Caius Martius is not a baby-kisser. In Coriolanus, the first big-screen adaptation of the lesser-known and notoriously difficult Shakespeare tragedy, the leader fights for his city of Rome, but he’s got no love for his constituents. Calling them “curs,” “fragments,” and damning that he’s forced to even share their wretched air, it’s unsurprising that he refuses to show them his war wounds to prove the sacrifice he made or try to make nice after a blistering speech. In short, Martius is too honest to be a politician, especially considering that the play is set in the era of cell phones and Skype.

Ralph Fiennes stars as Martius, later dubbed Coriolanus because of his triumph over the city of Coriole — the most satisfying aspect of which was his defeat of his most hated enemy, Aufidius (Gerard Butler, not always successfully hiding his Scottish accent). Fiennes also makes his directorial debut here, and considering the source material (adapted by Gladiator’s John Logan) as well as his fierce performance, it’s an impressive one. With a cast (including Vanessa Redgrave, Brian Cox, and the ubiquitous Jessica Chastain) that lets Shakespeare’s words flow off their tongues with speed and dexterity, you may not always pick up the lyricism of the language, but you’ll certainly get the gist.

And the gist is that Coriolanus is so stubborn and arrogant that he gets banished from Rome, where the people are fed up over a food shortage as well as their leader’s contempt. He seems startled but not overly concerned about this; if anything, his mother (Redgrave) is more disappointed, having previously shown such intense pride of her son in her half-crazed eyes that it could easily be mistaken for bloodlust. (She boasts of his scars, as well as tells his wife, played in a throwaway role by Chastain, that if she had a dozen sons, she’d be quite happy to see 11 of them die nobly for their country.) Even if you don’t understand her character’s zeal, Redgrave’s a marvel.

So too is Fiennes, who hisses, bares his teeth, and fights with a blood-covered face in a role not all that different from his Voldemort in Harry Potter. He’s venom in human form, showing humility that’s only based in a desire for vengeance when he’s banished from Rome and decides to approach Aufidius for a possible partnership. (Coriolanus’ trip is one of the film’s only laughable moments, as the clean-shaven character hitchhikes until he looks like Jesus in a scene that takes about a minute.) He’s either gonna get Rome or die trying.

Fiennes frequently employs an unsteady cam to capture action, even if the action is only a swarm of citizens shouting their dissent. It lends the film an immediate, tense documentary feel, one that seems particularly representative of current events when soldiers are shown kicking in doors and sticking their guns in the faces of innocents. There are parallels to Iraq, Afghanistan, and, indeed, all the other conflicts going on in today’s world, though this is more about a man than a war. Whether you read into the themes of Coriolanus or simply take it as a particularly cutting character study, Fiennes’ work as both director and star is a balls-to-the-wall effort even a tyrant could admire.

It’s the moment we’ve all been waiting for: a Harry Potter film that clocks in at just over two hours. You’d think that the epic finale to an epic series would be, well, epic. But returning director David Yates and stalwart screenwriter Steve Kloves instead have streamlined Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2, telling the second half of the final book concisely and cleanly, for once leaving you feeling like you haven’t just been zapped with a Confundus Charm.

In contrast to Deathly Hallows: Part 1’s snap-to-it action-packed opening, Part 2 eases you into things. We see Hogwarts under Professor Severus Snape’s (Alan Rickman) rule, its students marching in lock-step as dementors patrol outside. We see the grave of Dobby, the house-elf who died at the end of the previous installment. And we see our heroes Harry (Danielle Radcliffe), Hermione (Emma Watson), and Ron (Rupert Grint) at their safehouse, Shell Cottage, moping about. It’s all quite melancholy yet serene.

Of course, the business of the plot needs to start somewhere. Harry and his friends interview Griphook (Warwick Davis), the ailing goblin and former employee of Gringotts, the wizarding world’s bank. They’re still on the hunt for Horcruxes (talismen that contain bits of Voldemort’s (Ralph Fiennes) soul) and want to break into the vault of Bellatrix Lestrange (Helena Bonham Carter), Voldermort’s right-hand woman, to search for one. They bargain for Griphook’s help with the Sword of Gryffindor. “How did you come by that sword?” he asks. “It’s complicated,” Harry answers.

You want to cheer. Without losing any nuance from the book, Kloves nevertheless strips its complexities — all those characters, all that history, all that explanation about the end-of-all-ends — and boils the story down to its essentials. There are recaps when you need them, hints of what previously went down when you don’t. It probably helps to have followed the series up until this point (better with the books than the films), but newbies shouldn’t be too lost.

The set pieces, as usual, are fantastic. There’s a funny yet thrilling sequence of the trio’s infiltration of Gringotts, with Hermione disguised as Bellatrix. The front of the bank is regal, trimmed in marble and gold and two long counters of stern goblin tellers. The back of the bank is another world: You travel to vaults via roller coaster, the cavernous area protected by a fire-breathing dragon. A surprise splash of water cleanses visitors of any spells they’re under; therefore, it’s not long before the now-herself Hermione and the boys need to high-tail it out of there. (Literally and spectacularly, with the help of the dragon.)

The bulk of the film, however, comprises what might as well be called the Battle of Hogwarts. Harry returns to the school to find the last Horcrux and, ultimately, to fight Voldemort to the death. There he finds assembled (and hidden in the Room of Requirement) his co-conspirators of Dumbledore’s Army (basically the good-side students). Voldemort’s creepy, snakelike voice infiltrates the institution, calling for massive deaths should Harry not present himself to him.

Naturally, a war breaks out, not all of it going our hero’s way. But even amongst the fighting, there are welcome moments of quiet to break up the bluster. This is an equally thoughtful and thrilling installment, perhaps the franchise’s best. As always, the kids — who have been living as their characters about as long as they’ve been living as themselves — do all right, with even Radcliffe not seeming as wooden as he can be.

Although Yates put the kibosh on presenting Deathly Hallows: Part 1 in converted 3D, Part 2 wasn’t so lucky. Be forewarned before you plunk down those extra dollars: The cinematography even in 2D is so bleak — dark grays is the palette of choice — that one imagines you’ll hardly be able to see anything with glasses on. And this is one Potter where you won’t want to miss a thing.

So, so much Harry Potter. J.K. Rowling’s seven books about the Boy Who Lived are lethal-weapon-size; each of the corresponding film adaptations have pushed if not exceeded two and a half hours. At the beginning of the first half of the seventh (Rowling’s finale was split into two films), our whip-smart but Muggle-born Hermione is wiping the minds of her parents, protecting them from a wizarding government that’s hellbent on destroying so-called Mudbloods. “Obliviate,” she whispers. The spell may as well be cast on the consumers of all things Potter. No matter how well-written the books nor absorbing the movies, the trouble with all this excess has been that once you’re done with the ride, you can barely remember what just happened.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 is no different. At 145 minutes, it illogically breezes by, even if much of the story comprises our heroes doing little but hiding, fighting, and strategizing. With returning director David Yates at the helm and the most experienced Potter scripter, Steve Kloves, adapting, Deathly Hallows is the darkest installment yet, both literally and figuratively: Even in daylight, this world’s a dark gray-green as Harry (Daniel Radcliffe), Hermione (Emma Watson), and Ron (Rupert Grint) talk about Death Eaters and their minions gaining control of Hogwarts and Harry’s status as Undesirable No. 1.

The trio decide not to return to their beloved school, instead tasking themselves with finding Horcruxes, or talismans containing bits of the wretched soul of Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes), the You-Know-Who who killed Harry’s parents when he was an infant and now insists on killing Harry himself. There are car crashes (!), reverse witch trials (you better be one or else), and lots of talk about death, with a particularly black sequence of shadowy animation describing exactly what the Deathly Hallows are.

But Harry Potter 7 is also funny and sexy. (Yes, accept it: These kids are all grown up.) The most amusing bits involve Polyjuice Potion, an elixir that allows one to assume the guise of another; one early scene offers seven Harrys before transporting the real one to a safe house, the better to confuse Voldemort. This scene, like another in which the threesome infiltrate the now-evil Ministry of Magic, skillfully balances humor and danger like a more mystical buddy-action flick.

Outsiders may be a bit puzzled by some of the plot developments here — why, for example, Harry, Hermione, and sometimes Ron need to spend a great deal of the film living outdoors in various locations isn’t fully explained — but Kloves does do some dialogue-rejiggering to render the major points expository without completely dumbing things down for neophytes. As always, the story boils down to Good vs. Evil, though, so outsiders should never feel too lost.

The film’s biggest flaw is one that narratively couldn’t be helped: Rowling places all the emphasis on the kids, who are usually sulking, and tosses the franchise’s colorful supporting characters to the sidelines, if they show up at all. We get only glimpses, for instance, of the Dursleys, the horrible Muggle family Harry’s grown up with, as well as Professor Snape (Alan Rickman), Dolores Umbridge (Imelda Staunton), and Bellatrix Lestrange (Helena Bonham Carter).

Their relative absence might not have had as big an impact if Radcliffe, Watson, and Grint were more than merely workaday actors, but the young’uns occasionally have difficulty carrying big chunks of the movie by themselves. Still, their relationships with each other are evolving just enough to keep things interesting. In fact, how the characters interact is ultimately more memorable than what exactly they do.

I wish someone would hurry up and invent the CHI

Sex without love was also the norm for Georgiana Cavendish, 18th century socialite and chosen wife of the Duke of Devonshire, whose semi-interesting story is told in Saul Dibb’s semi-interesting The Duchess. At its opening shot of Keira Knightley’s back, ringlets bouncing and ornate train dragging along a perfectly manicured lawn, you can’t help but think you’ve seen this period piece before.

Nearly two hours later, you’ll feel like you’ve been sitting for three, and with that first instinct pretty much confirmed.

The most compelling aspect of The Duchess isn’t that the royal couple becomes a triple, nor that Georgiana (Knightley) was pressured by society and even her own mother (Charlotte Rampling) to—and this may come as a shock—put on a happy face and perform her wifely duties despite her loveless marriage.

More intriguing is Georgiana’s fashion-plate reputation and general popularity despite her husband’s preference for the company of other women or even his dogs; as one character puts it, “The Duke must be the only man in England not in love with his wife.” Georgiana was the people’s princess and pop icon two centuries before Lady Di came along—from the Duchess’ own bloodline, Diana Spencer being a distant niece.

Screenwriters Dibb, Jeffrey Hatcher, and Anders Thomas Jensen (working from Amanda Foreman’s biography of the duchess) also inject parallels to the current election into the story, as Georgiana uses her celebrity to promote the Whig party and its leaders bellowing about change.

The film, against all reason, actually perks up when politics are discussed, proving that its characters are thinking beings and not just models for flouncewear. (But wigs and hats, unfortunately, are given more prominence here than Whigs, with Knightley’s getting increasingly absurd, from merely hyper-inflated poofs to bizarre Afro-like wedges and, always, towering headgear.)

The source of Georgiana’s misery is Ralph Fiennes, whose Duke William is socially awkward and monosyllabic, sealing his marriage negotiations with the teenager’s mother with a wan, “So be it, then.” The Duke’s sole motivation for marrying was to produce a male heir, and despite Georgiana’s beauty, their sex life is mechanical, their romance nonexistent.

When G, as William calls her, fails to immediately produce a son, things go from civil to resentful. Among other humiliations, William saddles Georgiana with a daughter from a previous liaison so she can “practice her mothering skills,” and he later starts an affair with her best friend, Bess (Hayley Atwell), who had moved in with them—and never left.

Though The Duchess’ pace is slow, its acting is as good as can be expected, and better in Knightley’s case: Finally, she does more here than look aristocratic, with moments of Natalie Portman–esque impishness as well as nuanced expressions of heartbreak. Fiennes’ casting is atypical and he’s thorough as a bore. Yet, well, his character’s a bore.

After a while, William becomes truly hateful, and the trouble is that Georgiana, no matter how depressing her straits may be, becomes hard to sympathize with, too, seeming to get dumber as the years go on instead of learning how to play the game. Blame the hats and rent Atonement.

Farrell earns his treat

Martin McDonagh has hijacked the Tarantino-goes-to-Europe genre from Guy Ritchie, and not a moment too soon. In Bruges, the Irish playwright’s feature debut, is everything Ritchie’s latest film, Revolver, wanted to be: cool, yes, but also a good story with bits of humor, existential ruminations, and innovative action involving a couple of guns-for-hire who hide in plain sight.

The chill location, a gorgeous town in Belgium full of canals and medieval architecture, is just one reason the film doesn’t feel like a rip-off. Colin Farrell is another. The Irishman who’s lately better known for carousing and poor career choices shows a never-before-seen range here as Ray, a rookie hit man whose boss exiles him and his experienced partner, Ken (Brendan Gleeson), to Bruges when a job goes bad.

They’re supposed to do nothing but wait for a phone call and, presumably, think about what they did. But soon Ray starts getting antsy—”like a 5-year-old who’s dropped all his sweets,” as Ken puts it—and he hesitantly suggests that they could just grab a quick pint at the pub. Ken glares. Ray thinks, then points out how nice the historic buildings might look under the Belgian stars. Ken relents.

The pair’s differences are immediately apparent as Ken admires the scenery and starts talking dates. “I used to hate history, didn’t you?” Ray yammers before, doglike, getting distracted. “What are they doing over there?” he says excitedly. “They’re filming something—they’re filming midgets!”

It’s a movie set, all right, and not only does Jimmy (Jordan Prentice), a little person, ignite Ray’s interest, he’s also captivated by Chloë (Clémence Poésy, refreshingly lovely in her non-Hollywood imperfections), whom he assumes is also an actor and asks out on a date. His chat-up includes a ramble about how “midgets” often kill themselves—when Chloë says Jimmy prefers the term “dwarf,” Ray responds, “This is exactly my point! People call you a midget when you want to be called a dwarf, of course you’re going to blow yer head off!”

But she gives him her card anyway. Meanwhile, Ken and Ray’s boss, Harry, did indeed call their hotel room, leaving them a curse-laden message neatly typed out by the hotel’s owner.

Harry sounds quite like the GEICO gecko, but we later see that he’s actually Ralph Fiennes, another terrifically unexpected casting choice (and one that makes the film a bit of a Harry Potter reunion, as Gleeson and Poésy have appeared in the series). Fiennes, his hair closely butchered, is great fun as a cold-blooded cockney, and Gleeson gives the proper sarcastic solemnity to an assassin who reevaluates his life when Harry’s next order is something he’s not sure he can do.

But Farrell is the revelation. At first, his eyebrows forever arching and his expression often set to confused, he seems to be merely performing a dumb-monkey act. (Though it’s admittedly an amusing one.) It’s when the audience discovers what went wrong in that first job—in a startling, violent flashback—that Farrell’s Ray begins to show depth.

The drinker, fighter, and skirt-chaser is so remorseful he’s suicidal and becomes less and less capable of covering it up with humor. (In an unsettling first-date scene, Chloë takes Ray’s confession to being a killer as a joke, which he’s barely able to play along with.) Farrell’s subtlety in portraying a walking wounded is note-perfect, naturally pulling off McDonagh’s balance of comedy and drama without letting the character or the movie devolve into a tonal mess.

McDonagh, who won an Oscar for his 2004 short film, Six Shooter (also starring Gleeson), successfully translates his theatrical strengths to the screen with dialogue that snaps without coming off as too clever, a simple but compelling narrative, and memorable scenes that are odd but believable at the same time (booze and coke can make for strange nights, after all).

As the story deepens, the script offers thoughts about honor, forgiveness, friendship, discrimination, and, more humorous, tourism. In Bruges may, at its core, be just another shoot-’em-up with jokes, but it’s been a long time since someone’s gotten one right.