“Spiral” often appears to be a dark, knowing genre retread—a topically urgent mash-up of “The Amityville Horror” and “Rosemary’s Baby”—one whose emotional impact only ostensibly stems from both its drama and its antagonists’ familiarity.

Like The Crown—and a good deal of Shakespeare—Succession tells its story of power through the lens of family drama. Thrones and billions aren’t relatable, but obligation and manipulation are.

Movies as diverse as Short Cuts, Weekend at Bernie’s, Pulp Fiction, Magnolia and The Man Who Fell to Earth are among the source material that inspire wink-wink allusions and tonal disruptions throughout Super Deluxe, an overextended and wildly uneven Tamil-language extravaganza that manages to impress largely because it’s such a shoot-the-works, go-for-broke mess.

The considerable pleasure of Lynn Shelton’s latest Sword of Trust is that everyone onscreen is so good at this kind of [improv] work that one wishes more tightly scripted comedy screenplays had such savory dialogue, or inspired character conceptions.

Adam Dick makes a solid feature writing-directing debut with “Teacher,” a tense and propulsive thriller with several vital, provocatively rendered thoughts on its seething mind.