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Between Cats and Star Wars, holiday screens are stacked with fantasy. For something closer to home, here are two complex films with big emotional payoffs

Richard Lawson

(A HIDDEN LIFE)

Revered director Terrence Malick turns in another meditative visual poem, though on this outing he's working with a bit more plot than he has in recent years. A Hidden Life [Fox Searchlight] tells the true story of Austrian World War II conscientious objector Franz Jagerstatter. Malick makes a potent, poignant plea for ethical conviction and steadfast principles in an era of terrifying moral abnegation. It's a period piece that's wrenchingly timely.

(CLEMENCY)

Alfre Woodard seizes on an all-too-rare lead role in Clemency [Neon], writer-director Chinonye Chukwu's harrowing death penalty drama. Woodard is riveting and, ultimately, devastating as a conflicted prison warden overseeing the execution of an inmate, played with quiet pain by Aldis Hodge. While Chukwu's artful, deliberately paced film won top prize at Sundance in 2019, it has struggled to get mainstream attention. But it's too powerful to be ignored.

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