Eight years after the Joker held Gotham City in his grip of terror, the rich have gotten richer, the poor are in Dickensian straits and the city is at a stalemate. With the Harvey Dent Act, the city has reduced crime by stuffing the jails. Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale: The Flowers of War) is now a retired recluse who pines for lost love and hopes to heal a mind and body battered by his Batman stint.

On the other side of the Delta levees is a shantytown called The Bathtub. It’s so cut off from the outside world that six-year-old Hushpuppy (Quvenzhané Wallis) envisions her community as a wonderland. Life is simple, clothes are dirty and magic is everywhere.

 

Young John Bennet (Bretton Manley) didn’t have many friends, so for Christmas his parents bought him a stuffed bear named Ted (Seth MacFarlane: Family Guy). Thanks to the magic of the season and the power of a child’s wish, Ted became real.     At first, Ted is a godsend, giving John confidence and companionship. Twenty-seven years later, however, Ted keeps 35-year-old John (Mark Wahlberg:  ) stuck in permanent ­adolescence.

Being a lady in ancient societies was a real drag. You had to truss yourself up in uncomfortable dresses, follow the rules of court and be prim even as the men around you acted like imbeciles. If you were really good at following the rules, your grand reward was to be married off to some drooling noble who made up in breeding what he lacked in intelligence and sensitivity.

Two troubled 12-year-olds find that their broken pieces fit perfectly in this latest Wes Anderson (The Fantastic Mr. Fox) fantasy.     Sam (newcomer Jared Gilman) is an orphan with emotional issues and excellent scouting skills. Suzy Bishop (newcomer Kara Hayward) is a quiet girl prone to violent outbursts, observing the world through the detaching lens of binoculars and wearing too much eye makeup.     Meeting on a small New England island, they discover they are soul mates, or whatever the 12-year-old equivalent is.

If you could ask our creator one question, what would it be? Why do bad things happen to good people? What’s the meaning of it all? Why does Adam Sandler continue to get his movies green-lighted?     This thought exercise makes one big assumption: there will be answers.     In Prometheus, director Ridley Scott (Robin Hood) takes on the question of our origins —at least our origins in the Alien mythos.

Once upon a time in a magical kingdom there lived a beautiful princess. Young Snow White (Raffey Cassidy: Dark Shadows) was so good, innocent and pure that the townspeople loved her even though she wasn’t very interesting. Luckily, wicked queen Ravenna (Charlize Theron: Young Adult) showed up to seduce the king and lock the boring princess away in a tower.

Men in Black agents J (Will Smith: Seven Pounds) and K (Tommy Lee Jones: Captain America) have worked together for over a decade managing Earth’s alien population. This hasn’t made them close, as K won’t share his life story with his more effusive partner.

In the small town of Carthage, Texas, the most popular guy in town is the man who puts you to rest. Mortician’s assistant Bernie Tiede (Jack Black: Kung Fu Panda 2) sings in the church choir, gives care packages to new widows and delivers inspirational speeches to Little League teams. So it’s understandable that the town forgives Bernie his one, itty-bitty transgression: shooting a rich widow in the back and keeping her body in a freezer for nine months.