‘The Beguiled,’ ‘The Big Sick,’ ‘My Journey Through French Cinema’ and other movie picks, June 23

Movie recommendations from critics Kenneth Turan, Justin Chang and other reviewers.

Beatriz at Dinner Salma Hayek gives perhaps the best performance of her career as an empathetic holistic healer who comes face-to-face with a rotten billionaire real-estate mogul (a marvelous John Lithgow) in this queasily funny and suspenseful dark comedy from director Miguel Arteta and screenwriter Mike White. (Justin Chang) R.

The Beguiled Superbly acted by an ensemble that includes Nicole Kidman, Kirsten Dunst and Colin Farrell, Sofia Coppola’s Southern gothic chamber piece brings artful precision and a deft, distinctive feminist reading to a Civil War-era story previously adapted in 1971 by Don Siegel. (Justin Chang) R.

The Big Sick Kumail Nanjiani and Zoe Kazan are terrific as a young couple navigating the challenges of interracial romance and Muslim immigrant identity in director Michael Showalter’s delightful, serious-minded comedy, which also features powerhouse supporting turns from Holly Hunter and Ray Romano. (Justin Chang) R.

Churchill Brian Cox, in a towering, Oscar-caliber performance, proves the literal beating heart of this superb look at iconic statesman Winston Churchill’s torturous days leading up to the pivotal D-day landings of June 6, 1944. (Gary Goldstein) PG.

Dawson City: Frozen Time An aesthetic knockout that’s crammed with amazing facts, a documentary that’s also a detective story, a history of a particular place that turns into an examination of an entire art form, this Bill Morrison documentary inspired by the Klondike gold rush and a legendary cache of silent films will make you swoon. (Kenneth Turan) NR.

It Comes at Night Confirming the filmmaking skill of writer-director Trey Edward Shults (“Krisha”), this nightmarish post-apocalyptic thriller about two families seeking refuge in the wilderness is a tour de force of narrative economy, etched in dim light and implacable shadows. (Justin Chang) R.

The Lost City of Z Based on David Grann’s nonfiction bestseller about British explorer Percy Fawcett (well played by Charlie Hunnam), James Gray’s rich, meditative and deeply transporting adventure epic is the sort of classical filmmaking that feels positively radical. (Justin Chang) PG-13.

My Cousin Rachel Daphne du Maurier’s melodramatic thriller of a novel is turned into a triumphant exercise in dark and delicious romantic ambiguity courtesy of an extremely persuasive performance by Rachel Weisz. (Kenneth Turan) PG-13.

My Journey Through French Cinema A passionate, opinionated, drop dead fascinating documentary essay about key decades in that country’s film history put together by clear-eyed enthusiast Bertrand Tavernier. (Kenneth Turan) NR.

Norman: The Modern Rise and Tragic Fall of a New York Fixer Subtle, unsettling, slyly amusing, Israeli director Joseph Cedar’s first English-language film provides Richard Gere with a splendid role as a hustler forever on the make in Manhattan. (Kenneth Turan) R.

Wonder Woman With forthright emotion, spirited humor and a surprisingly purposeful sense of spectacle, director Patty Jenkins and her superb star, Gal Gadot, have made a thrilling new superhero saga that might just save the typically nonthrilling DC Extended Universe. (Justin Chang) PG-13.

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