In February 1970 Green Beret doctor Jeffrey MacDonald’s pregnant wife and two daughters were found brutally murdered in their home. MacDonald claimed that a gang of hippies, led by a blonde woman in a floppy hat, entered his house and killed everyone. It made sense right away, particularly as the Manson family killings took place just six months before. But as “A Wilderness of Error,” produced by Blumhouse television and airing on FX, asserts, that is just where the story begins....

Massimo Sisti (Elio Germano) is a high-powered dentist who lives in a massive and architecturally unique house in the small Roman suburb of Latina. He appears to spend his days doing little more than working and spending time with his beautiful wife and two equally beautiful daughters. He gets a shock, though, when he goes down to his basement and discovers a woman bound and gagged. The floor is riddled with bags of food, indicating she’s been there for awhile, but how did she get there?...

“And Just Like That…” is quite a thing to behold. The “Sex and the City” revival — under a new name because (officially) it’s now an HBO Max original series, and (unofficially) because the classic foursome is now a threesome, sans Kim Cattrall’s Samantha Jones — may be the 2021 series that breaks us or brings us together. It’s not good, per se, but it offers plenty to talk about and has moments, big and small, that resonate....

“It was all about smaller spaces, but more variety. We used our space to create smaller, more intimate settings,” Iannucci said. Some of that intimacy comes out of actually squeezing members of the show’s cast into smaller, more claustrophobic spaces, but some of it also comes out of the new ways Iannucci uses his futuristic setting to rip apart the many, many flaws of modern communication and culture. Noteworthy additions are a fictional prestige version of “Avenue 5” being made for Earth audiences while Avenue 5 is still limping back towards the planet and a Instagram-Live-esque chat show where reactions drown out the news....

The trailer for Andrew Dominik’s “Blonde” reimagines the late screen legend’s legacy, with Ana de Armas transforming into a portrait of Monroe. The “Some Like It Hot” star’s love stories with “The Ex-Athlete” Joe DiMaggio (Bobby Cannavale), “The Playwright” Arthur Miller (Adrien Brody), and infamously “The President” John F. Kennedy (Caspar Phillipson) frame the feature, adapted from Joyce Carol Oates’ novel “Blonde.” The film premieres September 28 on Netflix. Julianne Nicholson, Xavier Samuel, and Evan Williams also star, with Brad Pitt, Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner, Tracey Landon, and Scott Robertson all serving as producers....

“Wise Up” plays through a car radio on a rainy evening in policewoman Su-jin’s (Doona Bae) car in Hirokazu Kore-eda’s bittersweet and complex family drama “Broker.” Mann’s timbre is unmistakable, and the “Magnolia” reference is acknowledged by this lonely cop trying to reach out to her own disconnected loved one at the end of the line, making small talk about the film’s scene and acknowledging “it doesn’t really make sense” while she waits for her job to finally give her the closure she needs from her own past demons....

“Close” centers on Léo and Rémi, two 13-year-old best friends whose seemingly unbreakable bond is suddenly, tragically torn apart. As the duo are teased for being a “couple,” the trailer keeps their relationship — and its tragic end — elusive. Winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival, Dhont’s second film is an emotionally transformative and unforgettable portrait of the intersection of friendship and love, identity and independence, and heartbreak and healing....

What prevents the series from being the haunting reverie it strive for is that it’s all-too-familiar — content with playing inside a box that’s already been shredded. It may provide varied opportunities for added drama and unpredictability, but the broad “woman with amnesia” storytelling trope could use an overhaul. Jo Harding (Nielsen), a Danish-English translator, seems to have it all: a beautiful country home, a loving family comprised of a doting husband, Rob (Eccleston), plus two children, Finn and Sash (Tom Taylor and Rosy McEwen), and inherited wealth that affords her the freedom to take on social justice causes....

Nanau adopts a remarkable vérité approach to the material that, outside of some brief introductory credits, lets the footage speak for itself. From its opening moments to the devastating finale, “Collective” plays like a gripping real-time thriller, merging the reportorial intensity of “Spotlight” with the paranoid uncertainty of “The Manchurian Candidate” as it explores the national fallout of a tragedy that won’t let up. “Collective” doesn’t dwell much on the terror of its inciting incident, dispensing of the nightclub event in amateur video from the ill-fated heavy metal performance that shows how quickly the mayhem took hold....

Now, director Lenny Abrahamson, who beautifully rendered Rooney’s “Normal People” for the screen, has returned with another Rooney book. And no doubt it will play equally with an audience’s emotions. “Conversations with Friends” is the story of Frances (Alison Oliver) and her free-spirited friend, Bobbi (Sasha Lane). But their friendship is tested when they meet married couple Melissa and Nick (Jemima Kirke and Joe Alwyn, respectively). Abrahamson talked with IndieWire via Zoom about adapting another Rooney novel, working with Alwyn, and how internalized characters can be their own challenge....

The film stars Rowan Blanchard as an aspiring high school artist who’s been nursing the same crush since fifth grade. The twist — if it even can be called that anymore — is that she’s queer and her crush is another girl. But unlike the try-hard mom, “Crush” definitively lays to rest any of those pesky tropes we’re so used to seeing in queer fare: There’s no tired coming out drama, no pining after a seemingly straight paramour, and certainly no kill your gays ending to this uplifting teen comedy....

“Dead for a Dollar” stars Christoph Waltz, Willem Dafoe, Rachel Brosnahan, Hamish Linklater, Benjamin Bratt, Guy Burnet, Brandon Scott, and Scott Peat. Walter Hill directed the film, working from a script he co-wrote with Matt Harris. The official synopsis for “Dead for a Dollar” reads: “Veteran bounty hunter Max Borlund is deep into Mexico where he encounters professional gambler and outlaw Joe Cribbens – a sworn enemy he sent to prison years before....

“Dirty Dancing” icon Jennifer Grey revealed just how “tricky” it is to make a sequel film without her late co-star Swayze, who died at age 57 of pancreatic cancer in September 2009. Swayze portrayed summer retreat dance instructor Johnny Castle, who falls for camp guest Frances “Baby” Houseman while preparing for a dance competition. “There will never be another Johnny,” Grey told Entertainment Weekly during a 35th-anniversary tribute for the film....

Donnie Emerson (Casey Affleck) has never fully given up on his dreams of making it as a musician. He lives, unfulfilled, with his loving musician wife Nancy (a conspicuously glamorous Zooey Deschanel) and two children, struggling to make ends meet with running an under-booked recording studio and gigging as a wedding singer. Joe (Walton Goggins) has long stopped trying to pursue music and lives on the much depleted family farm in a beautiful hand-built cabin, content with his lot in life and proximity to the rest of the Emerson clan, headed up by loving patriarch Don Sr....

“Carl is laid back and at peace,” Peterson said. “You can tell the way he stands and the fact that he doesn’t wear his jacket; he’s doing woodworking now. I think his adventure was successful.” But while Carl is content to relax or build a birdhouse or enjoy the fireworks, Dug can’t help exploring and getting into mischief. In “Squirrel,” he meets his match in his furry nemesis while looking after the birdhouse; in “Puppies,” he bites off more than he can chew while babysitting a neighbor’s canine pets; “Flowers” sees his fear of fireworks lead to a wild dream; “Smell” finds Dug unable to contain the thrill of new nasal discoveries; and, in “Science,” Wilderness Explorer Russell (voiced by Jordan Nagai using deleted recordings from “Up”) returns to help Dug communicate with the Squirrel and birds by making their own voice-activated collars....

Think “Tiny Furniture” by way of “Paper Moon”: In a tender and playful riff on the art-imitating-life conceit, Ulman acts opposite her real-life mother, Ale Ulman, an acting novice who nevertheless gives a fun and zany performance as a diva in denial. The pair apparently did endure a bout of homelessness in their time together, and Ulman truly went to London for school. No matter how much the movie departs from the specifics of their experiences — and the way things work out, it’s pretty clear that it does — the real-life bond between the women helps cement the movie in genuine chemistry even as it zigs and zags through a leisurely plot....

Sam Mendes’ first film since his stunning war epic “1917” promises to be a departure from the blockbuster filmmaking that has consumed him in recent years. The film, which Mendes wrote himself, is a smaller and more personal reflection about the power of cinema and the effect that it can have on people in difficult circumstances. Many have compared the film to Kenneth Branagh’s semi-autobiographical film “Belfast.” which won him his first Oscar for Best Original Screenplay....

Before you worry too much about dissecting the meaning of “Glass Onion,” both the main title of Rian Johnson’s second “Knives Out” feature (and just as delightful and inspired as the first film) and the name of a Beatles song from their White Album, we’ll just go ahead and direct you to the (likely?) key lyric from the 1968 jam: “Well here’s another clue for you all / The walrus was Paul....

Sunday’s “Dragon” episode, “We Light the Day” celebrated the wedding of heir to the Iron Throne Rhaenyra Targaryen (Milly Alcock) to the powerful heir to Driftmark Laenor Velaryon (Theo Nate). The young and decidedly not in love couple are barely even related, a victory in all seven kingdoms, but their nuptials were far from uneventful, and not in a good way. Back in “Game of Thrones” Season 1, it was observed that “A Dothraki wedding without at least three deaths is considered a dull affair....

In a new interview with The Sunday Times, Condal explained that the deliberate pacing in Season 1 was an artistic choice, but promises that the next batch of episodes will pick up the pace. “We will get to the spectacle,” Condal said. “But you have to understand these people’s complexities before they’re thrown into war.” He added: “Series 2 will hit the rhythms people came to expect from the middle run of ‘Game of Thrones,’ but it will have been earned, and viewers will feel the tragedies because we put the work in....