loyal to his surviving mother, or to his late father? Did Sandra or didn’t she? If only those chalet walls could talk. —T.M.A.

Watch it: Anatomy of a Fall on demand

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