To resurrect a late actor — as recent franchise films have done using CGI — is akin to an act of puppetry, and The Life and Deaths of Christopher Lee tackles this idea with mischievous literalism. It employs, as its central narrator, a delightfully designed marionette of the late English …

“Have you ever dreamt of a better version of yourself?” asks The Substance. Repeated like a ritualistic chant, this provocation and promise echoes via the in-universe advertising for a mysterious body-swapping product, which allows people to create a younger version of themselves. The insecurities of a middle-aged actress take center …

A film that’s as much about its own gimmick as what that gimmick represents, Aaron Schimberg’s A Different Man casts Sebastian Stan as Edward, a man with pronounced facial differences that he eventually sheds through a miracle cure. However, when a now traditionally handsome Edward is cast in a play …