Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget (Sam Fell, 2023). The first Chicken Run, which was also the first feature-length outing for Aardman Animation, was released almost a quarter-century ago. Of course, clay doesn’t really age, so, sure, why not circle back for a new adventure of the plucky poultry who escaped the Tweedy family farm. The chickens have established a safe haven on a remote island, but a human threat encroaches again. This time, the danger comes in the form of a factory designed to mass-process chickens into nugget form that can be served in fast-casual restaurants across the land. When Molly (voiced by Bella Ramsey), the headstrong offspring of Ginger (Thandiwe Newton) and Rocky (Zachary Levi), defies her sheltered upbringing, she winds up trapped inside the facility that treats her as a pending consumable. Ginger and Rocky assemble a crew to break her out. Unlike its predecessor, Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget is more of a cute diversion than a wholly satisfying film. Gags are just as likely to fall flat as they are to truly tickle. The film is at its best when it most overtly evokes the big-screen outings of the Mission: Impossible series that entertainingly puts Tom Cruise’s life in peril. The loving spoofery adds a welcome dash of spice to the proceedings.

American Symphony (Matthew Heineman, 2023). Documentarian Matthew Heineman embeds with Jon Batiste during an especially momentous year for the Louisiana-born musician. Batiste reaches dizzying new professional heights with the shocking dominance of his 2011 album, We Are, at the Grammy Awards and the debut of a major piece at Carnegie Hall. Those triumphs are harshly counterbalanced a heartbreaking development in his personal life when his longtime romantic partner, Suleika Jaouad, experiences a recurrence of the leukemia that she’d previously beaten. By appearances, there’s an impressive unguardedness on the part of Batiste and Jaouad; they let the camera into spaces where they are captured in harrowing moments, including Batiste in the depths of a depressive episode. Strangely, though, Heineman’s film rarely feels intimate or truly enlightening. Even as American Symphony goes deep, it somehow always feels as if it’s merely skidding along the surface, never giving due emotional space for either the highs or lows of its subjects’ unique experiences. The documentary occasionally comes alive when it shows Batiste in the midst of creative collaboration, but it’s otherwise woefully stagnant.

I Wouldn’t Be in Your Shoes (William Nigh, 2023). It might be one of the most implausible frame-ups in the history of cinema. Tom Quinn (Don Castle), a down-on-his-luck member of married dance team, hurls his tap shoes out of his tenement window in an attempt to silence a howling cat. When a reclusive neighbor who’d stashed away a great deal of cash is found dead, Tom is arrested for murder on little more evidence that his footwear was found in proximity to the scene of the crime. His wife and performing partner, Ann (Elyse Knox), strives to prove his innocence, enlisting the help of a police inspector (Regis Toomey) who’s clearly taken a shine to her. Adapting a Cornell Woolrich novella, Steve Fisher wrote the screenplay without much care for logic but an adoring commitment to grouchy, hard-boiled dialogue. Director William Nigh correctly determines that the best way to handle the narrative failings of I Wouldn’t Be in Your Shoes is by bulldozing through the film. He keeps the tempo snappy, which gives the whole endeavor an engaging verve that almost makes the fairly predictable final twist seem like a true roundhouse sucker punch.