Justin Chang

With its frank treatment of an adolescent girl's inner life, 'Are You There God?' become a huge bestseller and an enduring touchstone. And now, more than 50 years later, it's been terrifically adapted to the big screen by the writer-director Kelly Fremon Craig, with nearly all its warmth, humor and wry wisdom intact.

Having made a name for himself with the A24-released horror pictures "Hereditary" and "Midsommar," the writer-director Ari Aster has a new movie in theaters. It's called "Beau Is Afraid." And it tells the darkly comic story of a man named Beau, played by Joaquin Phoenix, who's just trying to get home to visit his mother.

The fourth movie that Kelly Reichardt and Michelle Williams have made together, Showing Up is the first Reichardt movie that could be described as a comedy. But like all her films, it's a model of indie realism,