From Cousins Beach to haunted high-rises to mushroom-shaped villages, this weekend's picks explore secrets, scars and the price of survival.

Travis Hopsin of Punch Drunk Critics says the fear surrounding the pandemic, Black Lives Matter and the George Floyd protests that’s depicted in Eddington is “designed to enrage us,” but the most terrifying part of Ari Aster’s film is how accurate it is. The critic says:

In Ari Aster’s dark comedy, Joaquin Phoenix plays the sheriff of a New Mexico town riven by political clashes and pandemic anxieties.

As Eddington makes its theatrical debut this Friday, fans are already eager to know when the movie will get its digital and streaming release dates. This black-comedy movie is the latest offering from Ari Aster,

The first and maybe only true jump scare in Ari Aster’s “Eddington” comes right at the start. A barefoot old man trudges down the center of a road running through an empty Western town. He’s ranting and incoherently raving as he climbs a craggy hill silhouetted against a twilight sky. He gazes, or maybe glares, out at the town below.

Ari Aster's Eddington is bound to be a divisive and controversial movie, especially when it comes to the arrival of the film's mysterious villains.

Despite its positives, "Eddington" feels hindered by the same quirks and indulgence that have made Ari Aster such a divisive filmmaker to begin with.

Ari Aster’s Eddington is a unique take that will hold your attention and give you some stuff to think about, but probably bit off more than it had to.

Joaquin Phoenix, Pedro Pascal and Emma Stone take on early 2020 pandemic crises of every sort in Ari Aster’s “Eddington.”

Hereditary” and “Midsommar” director Ari Aster takes on contemporary America in “Eddington.” Joaquin Phoenix stars as a local sheriff in a fictional New Mexico town in May 2020, a time when everyone is getting a little testy.