New releases
★ ★ ★ ½ Aftermath Based on a true story that occurred in Poland during World War II, Wladysaw Pasikowski’s feature draws on the horror genre to communicate its awful truths. An émigré returns to his village to discover that his brother has taken up a strange project, and has incurred the neighbors’ wrath. In Polish, with subtitles. (104 min., unrated) (Peter Keough)
★ ★ ½ Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day Author Judith Viorst certainly hit on something enduring with her 1972 children’s book. Director Miguel Arteta’s feature adaptation with Steve Carell, Jennifer Garner, and Ed Oxenbould as beleaguered Alexander hangs onto the name and a gum-in-the-hair mishap, at least. Beyond that, the movie broadens the story with a modestly likable mix of zany and gently warmhearted elements, even if they overdo both at times. (81 min., PG) (Tom Russo)
★ ★ ½ Art and Craft Mark Landis doesn’t sell his art forgeries; he donates them. Passed off as originals, his work has been accepted by 46 museums. Landis’s activities are a great subject for a documentary. Landis isn’t. A diagnosed schizophrenic, he comes across as a bruise waiting to happen. The act of watching him, no less than the act of his being filmed, feels like exploitation. (89 min., unrated) (Mark Feeney)
★ ★ Dracula Untold The vampire genre gets a transfusion from Middle Earth in this Dracula prequel. Here he’s noble Prince Vlad, just a guy keeping his family safe by impaling thousands of people. When that doesn’t work, he makes a deal with the local vampire and takes on the Turks. Allegorical, and dumb. (92 min., PG-13) (Peter Keough)
★ ★ ½ The Judge Arrogant big-city lawyer Robert Downey Jr. defends father Robert Duvall, a biblical patriarch of a small-town judge, in a murder trial. A slick, rip-snorting character drama whose artistic ambitions are neutralized by its commercial imperatives. It’s easy to watch but you see every pitch coming. Vera Farmiga and Billy Bob Thornton costar; David Dobkin directs. (141 min., R) (Ty Burr)
★ ★ ½ Kill the Messenger Imagine that Woodward and Bernstein broke the Watergate story, and it ruined them. That’s the type of narrative at play in this true story of the late Gary Webb, a journalist for the San Jose Mercury News. Directed by Michael Cuesta (“Homeland”) and starring Jeremy Renner, the film tracks Webb’s 1996 investigation into links between the CIA, the ’80s drug trade, and Nicaraguan contras. It’s an engrossing portrait that sometimes tries too hard. (112 min., R) (Tom Russo)
★ ★ One Chance In 2007 Paul Potts, a pudgy store clerk from South Wales, stunned scoffers when he shuffled onto the “Britain’s Got Talent” stage and sang Puccini’s aria “Nessun dorma.” His is an amazing story, one of suffering and triumph reduced to an inane cartoon in this cliché-ridden, platitude-driven biopic. (103 min., PG-13) (Peter Keough)
★ ★ ★ Pride A rousing true-life tale about the British coal strike of Thatcher’s England and the gay activists who found unexpected common cause with the rural miners. It’s done in the style of cheeky Britcoms like “Made in Dagenham” and “Billy Elliot” — a crowd-pleaser but a mostly honest one. With Ben Schnetzer, Imelda Staunton, and the peerless Bill Nighy. (120 min., R) (Ty Burr)
★ ★ ★ The Two Faces of January
A crisp, minor, sometimes intensely pleasing psychological thriller, based on a novel by Patricia Highsmith and casting Viggo Mortensen and Oscar Isaac as American expatriates trying to outfox each other in early-1960s Greece. They could be the two faces of Tom Ripley. With Kirsten Dunst; directed by Hossein Amini. (96 min., PG-13) (Ty Burr)
★ ★ The Zero Theorem Terry Gilliam’s latest is a kind of cyber-rehash of his 1985 classic “Brazil,” with Christoph Waltz as an innocent in a hellish, overstuffed future. Gilliam doesn’t direct movies anymore, he choreographs entropy, but even when he repeats himself, he’s unique. The movie’s a mess but enough sparks remain to keep this career (barely) alive. (107 min., R) (Ty Burr)
Previously released
★ ★ ★ ½ Accident If any good came from the Hollywood blacklist, it was the meeting of director Joseph Losey, who fled to England to escape it, and playwright Harold Pinter. The best of their three collaborations, this 1967 adaptation does justice to Nicholas Mosely’s cerebral novel about intrigue among Oxford dons and students. (105 min., unrated) (Peter Keough)
★ ★ Annabelle This follow-up to James Wan’s pared-down horror hit “The Conjuring” features a face-off between two female extremes, a determined mother and a malevolent doll. Director John R. Leonetti surpasses the previous film stylistically, but succumbs to the same essential silliness and demoralizing sexism. (99 min., R) (Peter Keough)
★ ★ The Equalizer Director Antoine Fuqua and star Denzel Washington reteam for the first time since 2001’s “Training Day,” but this brooding, brutal, formulaic big-screen version of the late-’80s TV show isn’t up to par. A B-movie sheep in A-movie clothing, it’s acceptable meathead mayhem as long as you know what you’re in for. Shot in Boston; sometimes you can even tell. (131 min., R) (Ty Burr)
★ ★ God Help the Girl First-time director Stuart Murdoch, leader of the Indie-pop Scottish band Belle & Sebastian, deserves credit for attempting such an ambitious project — a musical about a mentally ill girl with a lot of talent. Great cast, but Murdoch makes for an iffy filmmaker, and, unless you’re a fan, the songs are cloying. (111 min., unrated) (Peter Keough)
★ ★ Gone Girl David Fincher directed Gillian Flynn’s adaptation of her best-selling novel. Ben Affleck is married to Rosamund Pike, the girl who’s gone (or is she?). Fincher’s cool, slightly inhuman style doesn’t suit Flynn’s yuppie-pulp implausibilities. Expert supporting performances from Carrie Coon, Kim Dickens, and, yes, Tyler Perry underscore Affleck’s and Pike’s glum woodenness. (149 min., R) (Mark Feeney)
★ Left Behind An unintentionally hilarious adaptation of the first in the popular Christian book series. Nicolas Cage looks deeply unhappy to be flying a passenger plane when the Rapture hits. (110 min., PG-13) (Ty Burr)
★ ★ Men, Women & Children The latest warning siren about where our wired world is taking us, a cross between “American Beauty,” “Crash,” and last year’s “Disconnect.” Jason Reitman (“Juno”) co-writes and directs; it’s the kind of earnest issue drama he used to be good at satirizing. The milling cast includes Jennifer Garner, Ansel Elgort, Adam Sandler, and Rosemarie DeWitt. (119 min., R) (Ty Burr)
★ ★ A Walk Among the Tombstones Liam Neeson plays Lawrence Block’s signature protagonist Matt Scudder, an unlicensed P.I. who reluctantly agrees to help a drug dealer find the men who kidnapped and killed his wife. The problem isn’t Neeson in a role that we’re seeing him play again and again. It’s that no one else in the movie makes a character feel nearly as broken-in and fully inhabited as he does. (113 min., R) (Tom Russo)
For movie coverage, go to www.bostonglobe.com/movies.