Movie recommendations from critics Kenneth Turan, Justin Chang and other reviewers.
Beatriz at Dinner
Salma Hayek gives perhaps the best performance of her career as an empathetic holistic healer who comes face-to-face with a rotten billionaire real-estate mogul (a marvelous John Lithgow) in this queasily funny and suspenseful dark comedy from director Miguel Arteta and screenwriter Mike White. (Justin Chang) R.
Churchill
Brian Cox, in a towering, Oscar-caliber performance, proves the literal beating heart of this superb look at iconic statesman Winston Churchill’s torturous days leading up to the pivotal D-day landings of June 6, 1944. (Gary Goldstein) PG.
It Comes at Night
Confirming the filmmaking skill of writer-director Trey Edward Shults (“Krisha”), this nightmarish postapocalyptic thriller about two families seeking refuge in the wilderness is a tour de force of narrative economy, etched in dim light and implacable shadows. (Justin Chang) R.
The Lost City of Z
Based on David Grann’s nonfiction bestseller about British explorer Percy Fawcett (well played by Charlie Hunnam), James Gray’s rich, meditative and deeply transporting adventure epic is the sort of classical filmmaking that feels positively radical. (Justin Chang) PG-13.
My Cousin Rachel
Daphne du Maurier’s melodramatic thriller of a novel is turned into a triumphant exercise in dark and delicious romantic ambiguity courtesy of an extremely persuasive performance by Rachel Weisz. (Kenneth Turan) PG-13.
Norman: The Modern Rise and Tragic Fall of a New York Fixer
Subtle, unsettling, slyly amusing, Israeli director Joseph Cedar’s first English-language film provides Richard Gere with a splendid role as a hustler forever on the make in Manhattan. (Kenneth Turan) R.
Wonder Woman
With forthright emotion, spirited humor and a surprisingly purposeful sense of spectacle, director Patty Jenkins and her superb star, Gal Gadot, have made a thrilling new superhero saga that might just save the typically nonthrilling DC Extended Universe. (Justin Chang) PG-13.