If you’re a devoted fan of Downton Abbey, the global television phenomenon now back on the big screen, that line certainly rings true. Creator and writer Julian Fellowes, director Simon Curtis (the real-life husband of Elizabeth McGovern/Cora Grantham), a superb ensemble cast and composer John Lunn have crafted another period piece drama brimming with intelligence, emotion, wit and humanity. As with the first feature film incarnation, A New Era preaches eloquently to the choir. Even with a prologue offered by Mr. Molesley (Kevin Doyle) in which he recounts the plot of the 2019 movie, you can’t begin to appreciate the resonance of this storytelling without having your own history with these characters going back a dozen years now.

Sometimes a filmmaker tells a story so dense, so deliberately ambiguous, so deeply rooted in symbolic imagery that you realize you’re either intrigued by and invested in the narrative or you’re utterly defeated by the process. The memory of Men, a hallucinatory study in toxic masculinity, will linger long after the closing credits.

Let’s start with the paradoxes. The latest film from Oscar- and Emmy-winning writer-director Aaron Sorkin boasts several. Its two protagonists don’t look all that much like the historical characters they portray (although Nicole Kidman with red hair comes pretty close). The female lead, a comedy legend, has very few funny lines in the story. And, although the movie has the basic structure of a play, it provides a decidedly cinematic experience.

Steven Spielberg’s latest picture arrives in theatres with not only the weight of history and expectation, but also the bittersweet memories of his father and the work’s lyricist. Arnold Spielberg, the film’s dedicatee, died in August, 2020, and Stephen Sondheim passed away last month.

Twenty years ago, Will Smith accepted the challenge of portraying a living legend, and arguably reached the zenith of his acting career, in Ali. In his latest film, he plays the obsessive, controlling father of sibling tennis phenoms in King Richard. It marks another high point for him.

The writer, director and graphic artist Mike Mills loves to explore family. His own family, to be precise. In Beginners (2010), for which the late Christopher Plummer won an Academy Award, Mills dramatizes his elderly father’s gay relationship with a much younger man. In 20th Century Women (2016), for which Mills himself earned an Oscar nomination for Original Screenplay, he focuses on his mother, portrayed by Annette Bening, and her unconventional lifestyle as a single mom in late 1970s California. Of course, the characters of Oliver and Jamie in those films serve as Mills’ alter egos. His latest project, C’mon C’mon, is the most existential and least coherent in his trilogy (to date), despite its many strengths.

“The Irish are built to leave,” as one character ruefully observes in Sir Kenneth Branagh’s new film, his twenty-second behind the camera. Indeed, many have departed the home soil, but their abiding attachment to it has prompted a wealth of insight and inspiration. You can add Belfast to the mix.