EXIT THROUGH THE GIFT SHOP ★★

(Showtime on Comcast) An art-world documentary that’s one of the best, most karmically satisfying comedies of the year. Banksy, the anonymous British street artist (or soulless graffiti punk, as you will), tells the tale of one Thierry Guetta, an inept filmmaker turned art-world sensation, and the joke is on all of us, Banksy included. With Shepard Fairey, who looks appropriately mortified. (R; runs through Oct. 9)

WATER FOR ELEPHANTS ★★

(HBO on Comcast) A beautiful and boring movie set amid a traveling circus during the Great Depression, with Robert Pattinson as the troupe’s animal doctor who loves an acrobat, played by Reese Witherspoon. Christoph Waltz is the circus owner and her husband. They’re each in a different movie — at the risk of overselling, Pattinson’s is ‘‘The Great Gatsby.’’ Adapted from Sara Gruen’s novel. (PG-13; runs through Oct. 15)

THE SHIPPING NEWS ★★½

(Starz on Comcast) Lasse Hallstrom’s film of Annie Proulx’s popular novel is sensitive, with much to admire. Kevin Spacey gives it a good shot as a shy, devastated victim of spousal abuse who crawls back to his dark family origins in Newfoundland with his young daughter and puts his life back together. So does Julianne Moore, as the local woman who gives him hope. But the film, potently bleak atmospherics and all, curiously mutes the book’s glories. (R; runs through 2013)