Showtime’s anthology drama series “The First Lady” captures the legacy of three former FLOTUSes: Eleanor Roosevelt (Gillian Anderson), Betty Ford (Michelle Pfeiffer), and Michelle Obama (Viola Davis). “The First Lady has to be a special kind of woman,” Pfeiffer as Ford explains in the trailer, while Davis’ Obama pushes back against being branded as the “Black Martha Stewart.” Meanwhile, Anderson’s Roosevelt tells President Franklin D. Roosevelt (Kiefer Sutherland) that she has her own life, which seems to include a love affair with Lorena “Hick” Hickok, played by Lily Rabe....

Daryl Wein and Zoe Lister-Jones were holed up in their Los Angeles home last spring, despairing about the pandemic, when they got an idea: What if they channeled their feelings into a story that showcased this surreal moment? The film that emerged was “How It Ends,” a witty comedy that follows a woman (Lister-Jones) and her younger self (Cailee Spaeny) during their last day on Earth before the apocalypse. Premiering at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, the film was shot in early summer under strict COVID-19 protocols, and the result is an impressive snapshot of our time — both in terms of narrative relevancy and nimble, pandemic-friendly filmmaking....

Artist Ephraim Asili describes his feature debut “The Inheritance” as a “speculative re-enactment” of his tenure in a West Philadelphia Black Marxist collective, which is putting it modestly. This experimental, quasi-documentary meta movie bends genres, time, and space to create a shape-shifting kaleidoscope of Blackness that’s challenging to behold as a whole, but illuminating in its parts, and often educational without ever feeling too dense. Shot in buzzing 16mm and balanced off with archival news footage, voiceovers, and interviews, “The Inheritance” establishes a documentary framework, only to break it down entirely....

Of all the upcoming video game adaptations, few are as highly anticipated as HBO’s upcoming “The Last of Us” (January 15 on HBO). Neil Druckmann’s post-apocalyptic video game and its sequel are some of the most beloved games of the past decade. The artistry behind both “The Last of Us” and “The Last of Us Part II” has been held up as some of the best interactive storytelling in recent memory....

“I heard it and I immediately had goosebumps.” Judging by the reaction that audiences and awards bodies have had in response to Scott Frank’s limited series — “The Queen’s Gambit” triumphed at the PGAs, DGAs, and SAGs, among many others — Binder wasn’t the only person who felt the latent magic lurking within the adaptation of Walter Tevis’ 1983 novel of the same name. In the months since “The Queen’s Gambit” took Netflix and the winter awards season by storm, it’s probable that some details about the saga of fictional chess prodigy Beth Harmon (Anya Taylor-Joy) have faded from viewers’ memories....

That all changes when a mishap on a day trip excursion starts Emma on a serpentine path through a local unsolved mystery involving two young visitors to the area over the 2007 holiday season. Slowly and assuredly, “The Resort” becomes a two-pronged play, with Emma and a reluctant Noah searching for the truth, interspersed with what did happen for and to Sam (Skyler Gisondo) and Violet (Nina Bloomgarden) in those nights around Christmas....

Sporting a title so long it may be as hard to forget as it is to remember, “The Woman in the House Across the Street From the Girl in the Window” is billed as a “satirical slant on the psychological thriller” about a wine-loving woman who witnesses a murder. The first official trailer offers a glimpse of the unique tightrope the show attempts to walk and shows how suited Bell is to the macabre comedy....