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LAST WEEK IN BUTLER:  The Little Prince. Mozart: Sinfonia Concertante. They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933- 1945.

“Their Finest” is about British propaganda films during World War II. This is a favorite? Yes, because it’s about the rise of women as creators in a time when most men are gone. And then it’s because of the casting. I’m head over heels for Gemma Arterton and Bill Nighy. “Have you seen our film?” the acerbic and self-adoring Nighy asks Arterton. “I’m awfully good.” The NY Times agrees: “An unalloyed charmer…. too understandably serious to be called a romp, yet it has a buoyancy that lifts you.” Watch the preview, then the film. Then tell your friends.

On a low budget, with no-name actors and a less sensitive script, “After the Wedding” would be right at home on Lifetime. But if you read my review and watch the preview….

As I write in my review, “I’m not a big fan of movie violence, but like many of you I am frustrated by the persistence of evil in the world. I wouldn’t mind seeing bad actors punished. Vicariously, Denzel gets that job done for me.”

On my top 10 list. As I write in my review, here’s a checklist of elements you’d never see in a movie financed by an American studio now: a middle-aged love story, with infidelity on the part of the wife. Oh, and she isn’t a despicable slut. Oh, and her husband keeps trying to make the marriage work. Great script, from a Sinclair Lewis novel, great direction, great acting.

The Times, which was not blind to the greatness of “The Godfather,” called this “Coppola’s best movie, a landmark film of the seventies and a stunning piece of original American fiction.” My review will send you to a high-tech horror film.

Only a handful of directors have won the Best Foreign Film Oscar more than once: Vittorio de Sica and Federico Fellini (four times each), Ingmar Bergman (three times), and René Clément and Akira Kurosawa (twice each). Asghar Farhadi has won two Best Foreign Language Oscars — for “A Separation” (2011) and “The Salesman” (2016). In 2021, he won the Cannes Film Festival’s Grand Prix for “A Hero.” That he’s able to make films this complex in Iran is almost worthy of another Oscar. Start with my review.

Christopher McCandless graduated from college (Emory, ’92), then left civilization to experience life without constraints. His death in Alaska a few months later made him a worthy subject for a book by Jon Krakauer. But his story is even better inspiration for a film, especially when the writer-director is Sean Penn. My review, preview, and streaming link await.