Daniel Kaluuya, Allison Williams, Catherine Keener, Bradley Whitford

Jordan Peele

Jordan Peele’s first foray behind the camera as a director is funny, thrilling and often frightening. The writer-director balances an array of tones, bringing them together seamlessly in a movie with a lot to offer. “Get Out” is a film that works on many levels. It’s a surprisingly thoughtful and relevant thriller with plenty of ideas to go along with the scares and laughs.

The problem with writing about “Get Out” is that many of its strengths lie in the third act, where questions are answered and storylines are paid off in satisfying and unexpected ways. But part of the appeal of Peele’s debut is that it’s hardly predictable. When Chris Washington (Daniel Kaluuya) goes to spend the weekend with his white girlfriend Rose (Allison Williams) and her parents, it’s not easy to predict everything that’s about to happen. Her parents, Dean (Bradley Whitford) and Missy Armitage (Catherine Keener), aren’t always welcoming, which is likely why Rose didn’t tell them that her new boyfriend was black. But while Chris is willing to forgive Dean’s racially insensitive remarks, as the weekend progresses, he stumbles upon a terrifying discovery that puts his life in danger.

Peele’s vision for a thriller doesn’t involve characters making terrible decisions to move the story along. Chris and his best friend Rod (the terrific LilRel Howery) are sometimes even a few steps ahead of the antagonists. Though Rod isn’t present for the horrors that take place at the Armitage home, he’s worried about his friend, checking in on him every once in a while to make sure he’s okay. When he realizes everything is far from all right, he makes the right call, like Chris often does in the movie.

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Matt Damon, Pedro Pascal, Tian Jing, Andy Lau, Willem Dafoe, Hanyu Zhang

Zhang Yimou

Over the last decade or so, China has grown to become the second largest movie market in the world (and is currently on pace to surpass the U.S. in the next few years), which explains why Hollywood has suddenly shown great interest in the region. But while pairing one of the industry’s biggest stars (Matt Damon) with esteemed Chinese director Zhang Yimou might sound like an exciting idea on paper, it lacks the prestige that such a high-profile collaboration warrants. “The Great Wall” is a fairly generic monster movie at its core (think “Starship Troopers” in Ancient China), and although it boasts some fantastic visuals and rousing action that’s entertaining in the moment, it’s ultimately pretty forgettable.

In 11th century China, European mercenaries William Garin (Damon) and Pero Tovar (Pedro Pascal) have ventured deep into the country in search of a mysterious black powder that will bring them riches back home. After surviving a monster attack the night before, they stumble upon a secret garrison of Chinese soldiers called the Nameless Order – each faction divided by brightly colored armor – that’s stationed at a massive wall designed to keep out invaders. Led by General Shao (Zhang Hanyu), the Nameless Order serves as the last line of defense against the Tao Tie, a colony of mythical creatures that crashed into China on a meteor 2,000 years ago.

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Charlie Day, Ice Cube, Tracy Morgan, Jillian Bell, Dean Norris, Christina Hendricks, Dennis Haysbert

Richie Keen

The first two-thirds of “Fist Fight” play like a Ben Stiller movie from the early 2000s. Our hero is kind but doesn’t assert himself and is perceived to be a loser by everyone around him, including the ones he loves (and supposedly love him). This part of the movie is less fun, because from a filmmaking standpoint (and in life), picking on the 98-pound weakling doesn’t take any courage or risks. When our hero finally sticks up for himself, the movie feeds off his adrenaline and begins to soar, culminating in a rather spectacular finish. The path to the ending is littered with dick jokes, but “Fist Fight” makes the early hardships worthwhile. Just barely, though.

It is the last day of the school year and Andy Campbell (Charlie Day) is a high school English teacher just trying to get through the day so he can help out his daughter at her talent contest. Andy tries to help Mr. Strickland (Ice Cube) get a video started, and when Andy discovers that a student is responsible for the repeated malfunctions, Mr. Strickland loses it, grabbing a weapon from the hallway and terrorizing the students. Andy and Strickland go before the principal, who lays an impossible ultimatum on the two: either one of them confesses or tattles, or they’re both fired. Andy’s wife has already missed her delivery date with their second child, so Andy rats out Strickland to keep his job. Strickland tells Andy that he’s going to fight him after school is out. Andy knows he’s going to get clobbered, so he tries everything he can to back out of it, failing miserably in the process.

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Keanu Reeves, Ian McShane, Riccardo Scamarcio, Laurence Fishburne, Common, Ruby Rose, Lance Reddick

Chad Stahelski

The first “John Wick” was a pleasant surprise that seemed to come out of nowhere in late 2014, simultaneously reviving the B-movie action flick and Keanu Reeves’ faltering career with its stylized, no-holds-barred violence. Though the film was admittedly flawed, it knew exactly what it wanted to be and made no apologies for it, and that’s an attitude that its sequel, helmed by one half of the original directing team, Chad Stahelski, proudly embraces again. Opening with not one but two action sequences to let you know that it means business, “John Wick: Chapter 2” doubles down on everything that made the first movie so enjoyable – including a higher body count and headshots galore – resulting in the rare sequel that’s bigger and better as well.

After settling his score with the Russian mobsters who killed his puppy and stole his car, John Wick (Reeves) wants nothing more than to return to his quiet, peaceful life of retirement alongside his new canine companion. However, it doesn’t take long before he’s once again dragged back into the baroque underground world of assassins by an old acquaintance named Santino Marchesi (Riccardo Scamarcio), a bratty Italian crime boss who’s come to collect a blood debt from Wick that he’s honor-bound to obey or be marked for death. Santino wants him to eliminate his sister so that he can take over her seat on the assassins guild’s high council, but after Wick is caught in the act and a $7 million bounty is placed on his head, every hitman in town – including a pair of bodyguards (Common and Ruby Rose) who work for opposing sides of the Marchesi family – comes gunning for him.

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Will Arnett, Michael Cera, Rosario Dawson, Ralph Fiennes, Zach Galifianakis, Jenny Slate

Chris McKay

When “The LEGO Movie” was first announced, it was met with a fair amount of skepticism that it was going to be a cynical promotional tool to sell toys. And it may have been that in a way, but it was also smart, funny and far better than it had the right to be. “The LEGO Batman Movie,” meanwhile, is absolutely a tool designed to promote the “LEGO Dimensions” platform system, working no less than seven of their licensed intellectual properties into the story. Fortunately, it manages to be a highly entertaining film despite the shameless sales pitch. The absence of Phil Lord and Christopher Miller in the writing and directing chairs is noticeable (they are executive producers only this time around), but this is a very fun, if a bit more predictable, ride.

Batman, a.k.a. billionaire Bruce Wayne (Will Arnett), has gotten used to fighting crime on his own, but his world is shattered when Jim Gordon steps down as police commissioner and his daughter Barbara (Rosario Dawson) assumes the helm. Barbara would like Batman to work together with the police, rather than as a vigilante, but Batman, with his litany of attachment issues, resists. Worse, the Joker (Zach Galifianakis) is hurt when Batman tells him that he means nothing to him, so the Joker hatches an unusual plan, which begins with his surrender. Batman cannot stand that he wasn’t responsible for the Joker’s capture, so he devises a scheme to steal a weapon from Superman (Channing Tatum) in order to send the Joker to the Phantom Zone, the same place where Superman dispatched General Zod. The plan works, but with disastrous consequences.

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