“A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night” In the Iranian ghost-town Bad City, a place that reeks of death and loneliness, the townspeople are unaware they are being stalked by a lonesome vampire. 99 minutes (NR)
“American Sniper” Clint Eastwood directs Bradley Cooper in this adaptation of the autobiography of U.S. Navy SEAL Chris Kyle, one of the deadliest snipers in American military history. 132 minutes (R)
“The DUFF” A high school senior (Mae Whitman) learns her pals refer to her as “The DUFF” (Designated Ugly Fat Friend) behind her back. 100 minutes (PG-13)
“Fifty Shades of Grey” Jamie Dornan is a billionaire with kinky sexual tastes who teaches a college student (Dakota Johnson) a thing or two in this adaptation of the novel by E. L. James. 125 minutes (R)
“Focus” Will Smith stars as a master con artist who meets his match in the form of a young newcomer (Margot Robbie) to the shell game. 104 minutes (R)
“Hot Tub Time Machine 2” Adam Scott replaces John Cusack in this sequel to the 2010 comedy about a group of friends (Rob Corddry, Clark Duke and Craig Robins) who wreak havoc on the present by using the eponymous device to travel to the past. 93 minutes (R)
“The Imitation Game” During World War II, mathematician Alan Turing tries to crack the enigma code with help from fellow mathematicians. 114 minutes (PG-13)
“Jupiter Ascending” Mila Kunis, Channing Tatum and Eddie Redmayne star in the latest mind-bending sci-fi fantasy from Matrix creators Lana and Andy Wachowski. 127 minutes (PG-13)
“Kingsman: The Secret Service” Director Matthew Vaughn (“Kick-Ass”) adapts another comic-book, this one centering on a secret service agent (Colin Firth) who recruits a street kid into his top-secret crime-fighting organization. 129 minutes (R)
“The Lazarus Effect” A trio of university researchers discover a way to bring the dead back to like. Then they find out resurrecting a corpse is always a bad idea. 83 minutes (PG-13)
“McFarland, USA” Kevin Costner stars as the coach of an underdog cross-country high school team in this sports drama inspired by true events. 128 minutes (PG)
“Mr. Turner” Anchored in the rock of Timothy Spall’s astonishing Cannes prize-winning performance as British painter J.M.W. Turner, this Mike Leigh film pushes hard against the strictures of conventional narrative and ends up pulling us into its world and capturing us completely. 149 minutes (R)
“Paddington” Ben Whishaw provides the voice for the eponymous talking bear, who gets taken in by a family of humans (including Nicole Kidman, Julie Walters, Sally Hawkins and Jim Broadbent). 95 minutes (PG)
“Still Alice” Losing your mind is a terrible thing to watch, but the splendid acting in “Still Alice” makes it worth the pain. Scarier than any Elm Street nightmare, a horror film for the rest of us, it succeeds despite itself because of strong performances by Julianne Moore and Kristen Stewart. 101 minutes (PG-13)
“The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water” The beloved Nickelodeon character enters the live-action world, where he squares off against a pirate (Antonio Banderas). 93 minutes (PG)
“Two Days, One Night” It’s strange to think of this new drama from Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne as a thriller, but that’s exactly what they’ve created. The clock is ticking on a factory worker (Marion Cotillard) who has two days and one night to try to persuade co-workers to give up a precious bonus so that she can return to a job eliminated while she was on medical leave. For all the excellent work Cotillard has done, this performance stands among her best. She absorbs a young wife and mother’s indecision, insecurity, depression and weariness down to the bone. (B.S., Jan. 9) In French with English subtitles. 95 minutes (NR)
— Compiled from wire reports
Send questions/comments to the editors.
Comments are no longer available on this story