Movies still screening in BayArea theaters

“The Big Sick”: The screenplay, written by star Kumail Nanjiani and his real-life wife, Emily V. Gordon, was inspired by their courtship. The sexy, beguiling Zoe Kazan brings intelligence and believability to the Gordon role. The romance is almost derailed because Kumail can’t bring himself to tell his traditional Pakistani parents he’s in love with an American named Emily, who comes down with something debilitating, and is in a medically induced coma when Kumail finally visits the hospital and meets her parents. Fortunately, this film transcends the clichés of each formula it flirts with. ★ ★ ★½ (Bob Strauss, Los Angeles Daily News) R, 2:00 “Brad’s Status”: Ben Stiller excels at playing Brad Sloan, a middle-aged family man in Mike White’s wonderful middle-agecrisis comedy, about a man worried about money and the future and troubled by what he suspects is his own mediocrity, particularly since his four closest buddies from college all have gone on to far greater success than he has. This comes into sharp focus as Brad travels with his college-age son, Troy, to check out Harvard and Tufts University, where Brad senses his child may soon eclipse him, too. Ultimately it’s Troy who pulls Brad back to reality and points out that the proof Brad is meant for extraordinary things is right under his nose. ★★ ★ ½ (Justin Chang, Los Angeles Times) R, 1:41

“Columbus”: This beautifully photographed indie drama from debuting Korean-American writerdirector Kogonada follows two lovely young strangers — Seoul-based book translator Jin, played by John Cho (Sulu in the “Star Trek” films), and recent high- school graduate Casey, played by Haley Lu Richardson (“The Edge of Seventeen”) — as their friendship develops. They spend a few days talking and exploring Casey’s hometown, Columbus, Indiana — an unlikely setting for several mid-20thcentury buildings designed by internationally renowned architects of the day — while each tries to come to terms with strained parental relationships. ★★ ★ (Justin Chang, Los Angeles Times) Unrated, 1:44

“Dunkirk”: Christopher Nolan’s World War II drama is a stunning, immersive survival film that puts viewers in the midst of the action, whether on the beach with the 400,000 Allied soldiers waiting and hopeing for a rescue that may never come; on the English Channel in a little civilian ship with only an aging man and two teenage boys aboard, heading into hostile waters; and in the air above the beach in two lone Spitfires that are about to run out of fuel. “Dunkirk” ranks as the best film of 2017so far and as Nolan’s best, too. ★★ ★ (Lindsey Bahr, The Associated Press) PG-13, 1:46

“It”: Stephen King’s sneering Pennywise the clown (Bill Skarsgård) once again stalks the misfit children of the “losers club” from the sewers of small-town Maine in Andy Muschietti’s remake of the author’s 1966horror novel. Skarsgård grounds the villain with an intellectual depth that’s always disturbing, despite some moments when the tale lapses from shudder-worthy into the realm of schlock. ★★ ★ (Karen D’Souza, Bay Area News Group) R, 2:15 “The Lego Ninjago

Movie”: “The Lego Batman Movie,” released earlier this year, was wildly successful, thanks in part to its wall-to-wall jokes both verbal and visual. But even with a voice case featuring Dave Franco, Abbie Jacobson, Justin Theroux and Jackie Chan, this story of Lloyd — who leads a double life as the much maligned son of a villain named Garmadon but who is secretly the Green Ninja, part of a heroic teenage crew that saves their city from Gamadon’s destruction — the crucial story element about a deepening relationship between Lloyd and Garmadon just doesn’t work. ★★ ½ (Katie Walsh, Tribune News Service) PG, 1:41 Logan Lucky”: Channing Tatum plays laid- off West Virginia coal miner Jimmy Logan, whose wife (Katie Holmes) has traded up for a middle- class husband. Jimmy’s brother Clyde (Adam Driver), now a bartender, lost an arm while serving in Iraq, and their sister (Riley Keough) works as a hairdresser. For this family, the American dream has pretty much evaporated. So with help from an incarcerated explosives expert (Daniel Craig), they decide to take something back from institutions that have let them down, by intercepting the cash flow at a big NASCAR race. Though in some ways more trivial than its theme, Steven Soderbergh’s heist flick will put a smile on your face. ★★ ½ (Lindsey Bahr, The Associated Press) PG-13, 1:59 “Rebel in the Rye”: This biopic on reclusive author J.D. Salinger (“The Catcher in the Rye”) — written and directed by Danny Strong — goes back to 1939, when the as yet unpublished writer (Nicholas Hoult) is under the tutelage of editor Whit Burnett (Kevin Spacey) at Columbia and courting New York socialite Oona O’Neill (Zoey Deutch). Hoult and Spacey do their best to rise above the dialogue and ham- handed melodrama, but the screenplay mostly fails to capture the iconoclastic take on adolescent rebellion both Salinger and his central character, Holden Caulfield, stood for. ★ ½ (Pat Padua, The Washington Post) PG-13, 1:49

“Wind River”: Screenwriter Taylor Sheridan (“Sicario,” “Hell or High Water”) makes his feature directing debut with an atmospheric murder thriller set on the Wyoming Native American reservation of the title. A teenage girl has been killed, and the richly layered story explores tribalism and gender relations within and across Indian and Anglo lines, as a tracker-marksman (Jeremy Renner) helps a greenhorn FBI agent ( Elizabeth Olsen) investigate. Sheridan crafts solid drama from the battle between community law and the feral law of the frontier, and unspools shocking sequences that turn the story’s character focus and timeline in unexpected directions while bodies pile up. ★★ ★ ½ (Colin Covert, Star Tribune, Minneapolis) R, 1:47