NEW YORK. The life of the Blessed Mother, from before her birth to the flight into Egypt, is recounted with varying levels of artistic adeptness in the uneven biography “Mary” (UnratedNetflix). Though the result is not always satisfying, the production overall is both reverent and engaging. The film is also suitable for a wide audience.

NEW YORK. Considered purely from an artistic viewpoint, the lavish musical “Wicked” (PG, Universal) represents a confluence of the best both Broadway and Hollywood have to offer. On a moral level, however, the film’s content, while largely free of overtly problematic material, nonetheless demands careful assessment.

NEW YORK. A serious, even lugubrious, tone and a top-flight cast add heft to the ecclesiastical melodrama “Conclave” (PG, Focus). Yet the film is fundamentally a power-struggle potboiler kept roiling by attention-grabbing plot developments — the last and most significant of which Catholic viewers will likely find uncomfortable at best.

NEW YORK. Fans of the 2017 film “Wonder” may recognize the character of Julian Abans (Bryce Gheisar), a student on whose adjustment to a new school the opening scenes of the touching wartime drama “White Bird” (PG-13, Lionsgate) focus. Julian was the bully who persecuted the facially deformed but heroic-hearted protagonist of the earlier movie.

NEW YORK. “The afterlife is so random,” observes a character in the horror-comedy sequel “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” (PG-13, Warner Bros.). If the disorganized structure of returning director Tim Burton’s follow-up to the Reagan-era film that first made his reputation as a conjurer of Gothic atmosphere is anything to go by, it must be arbitrary indeed.