Documentary Films and Programs

The season’s gifts include long-awaited sequels to “Black Panther” and “Knives Out” and intriguing originals like “Women Talking” and “The Fabelmans.”This is a select list of films opening by the end of the year. Release dates are subject to change and reflect the latest information as of deadline.FALLING FOR CHRISTMAS A skiing accident results in amnesia (and, presumably, the possibility of a fresh start) for a vain hotel heiress (Lindsay Lohan). (Nov. 10 on Netflix)BAR FIGHT! Following a breakup, a couple (Melissa Fumero and Luka Jones) have to decide which one will be allowed to drink in their favorite bar. With Rachel Bloom. (Nov. 11 in theaters and on demand)BLACK PANTHER: WAKANDA FOREVER After Chadwick Boseman’s death in 2020, Marvel Studios opted not to recast his role, King T’Challa, in this sequel to “Black Panther.” The character is dead in the new film, which concerns how Wakanda moves forward without him. It also stars Angela Bassett, Letitia Wright, Danai Gurira and Lupita Nyong’o. Ryan Coogler returns as director. (Nov. 11 in theaters)A COUPLE In a career that includes more than 40 documentaries, Frederick Wiseman has seldom made features that could qualify as dramatized. But in “A Couple,” the actress Nathalie Boutefeu, who shares screenplay credit with the director, plays Sophia Tolstoy, wife of Leo Tolstoy. The film draws on Sophia’s writings to explore a famous marriage. (Nov. 11 in theaters)THE FABELMANS Through the character of Sammy Fabelman, Steven Spielberg revisits his childhood, his relationship with his mother and father, and the origins of his love of filmmaking in an openly personal feature that was ecstatically received at the Toronto International Film Festival in September. Gabriel LaBelle plays the budding director in his teenage years; Michelle Williams and Paul Dano play his complicated parents. Tony Kushner wrote the screenplay with Spielberg. (Nov. 11 in theaters)From left, Keeley Karsten, Sophia Kopera, Michelle Williams and Gabriel LaBelle are stand-ins for Steven Spielberg’s family in “The Fabelmans.”Universal Pictures and Amblin EntertainmentIN HER HANDS The documentarians Tamana Ayazi and Marcel Mettelsiefen assemble a portrait of Zarifa Ghafari, the mayor of the Afghan city of Maidan Shahr at the time of filming — and, not incidentally, in her 20s and a woman in a country without many women in power. The documentary follows her through American forces’ withdrawal from the country last year. (Nov. 11 in theaters, Nov. 16 on Netflix)IS THAT BLACK ENOUGH FOR YOU?!? Making his documentary-feature directing debut, the former New York Times film critic Elvis Mitchell looks at the revolution in — and legacy of — Black-centered American filmmaking in the late 1960s and ’70s. The interviewees include Harry Belafonte, Laurence Fishburne, Samuel L. Jackson and Whoopi Goldberg. (Nov. 11 on Netflix)MY FATHER’S DRAGON Ruth Stiles Gannett’s 1948 children’s book — about a boy who ventures off to rescue a baby dragon — becomes an animated film directed by Nora Twomey, of the Oscar-nominated “The Breadwinner.” (Nov. 11 on Netflix)NOTHING LASTS FOREVER The documentarian Jason Kohn (“Manda Bala”) presents an exposé of how synthetic diamonds have infiltrated the market for gems, and how the concept of authenticity may be losing whatever meaning it had. (Nov. 11 in theaters)RETROGRADE Matthew Heineman (“Cartel Land”) directed this documentary on the end of the war in Afghanistan. Events are seen from the vantage points of American and Afghan soldiers and through the eyes of civilians. (Nov. 11 in theaters)SAM & KATE The real-life father and son Dustin Hoffman and Jake Hoffman and the real-life mother and daughter Sissy Spacek and Schuyler Fisk play father and son and mother and daughter onscreen. The son and the daughter — the titular Sam and Kate — fall for each other. So do the parents. (Nov. 11 in theaters)SPIRITED Sure, “A Christmas Carol” might seem like a timeless story. But what if it wasn’t? What if Charles Dickens made a mistake by focusing on Scrooge, instead of the ghosts who visit him? The “Greatest Showman” songwriters Benj Pasek and Justin Paul rectify that error in this new musical comedy. Will Ferrell plays the Ghost of Christmas Present and Ryan Reynolds the movie’s Scrooge surrogate, Clint Briggs. Sean Anders directed. (Nov. 11 in theaters, Nov. 18 on Apple TV+)Ryan Reynolds and Will Ferrell give Dickens a twist in “Spirited.”AppleMEMORIES OF MY FATHER Fernando Trueba directed this adaptation of a book by the Colombian novelist Héctor Abad Faciolince, about the author’s father (played by Javier Cámara), a doctor engaged in political activism in the 1970s. (Nov. 16 in theaters)Javier Cámara in “Memories of My Father.”via Cohen Media Group POKER FACE Russell Crowe directs himself as a tech titan who seeks revenge on some old friends he invites to the card table. Liam Hemsworth, RZA and Elsa Pataky also star. (Nov. 16 in theaters, Nov. 22 on demand)THE WONDER When an 11-year-old girl in the Irish Midlands seems to live for months without eating food, a British nurse (Florence Pugh) investigates. Sebastián Lelio (“A Fantastic Woman”) directed this adaptation, set in the 19th century, of a novel by the “Room” author Emma Donoghue. (Nov. 16 on Netflix)BANTÚ MAMA A Frenchwoman becomes a surrogate parent to children in the Dominican Republic after escaping arrest. Ivan Herrera directed. (Nov. 17 in theaters and on Netflix)A CHRISTMAS STORY CHRISTMAS Nearly four decades after “A Christmas Story,” Peter Billingsley reprises his role as Ralphie. The boy who wanted an air rifle for the holiday is now a father himself in this sequel. (Nov. 17 on HBO Max)CHRISTMAS WITH YOU Aimee Garcia plays a pop singer who ends up stranded in a snowstorm at the house of a fan and her single father (Freddie Prinze Jr.). (Nov. 17 on Netflix)BAD AXE That’s Bad Axe, Mich., where the documentarian David Siev’s parents, one a survivor of the Khmer Rouge regime, own a restaurant and must grapple with the economic realities of the pandemic and the protests that convulse the city in the wake of the George Floyd killing. (Nov. 18 in theaters and on demand)A scene from “Bad Axe,” centered on the title Michigan city amid the pandemic and racial justice protests.IFC FilmsBONES AND ALL If you enjoyed the picturesque alfresco dining in Luca Guadagnino’s “Call Me by Your Name,” you might want to excuse yourself from his gory latest film, based on the novel by Camille DeAngelis. Taylor Russell plays a teenage cannibal abandoned by her father (André Holland); Timothée Chalamet is a fellow brooding people-eater who catches her scent. On the road, they navigate a cruel world that spits out people who eat people. With Mark Rylance and a barely recognizable Michael Stuhlbarg. (Nov. 18 in theaters)DISENCHANTED After Giselle (Amy Adams) finds a storybook life in New York in “Enchanted,” many years later the bloom is off the rose. So she and her husband (Patrick Dempsey) move to the suburbs. With Maya Rudolph. Adam Shankman directed. (Nov. 18 on Disney+)In “Disenchanted,” Amy Adams returns as Giselle, the animated heroine trying to navigate live action.DisneyEO The Polish director Jerzy Skolimowski riffs, with a bit of a hallucinatory spin, on Robert Bresson’s French classic “Au Hasard Balthazar” with the tale of an itinerant donkey who along its journeys becomes a passive witness to human cruelty. When Skolimowski shared the jury prize at Cannes, he thanked all six donkeys who played the role. (Nov. 18 in theaters)FLAMING EARS This underground sci-feature feature, receiving a belated release three decades after its completion, takes place in the year 2700 in a city entirely populated by lesbians. There are three directors: Ursula Pürrer, A. Hans Scheirl and Dietmar Schipek. (Nov. 18 in theaters)THE INSPECTION For his first dramatic feature, Elegance Bratton, who has worked as a documentarian and street photographer, wrote and directed this autobiographically inspired film about a gay Black man’s time in basic training in the Marines, and the homophobia in an environment where enlistees expect to be terrorized. Jeremy Pope plays Bratton’s alter ego, with Raúl Castillo as a sympathetic superior, Bokeem Woodbine as a sergeant and Gabrielle Union as the protagonist’s mother. (Nov. 18 in theaters)LOVE, CHARLIE Wolfgang Puck, Emeril Lagasse and Grant Achatz are among the chefs who discuss the influential Chicago restaurateur Charlie Trotter in this documentary. (Nov. 18 in theaters and on demand)Alex Bakri and Juna Suleiman in “Let it Be Morning.”Cohen Media GroupTHE MENU Mark Mylod, a regular director on “Succession,” is at the helm of this class satire, in which a supercilious gourmand (Nicholas Hoult) and his date (Anya Taylor-Joy) travel to an island for an evening of rarefied cuisine. But the chef (Ralph Fiennes) has a gruesome concept in store. (Nov. 18 in theaters)200 METERS A Palestinian construction worker trying to visit his son at an Israeli hospital is refused exit from the West Bank. He resorts to great lengths to go 200 meters. Ameen Nayfeh wrote and directed. (Nov. 18 in theaters, Dec. 6 on demand)THE PEOPLE WE HATE AT THE WEDDING Nuptials become the occasion for an airing of intrafamilial loathing and reconciliation in a comedy that stars Kristen Bell and Ben Platt as siblings and Allison Janney as the matriarch. (Nov. 18 on Amazon)SCROOGE: A CHRISTMAS CAROL This animated musical version of Dickens’s book features the voices of Luke Evans, Olivia Colman and Jessie Buckley. The music and lyrics are by Leslie Bricusse (“Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory”), who died last year. (Nov. 18 in theaters, Dec. 2 on Netflix)SHE SAID The New York Times reporters Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey’s book on how they reported their landmark article about sexual harassment by Harvey Weinstein gets a film adaptation. Zoe Kazan plays Kantor and Carey Mulligan plays Twohey as they try to convince women to talk on the record. Maria Schrader directed. (Nov. 18 in theaters)SLUMBERLAND The “Red Sparrow” filmmaker Francis Lawrence directs Jason Momoa as an outlaw in a fairy tale of sorts in which he assists a girl navigating a dream world. (Nov. 18 on Netflix)SR. Robert Downey Jr. pays tribute to his father, the underground filmmaker Robert Downey Sr. (“Putney Swope”), in a candid and personal documentary. Chris Smith directed. (Nov. 18 in theaters, Dec. 2 on Netflix)TAURUS Tim Sutton directs Colson Baker, the rapper better known as Machine Gun Kelly, as a musical artist seeking inspiration and facing problems. Megan Fox also stars. (Nov. 18 in theaters and on demand)THERE THERE Working under pandemic restrictions, Andrew Bujalski (“Support the Girls”) makes a film that consists entirely of conversations; it’s best not to say any more. Lili Taylor and Lennie James play a couple whose post-one-night-stand discourse kicks off the movie; Molly Gordon and Jason Schwartzman appear elsewhere. (Nov. 18 in theaters and on demand)ALL THE BEAUTY AND THE BLOODSHED Laura Poitras (an Oscar winner for “Citizenfour”) directed this look at the career of the photographer Nan Goldin, with an emphasis on Goldin’s recent work as an activist to hold the Sackler family, longtime owners of Purdue Pharma, to account for the opioid epidemic. The documentary won the top prize at the Venice Film Festival in September. (Nov. 23 in theaters)Nan Goldin with a roommate in a scene from “All the Beauty and the Bloodshed.”Nan GoldinDEVOTION Jonathan Majors stars as Ensign Jesse L. Brown, the first Black aviator in the United States Navy, and Glen Powell — barely out of the skies since “Top Gun: Maverick” — plays Lt. Thomas J. Hudner Jr., his partner on a dangerous mission during the Korean War. J.D. Dillard directed. (Nov. 23 in theaters)GLASS ONION: A KNIVES OUT MYSTERY The detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) receives an invitation to the private island of an eccentric billionaire (Edward Norton), who wants the guests to solve his own murder. And that’s just the start of the writer-director Rian Johnson’s vertiginously clever sequel to “Knives Out” (2019). Janelle Monáe, Kate Hudson and Dave Bautista also star. (Nov. 23 in theaters, Dec. 23 on Netflix)It’s another star-studded “Knives Out” mystery, this time with, from left, Edward Norton, Madelyn Cline, Kathryn Hahn, Dave Bautista, Leslie Odom Jr., Jessica Henwick, Kate Hudson, Janelle Monáe and Daniel Craig.Netflix, via Associated PressLADY CHATTERLEY’S LOVER This time, Emma Corrin embodies D.H. Lawrence’s unfulfilled British noblewoman. Jack O’Connell plays the gamekeeper she takes up with. Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre directed. (Nov. 23 in theaters, Dec. 2 on Netflix)NANNY Nikyatu Jusu’s debut feature, the winner of this year’s United States dramatic competition at Sundance, concerns a Senegalese immigrant (Anna Diop) who takes a job as a nanny for a wealthy white family. During the festival, Manohla Dargis wrote that the film kept her “rapt from the start with its visuals and mysteries, its emotional depths and the tight control” maintained by Jusu. (Nov. 23 in theaters, Dec. 16 on Amazon)Anna Diop plays a Senegalese immigrant struggling to adjust to working for a wealthy white American family in “Nanny.”Blumhouse ProductionsSTRANGE WORLD Disney pays tribute to 1950s science fiction movies with an animated feature about the Clade family, a clan of explorers investigating an uncharted region. Jake Gyllenhaal, Dennis Quaid and Gabrielle Union provide some of the Clades’ voices. (Nov. 23 in theaters)THE SWIMMERS Sally El Hosaini directed the opening-night film at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, a dramatization of the story of Yusra and Sarah Mardini, two sisters from Syria who used their skills as swimmers to help lead a boat filled with fellow refugees to safety during their flight from the country. Yusra competed on the Refugee Olympic Team at the 2016 Olympics. (Nov. 23 on Netflix)THE CHRISTMAS CLAPBACK Robin Givens directed this story of three sisters facing a challenge from an influencer in a holiday church cook-off. Nadine Ellis, Porscha Coleman and Candace Maxwell star. (Nov. 24 on BET+)THE NOEL DIARY The diary in question belongs to the dead mother of a successful author (Justin Hartley). But it might also help a stranger (Barrett Doss) he meets. Charles Shyer directed. (Nov. 24 on Netflix)GHISLAINE MAXWELL: FILTHY RICH Picking up from the Netflix documentary series “Jeffrey Epstein: Filthy Rich,” this documentary turns to Maxwell, his convicted co-conspirator, who was found guilty last year of sex trafficking minors. (Nov. 25 on Netflix)GUILLERMO DEL TORO’S PINOCCHIO The “Nightmare Alley” filmmaker, who shares directing credit (if not the title) with the animation director Mark Gustafson, mounts a stop-motion version of the story of the puppet who became a boy. Gregory Mann, Ewan McGregor and Tilda Swinton are in the vocal cast. (Nov. 25 in theaters, Dec. 9 on Netflix)LEONOR WILL NEVER DIE A.O. Scott called this reality-blurring Filipino feature — centered on a retired screenwriter (Sheila Francisco) of action movies — “wonderfully unclassifiable” when it played at the Sundance Film Festival. Martika Ramirez Escobar directed. (Nov. 25 in theaters)Rocky Salumbides in “Leonor Will Never Die,” about a retired Filipino screenwriter who specialized in action movies.Carlos Mauricio/Music Box FilmsTHE SON If the playwright Florian Zeller’s first feature, “The Father,” which won Anthony Hopkins an Oscar, dealt with dementia, the ailment driving the drama in his latest film is depression — specifically, that of a teenager (Zen McGrath), whose condition vexes his father (Hugh Jackman), his father’s partner (Vanessa Kirby) and his mother (Laura Dern). (Nov. 25 in theaters)WHITE NOISE When Noah Baumbach’s screen version of Don DeLillo’s 1985 postmodern novel opened the New York Film Festival in September, A.O. Scott called it a “faithful and energetic adaptation.” Adam Driver plays a pathbreaking professor in the field of “Hitler studies”; Greta Gerwig is his wife, who may be experiencing strange memory lapses. Together with children from other marriages and one from their own, they confront environmental disaster and their fear of mortality against a colorful backdrop of ’80s logos. (Nov. 25 in theaters, Dec. 30 on Netflix)From left, the “White Noise” clan includes Sam Nivola, Adam Driver, May Nivola, Greta Gerwig, Raffey Cassidy, and the youngest, played by Dean and Henry Moore.Wilson Webb/NetflixA HOLLYWOOD CHRISTMAS A director (Jessika Van) realizes her life has turned into a Christmas movie and that she will be forced to run a gantlet of clichés. (Dec. 1 on HBO Max)ROLLING INTO CHRISTMAS The holiday brings together two people who 15 years earlier had a thing for each other and for roller skating. Rhyon Nicole Brown and Donny Carrington star. (Dec. 1 on BET+)CHRISTMAS WITH THE CAMPBELLS Vince Vaughn is among the screenwriters of this comedy, in which a recently dumped girlfriend is pressed into spending the holiday with her ex’s family anyway. Brittany Snow and Justin Long star. (Dec. 2 in theaters and on AMC+)DARBY AND THE DEAD A teenager (Riele Downs) who can communicate with the dead is pressured by a recently departed mean girl (Auli’i Cravalho of “Moana”) to make sure that the dead girl’s 17th-birthday party proceeds, despite her lack of a pulse. (Dec. 2 on Hulu)DIARY OF A WIMPY KID: RODRICK RULES Already adapted into a live-action feature in 2011, the second book in Jeff Kinney’s “Wimpy Kid” franchise gets an animated version. (Dec. 2 on Disney+)EMANCIPATION Will Smith, in a movie filmed before his Oscar win (and that other incident), plays an enslaved man who escapes and has to avoid capture on treacherous Louisiana terrain en route to freedom. Historic photographs of a man known as Whipped Peter, who made it to Baton Rouge and joined the Union Army, inspired the film. (Dec. 2 in theaters, Dec. 9 on Apple TV+)THE ETERNAL DAUGHTER In a loose spinoff of her films “The Souvenir” and “The Souvenir Part II,” Joanna Hogg casts Tilda Swinton in dual roles: as Hogg’s alter ego, the filmmaker Julie (played in the “Souvenir” movies by Swinton’s daughter, Honor Swinton Byrne), and as Julie’s mother (whom Swinton played in the earlier films). Julie struggles to write a screenplay about her mother while they spend time at a vaguely haunted hotel. (Dec. 2 in theaters)FOUR SAMOSAS The comedian Venk Potula plays a jilted boyfriend who tries to purloin his ex’s dowry to foil her wedding. (Dec. 2 in theaters and on demand)FRAMING AGNES Using the story of Agnes, a transgender woman who took part in studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, in the 1960s, as a jumping-off point, this combination of documentary and dramatization examines how trans history is written. (Dec. 2 in theaters)HUNT The “Squid Game” actor Lee Jung-jae directed this thriller and stars in it as the head of a government agency who, along with the head of another agency (Jung Woo-sung), has to ferret out a mole. (Dec. 2 in theaters and on demand)LOWNDES COUNTY AND THE ROAD TO BLACK POWER The documentarians Sam Pollard (“MLK/FBI”) and Geeta Gandbhir revisit the work done by activists in Lowndes County, Ala., in the 1960s to ensure that the county’s majority-Black population wasn’t denied the right to vote. (Dec. 2 in theaters)2ND CHANCE Turning to documentaries, Ramin Bahrani — nominated for an adapted screenplay Oscar for “The White Tiger” — examines the legacy of Richard Davis, who devised the contemporary version of the bulletproof vest. (Dec. 2 in theaters)SPOILER ALERT Michael Showalter, who mined thematically similar territory in “The Big Sick,” directed this adaptation of Michael Ausiello’s memoir of a longtime relationship altered by a terminal illness. Jim Parsons, Ben Aldridge and Sally Field star. (Dec. 2 in theaters)TANTURA This documentary from Alon Schwartz has been the subject of controversy in Israel. Taking the graduate thesis of an Israeli named Teddy Katz as a jumping-off point, it amasses evidence of a massacre by Israeli soldiers at what was then the Palestinian village of Tantura in 1948. (Dec. 2 in theaters)VIOLENT NIGHT David Harbour stars as Santa Claus, who is fortunately making his rounds when mercenaries attempt a home invasion. (Dec. 2 in theaters)David Harbour is a Santa with skills and John Leguizamo is among his adversaries in “Violent Night.”Universal PicturesWOMEN TALKING While most of the men of a religious colony are briefly away, the women, including many who have been sexually assaulted by the men, debate whether to leave or stay and try to fight. Sarah Polley directed and wrote the screenplay for this starkly shot, ultra-widescreen adaptation of Miriam Toews’s novel. The formidable cast includes Rooney Mara, Claire Foy, Jessie Buckley, Frances McDormand and Ben Whishaw. (Dec. 2 in theaters)In “Women Talking,” the debaters include, from left, Rooney Mara, Claire Foy, Judith Ivey, Sheila McCarthy, Michelle McLeod and Jessie Buckley. Michael Gibson/Orion ReleasingBROADWAY RISING This documentary from Amy Rice follows the efforts it took to reopen Broadway theaters in September 2021 after they went dark for a year and a half because of the pandemic. (Dec. 5 in theaters)LOUDMOUTH The life and activism of the Rev. Al Sharpton are explored in a documentary that examines his decades of influence in New York and beyond. (Dec. 9 in theaters)ROALD DAHL’S MATILDA THE MUSICAL The stage musical version of Dahl’s novel gets the screen treatment (with the same director, Matthew Warchus). Alisha Weir plays the title character and Lashana Lynch the warmhearted Miss Honey. Emma Thompson — whose fat suit has already prompted chatter over questions of representation — plays the gorgonlike Miss Trunchbull. (Dec. 9 in theaters, Dec. 25 on Netflix)Emma Thompson takes over as Miss Trunchbull in the film adaptation of the “Matilda” Broadway musical.Dan Smith/NetflixSOMETHING FROM TIFFANY’S “And I said, ‘What about ‘Something From Tiffany’s’?” Zoey Deutch stars in a comedy about an errant engagement ring. Daryl Wein directed. (Dec. 9 on Amazon)THE VOLCANO: RESCUE FROM WHAKAARI Rory Kennedy, the documentarian who earlier this year made a case (or, rather, a movie) against Boeing, memorializes a deadly volcanic eruption that occurred in New Zealand in 2019. (Dec. 9 in theaters, Dec. 16 on Netflix)THE WHALE Brendan Fraser stars in this comeback role as a grieving, shut-in English teacher whose immense weight and refusal to seek medical treatment ensure that he won’t have long to live. But he tries to mend things with his daughter (Sadie Sink) when she unexpectedly turns up. Hong Chau also stars. Darren Aronofsky directed; Samuel D. Hunter wrote the script, based on his play. (Dec. 9 in theaters)THE ALMOND AND THE SEAHORSE The directors Tom Stern and Celyn Jones’s drama follows two couples — one played by Trine Dyrholm and Charlotte Gainsbourg, the other by Jones and Rebel Wilson. One member of each pair has a traumatic brain injury that affects the memory. (Dec. 16 in theaters and on demand)THE APOLOGY Anna Gunn of “Breaking Bad” plays an alcoholic stranded by a winter storm with a former brother-in-law (Linus Roache). (Dec. 16 in theaters, on AMC+ and on Shudder)AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER James Cameron, who tends to do pretty well when he makes sequels (“Aliens,” “Terminator 2: Judgment Day”), returns to Pandora. (Dec. 16 in theaters)I WANNA DANCE WITH SOMEBODY Naomi Ackie stars as Whitney Houston in this biopic of the soaring-voiced pop star. Stanley Tucci plays the architect of her career Clive Davis, who is one of the movie’s producers. Kasi Lemmons directed, from a screenplay by Mr. Biopic, Anthony McCarten (“Bohemian Rhapsody,” “Darkest Hour,” “The Theory of Everything”). (Dec. 21 in theaters)Whitney Houston gets the biopic treatment in “I Wanna Dance With Somebody,” starring Naomi Ackie.Sony PicturesPUSS IN BOOTS: THE LAST WISH Antonio Banderas once again lends his voice to the footwear’d feline — not the fairy-tale character, exactly, but a part of the extended “Shrek” cinematic universe. Olivia Colman and Salma Hayek purr alongside him. (Dec. 21 in theaters)BABYLON The writer-director Damien Chazelle returns to Hollywood to imagine various dramas that might have unfolded during the transition to sound. Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie and Diego Calva are among the stars vamping through it. (Dec. 23 in theaters)CORSAGE Technically, in 1878, Empress Elisabeth of Austria (Vicky Krieps) could not have heard “As Tears Go By” with a harp as instrumentation — or, for that matter, been photographed as a movie subject on flexible film. (This was still the era of plates.) But these sorts of anachronisms crop up periodically throughout the director Marie Kreutzer’s interpretation of Elisabeth’s life. (Dec. 23 in theaters)LET IT BE MORNING A Palestinian man returns to the village of his upbringing for a wedding, and he is trapped there, with the rest of the residents, when Israeli forces blockade the area. Eran Kolirin directed this adaptation of a novel by Sayed Kashua. (Dec. 23 in theaters)LIVING The director Oliver Hermanus and the novelist Kazuo Ishiguro, serving here as the screenwriter, remake Akira Kurosawa’s “Ikiru” in an idiom not wildly removed from that of Ishiguro’s “The Remains of the Day.” Bill Nighy plays a postwar civil servant in London whose great ambition, after receiving a terminal diagnosis, is to build a playground. Aimee Lou Wood and Tom Burke co-star. (Dec. 23 in theaters)NO BEARS In July, the filmmaker Jafar Panahi was detained by Iranian authorities and ordered to serve a six-year prison sentence after he sought information about the arrest of another filmmaker, Mohammad Rasoulof. Panahi had already been forbidden to leave the country, and in “No Bears,” he plays on that idea, starring as a version of himself: a filmmaker who has traveled to a tight-knit town near the Turkish border so that he can remotely direct a feature being shot in Turkey. (Dec. 23 in theaters)THE PALE BLUE EYE Adapted from the novel by Louis Bayard and set against the backdrop of Edgar Allan Poe’s formative years at West Point, “The Pale Blue Eye” finds the future “Raven” poet in the middle of a mystery. Harry Melling plays Poe, Christian Bale is a detective, and Gillian Anderson and Lucy Boynton co-star. Scott Cooper (“Black Mass”) directed. (Dec. 23 in theaters)A MAN CALLED OTTO Tom Hanks plays a curmudgeon who thaws a bit when he meets a new neighbor. Mariana Treviño also stars. Marc Forster directed this adaptation of the novel “A Man Called Ove.” (Dec. 25 in theaters)BROKER The Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda, who won the Palme d’Or for “Shoplifters” (2018), went to South Korea to make his latest feature. It follows two traffickers who steal infants from safe-haven drop spots and sell them to couples struggling with the official adoption process. But one mother comes back. Song Kang Ho won best actor at Cannes for his portrayal of a trafficker. (Dec. 26 in theaters)ALICE, DARLING Anna Kendrick plays a woman who, during a getaway with friends, realizes to what extent her boyfriend has psychologically abused and restricted her. Mary Nighy directed. (Dec. 30 in theaters)TURN EVERY PAGE Don’t ask Robert A. Caro when he’s going to finish the fifth volume of his Lyndon Johnson biography. Everyone wants to know, including his longtime editor, Robert Gottlieb. The men’s work together from “The Power Broker” on is the subject of this documentary, directed by Gottlieb’s daughter, Lizzie. (Dec. 30 in theaters)Compiled with the assistance of Shivani Gonzalez.The literary lions Robert A. Caro, left, and Robert Gottlieb share the screen in “Turn Every Page.”Sony More