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That includes “The Card Counter,” in which Oscar Isaac plays guilt-stricken Abu Ghraib vet William Tell, a man with a gambling addiction compelled to help the revenge-seeking son (Tye Sheridan) of a former colleague. Taking justice into his own hands, Isaac’s William Tell slithers through the Vegas strip in search of questionable salvation, not unlike a certain Vietnam vet named Travis Bickle did from the driver’s seat. As if to cement the comparisons, “The Card Counter” features Martin Scorsese as an executive producer, marking the first time the two men share a credit since 1999’s “Bringing Out the Dead....

And so it’s downright bizarre to see Columbus return to the director’s chair for a big holiday movie that won’t leave any footprint whatsoever; a joyless schlep up to the North Pole that seems to have been made with all the creative enthusiasm and holiday cheer of that video they make you watch in the waiting room at jury duty. Even by the decidedly sub-“Irishman” standards of Netflix’s typical yuletide content — a standard that Columbus helped to set as a producer of “The Christmas Chronicles” back in 2018 — the poorly wrapped “The Christmas Chronicles 2” feels like a last-minute gift that someone bought at a gas station on December 24....

“It’s gotta be a real story about Steven and why he picks the movies he does, but this is quite clear why he picked this one,” Kahn told IndieWire. He’s cut every Spielberg movie since 1977’s “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” cultivating a strong, intuitive way of collaborating together that relies more on feeling than knowledge. “He is the brother I never had,” Spielberg once said. “We finish each other’s sentences and we finish each other’s sequences....

Some storytelling blunders are the result of adapting an acclaimed novel beyond its pages. Others feel guided by forces beyond creative intentions, like, say, a streaming service with an originals brand forever tied to one landmark series. Either way, viewing fatigue is real, and bloat shouldn’t be tolerated, especially for serious, saddening fare like “The Handmaid’s Tale” that’s already stretched itself rather thin. And yet here I am, telling you to be patient, plow through the first five episodes, and revel in the bounty waiting on the other side....

Where to Watch ‘The Silent Sea’: Netflix One way that “The Silent Sea” separates itself from its space story counterparts is that it almost never relies on claustrophobia. Even though much of the eight-episode series takes place at a research station on the moon, the interiors have high ceilings, the corridors are relatively wide, and the science labs are well-stocked with a decent amount of space. When this team travels around the lunar base, in search of an important artifact to bring to Earth, you usually get to hear some echoing footsteps in hallways with plenty of space....

Maybe he didn’t push her, but oh, he pushed her. That’s more or less the takeaway from the final episodes of HBO Max’s “The Staircase,” which exploded a wobbly real-life murder case into a fascination of true-crime-ish television. Is Antonio Campos’ drama series true crime at all if there maybe wasn’t even a crime truly committed? Across eight episodes, writer/director Campos and writer/producer/co-showrunner Maggie Cohn reopened the Pandora’s box of the Michael Peterson (Colin Firth) case, in which a well-liked Durham, North Carolina novelist and would-be local politico was accused, convicted, and then cleared of the killing of his wife Kathleen (Toni Collette)....

“The Swimmers,” which is written by El Hosaini and Jack Thorne, is based on the true story of the Olympian-anointed Mardini sisters, who left their battle-torn Damascus in 2015 by boat on a treacherous path to Germany, where there’s hope things might be better. The movie, centered on Sara and Yusra, who share a deep bond but also a scrappy competitiveness, as established in opening shots of the pair dunking and holding each other underwater in a public swimming pool, is well-meaning....