Ridley Scott’s “The Martian” opens with a real downer. Astronaut Mark Watney (Matt Damon) is left behind on Mars by his crew, believing he’d died in a storm. I almost expected a gross scenario to follow in the style of “Alien” and “Prometheus,” the other science-fiction films by Scott. But, no, happily this movie is a lot more fun than those two films combined.

There’s nothing more conventional than a boxing movie. From “Rocky” to “The Fighter,” we know what we’re going to get: a good fight. “Southpaw” delivers exactly that. It’s tough and comforting at the same time.

There’s something fascinating about watching a physical fight. Whether it’s witnessing a group of high school boys duking it out during a basketball game or watching Rocky getting bloodied in all six movies in the franchise, the effect is similar. A fight is thrilling.

It’s risky to infuse a huge Hollywood film with a political message. It takes a visionary director like George Miller to reboot his “Mad Max” franchise with an unabashed feminist theme.

We’re all familiar with the curmudgeon character made popular by Archie Bunker on TV. Clint Eastwood played a similar character in “Gran Torino” and “Trouble with the Curve.” In “St. Vincent,” Bill Murray’s cantankerous neighbor is a refreshing take on the trope.

“Out of the Furnace” is not the kind of movie that jumps on you. It’s a cinematic slow burn that grows on you. The film, set in the steel town of Braddock, Pa., is about the Baze brothers—Russell (Christian Bale) and Rodney (Casey Affleck).

Although “Dead Poets Society” is set in a boys’ prep school in Vermont in 1959, moviegoers relate to it because it puts them squarely on a familiar ground. Most people remember a teacher like John Keating (Robin Williams) who changes his students’ lives. In every school, there’s a passionate soul like Neil Perry (Robert Sean Leonard), a painfully shy kid like Todd Anderson (Ethan Hawke), and a rebel like Nuwanda (Gale Hansen).

It takes an actor such as Tom Hardy to pull off a film shot almost entirely inside a car, showing him alone, from beginning to end. Ivan Locke (Hardy) is a construction manager in Birmingham, with a reputation for “running a tight ship,” as a local official describes him. One evening, after work, he doesn’t go home. Instead he drives to London, a decision that changes his life within 85 minutes, which is how long the drive and the movie last.

“In a World” puts a spotlight on the cutthroat voice-over industry the way “Black Swan” exposed the brutally competitive world of ballet. But the former is exuberant while the latter is grim.

From the 1942 Alfred Hitchcock film, “Saboteur,” to the Matt Damon-starrer “The Adjustment Bureau” (2011), Lady Liberty has been thrilling, scaring, and entertaining moviegoers over the years.