The Holiday Movie Matrix

[This article consists of an illustration. Please see hardcopy of magazine or PDF.]

Family Friendly

Daddy’s Home

Will Ferrell’s stepdad takes on Mark Wahlberg’s ne’er-do-well biological pop.

(Dec. 25)

The Good Dinosaur

Pixar imagines a world in which the dinos never died. One of them adopts a boy named Spot.

(Nov. 25)

In the Heart of the Sea

Ron Howard directs a seafaring epic about the doomed whaling ship Essex, which inspired Moby-Dick.

(Dec. 11)

Point Break

The over-the-top remake adds motocross, wingsuits and snowboarding to surfing, skydiving and bank robbery.

(Dec. 25)

Youth

Michael Caine and Harvey Keitel reflect on life’s big questions in a film by Paolo Sorrentino (The Great Beauty).

(Dec. 4)

Macbeth

Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard grapple with an entirely different kind of spot.

(Dec. 4)

The Big Short

The housing bubble of the aughts gets star treatment from Christian Bale, Steve Carrell, Brad Pitt and Ryan Gosling.

(Dec. 11)

Crowd Pleaser

Joy

Directed by David O. Russell, Jennifer Lawrence plays the real-life woman who invented the “Miracle Mop.”

(Dec. 25)

The Emperor’s New Clothes

Russell Brand jousts at the upper crust in a quasi-documentary about income inequality.

(Dec. 16)

Janis: Little Girl Blue

This doc looks at rock’s most soulful, tragic sparrow.

(Nov. 27)

Chi-Raq

Spike Lee turns the ancient Greek comedy Lysistrata into a meditation on black-on-black violence.

(Dec. 4)

Adults only

Anomalisa

Writer-director Charlie Kaufman meditates on the nature of love and individuality with puppets à la Team America: World Police.

(Dec. 30)

The Revenant

Alejandro González Iñárritu (Birdman) directs Leonardo DiCaprio in a Western revenge thriller.

(Dec. 25)

Hitchcock/Truffaut

Top filmmakers share their love for the French director’s influential book, Cinema According to Hitchcock.

(Dec. 2)

The Hateful Eight

Quentin Tarantino’s western traps an octet of badasses in a haberdashery during a blizzard. Mayhem ensues.

(Dec. 25)

Oscar bait