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. The saints can sometimes seem like lofty, unrelatable figures. It’s rare to find contemporary examples of sanctity, and rarer still to find models of heroic virtue among the young.

There has been an effort in recent decades to promote the canonization of individuals from various walks of life. Yet the majority of those so recognized continue to be drawn from the clergy or the religious orders.

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.

BISMARCK, North Dakota. In 2012, when Michelle Duppong, who was about to become director of adult formation for the Diocese of Bismarck, North Dakota, asked Jacqueline Matta Balzer if she could be her roommate, Balzer had no idea she was dealing with a possible future saint. Still, “You could just sense there was a holiness about her,” Balzer recalls.