Instead of curling up on the couch with to watch HBO's Vinyl (which Sean Nelson describes as "a camp fairy tale that thinks it's a morality play and acts like it's the most important artwork in the world") head out to a movie theater to watch one of these picks from our critics. For more options, check out our complete movie times listings, or our our calendar of Oscar parties and screenings.

NEW RELEASES
1. Rams
"The film's gorgeous cinematography captures a world that couldn't feel more distant from a life of smartphone notifications and open office structures. Within the first few minutes of watching, it feels as if Icelandic director Grímur Hákonarson is inviting you to pull on a heavy wool sweater and stay for a cup of tea." - Sydney Brownstone

LIMITED RUNS
2. Edge of Tomorrow
"The script is full of funny moments that take full advantage of the Groundhog Day premise, and if the crappy 3-D, murky cinematography, and occasionally indecipherable action sometimes drag you out of the movie, you won't have too much trouble falling back into it, either. It's been years since Cruise starred in a popcorn blockbuster this fun." - Paul Constant

3. Mulholland Drive
Naomi Watts steals this 2001 David Lynch masterpiece that can only be referred to as "psychoerotic" noir.

4. Night Moves
A thriller starring Peter Sarsgaard, Dakota Fanning, and Jesse Eisenberg about two radical environmentalists who join forces with an ex-marine to bomb a hydroelectric dam in Oregon.

5. The Sprocket Society presents Saturday Secret Matinees
Watch the entirety of the highly regarded serial Spy Smasher over the course of twelve weekly installments. Each screening will feature one episode, plus a secret feature film that follows a monthly theme. This month: serial heroes and heroines.

CONTINUING RUNS
6. 45 Years
"45 Years has little to do with class, but Haigh is a savvy filmmaker, and glimmers of his actors' past shine through their perfectly aligned performances. With a few strokes, he depicts a comfortable country marriage between retired professionals that develops fault lines when a revelation about Geoff's past comes to light." - Kathy Fennessy

7. The Big Short
"The most important film in the 2016 Oscar race is The Big Short, which has five nominations, one of which is for best picture. The reason for its importance is the relevance of its subject matter—the greed, stupidity, and corruption that led to the collapse of the financial markets in 2008." -Charles Mudede

8. Carol
"It's kind of strange that Todd Haynes—the director of Velvet Goldmine—has become a master of cinematic restraint, but Carol is perfectly attuned to the culture of mid-century repression it documents, and equally adept at showcasing the passions and prejudices that simmer below the surface." - Alison Hallett

9. Hail, Caesar!
"It doesn't matter that Hail, Caesar! barely hangs together. It's too much fun to watch. With Hail, Caesar!, [Joel and Ethan Coen] have forgone the brow furrowing and decided to revel in their favorite topic of all—movies. In what amounts to little more than an extended string of cameos and hilarious set pieces, Hail, Caesar! is a firm, feature-length pinch on Hollywood's swollen, self-absorbed posterior.” - Ned Lannamann

10. How to Be Single
"Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if the filmmakers focus-grouped my approximate demographic of women and attached sensors to us to see what made our hearts, brains, and nether regions tingle, then checked what we hearted on Tumblr, and then crammed all that shit into one movie with a crowd-pleasing soundtrack. Is this a cheap grab at our base emotions? Yes. Is it effective? Abso-fucking-lutely." - Elinor Jones

11. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
”This adaption of Seth Grahame-Smith's 2009 parody novel of Jane Austen's classic is playing with a full deck of whist cards. It's funny, gory, and packed with moist-eyed Mr. Darcys (well, just one, but he's got moistness in spades). Guys, it's so much fun!” - Courtney Ferguson

12. Race
After describing Race as both totally ordinary and kind of bonkers, Ned Lannamann writes that "as a basic history lesson, Race could have been a lot worse; as an investigation of social issues that are still with us today, it cracks open an interesting window—even if it can't do more."

13. The Revenant
"Judged on a scene-by-scene basis, The Revenant often feels like one of the most amazing movies ever made, with Emmanuel Lubezki's breathtaking cinematography capturing every vivid facet of nature's teeth and claws. Taken as a whole, however, the lack of tonal variance and unrelenting bleakness end up serving the director's monumental ambition more than the relatively sparse narrative. Still, even when it verges on self-parody—this is a movie where a character is listed in the end credits as Dave Stomach Wound—the sheer mad bravura on display makes it impossible to dismiss." - Andrew Wright

14. Ride Along 2
"What's particularly effective here is the staging: both action and slapstick exist in solid, comprehensibly established spaces. That may seem like faint praise, but even prestige blockbusters these days get sloppy with that stuff, and it's nice to see good fundamentals in what could easily have been a cash-in sequel." - Ben Coleman

15. Son of Saul
"My experience of László Nemes's debut feature, Son of Saul, was very intense and confusing. My emotions went this way and that—horror to a deep state of sadness to anger. And then I would swell with guilt about this angry feeling. And then I would become angry about this feeling of guilt. And then another scene would sink me into sadness again. Altogether, I rate Son of Saul as one of the few masterpieces of 21st-century cinema.” - Charles Mudede

16. The Witch
"The long wait for The Witch, the darling of last year’s Sundance Film Festival (which won Robert Eggers the best director award), has been worth it. If you like your horror smart, slow-burning, and suffused with allegorical dread, then you can’t do better than this dark folktale of colonialism, religion, family, and nature gone amok in 1630s New England." - Sean Nelson