Justin Chang

The new movie "BlackBerry" recounts the dramatic rise and fall of the Canadian tech company that led the smartphone revolution in the late '90s and early 2000s before the iPhone came along. It was directed and co-written by Matt Johnson, who plays one of the company's three co-heads, along with Jay Baruchel and Glenn Howerton.

With its frank treatment of an adolescent girl's inner life, 'Are You There God?' become a huge bestseller and an enduring touchstone. And now, more than 50 years later, it's been terrifically adapted to the big screen by the writer-director Kelly Fremon Craig, with nearly all its warmth, humor and wry wisdom intact.

Having made a name for himself with the A24-released horror pictures "Hereditary" and "Midsommar," the writer-director Ari Aster has a new movie in theaters. It's called "Beau Is Afraid." And it tells the darkly comic story of a man named Beau, played by Joaquin Phoenix, who's just trying to get home to visit his mother.