Young Norman Babcock (Kodi Smit-McPhee: Dead Europe) isn’t very popular with the living. He’s obsessed with zombies and horror movies, awkward with kids his own age and an embarrassment to his family. But he can talk to the dead, so he’s never alone. He spends his days chatting with his departed grandmother, petting the spirits of road kill and waving to the many dead souls that line the streets of his neighborhood.

After 30-odd years of marriage, Kay (Meryl Streep: The Iron Lady) and Arnold (Tommy Lee Jones: Men in Black 3) have a routine: Kay suffers in silence as she does housework, longing for grand romantic gestures. Arnold ignores her. They sleep in different rooms and barely touch, talk or acknowledge each other in front of their grown children.     From the outside, they’re every couple of a certain age. From the inside, it’s amazing they haven’t snapped.

In the near future, the world has become almost uninhabitable. The only areas with breathable air are The United Federation of Britain and The Colony (Australia). The rich one percent live in the UFB and force The Colony to occupy slums and work grueling hours in factories.

War is destroying a small town in Lebanon. The bridge connecting it to the outside world is a bombed-out disaster, navigable only by scooter. Minefields blow up local livestock and occasionally injure roaming children. Women make frequent pilgrimages to the cemetery to mourn those lost to war. A single television brings the modern world to them in static-filled snippets.

Eight years after the Joker held Gotham City in his grip of terror, the rich have gotten richer, the poor are in Dickensian straits and the city is at a stalemate. With the Harvey Dent Act, the city has reduced crime by stuffing the jails. Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale: The Flowers of War) is now a retired recluse who pines for lost love and hopes to heal a mind and body battered by his Batman stint.

On the other side of the Delta levees is a shantytown called The Bathtub. It’s so cut off from the outside world that six-year-old Hushpuppy (Quvenzhané Wallis) envisions her community as a wonderland. Life is simple, clothes are dirty and magic is everywhere.

 

Young John Bennet (Bretton Manley) didn’t have many friends, so for Christmas his parents bought him a stuffed bear named Ted (Seth MacFarlane: Family Guy). Thanks to the magic of the season and the power of a child’s wish, Ted became real.     At first, Ted is a godsend, giving John confidence and companionship. Twenty-seven years later, however, Ted keeps 35-year-old John (Mark Wahlberg:  ) stuck in permanent ­adolescence.

Being a lady in ancient societies was a real drag. You had to truss yourself up in uncomfortable dresses, follow the rules of court and be prim even as the men around you acted like imbeciles. If you were really good at following the rules, your grand reward was to be married off to some drooling noble who made up in breeding what he lacked in intelligence and sensitivity.

Two troubled 12-year-olds find that their broken pieces fit perfectly in this latest Wes Anderson (The Fantastic Mr. Fox) fantasy.     Sam (newcomer Jared Gilman) is an orphan with emotional issues and excellent scouting skills. Suzy Bishop (newcomer Kara Hayward) is a quiet girl prone to violent outbursts, observing the world through the detaching lens of binoculars and wearing too much eye makeup.     Meeting on a small New England island, they discover they are soul mates, or whatever the 12-year-old equivalent is.