‘THE BIKERIDERS’: Making a movie inspired by Danny Lyon’s 1968 photojournalism book “The Bikeriders” offers a filmmaker everything except a sure thing. A one-time member of the Outlaws Motorcycle Club, photographer and (later) documentary filmmaker Lyon turned the aesthetic notion of Robert Frank’s “The Americans” outside in, capturing images — and in Lyon’s case, tape-recorded anecdotes converted to text accompanying the photos — not as a penetrating outsider but a watchful insider. From this book, working in a spirit of homage, writer and director Jeff Nichols has made a cool, absorbing feature that goes its own way. 1:56. 3 stars. — Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune

‘HORIZON: AN AMERICAN SAGA — CHAPTER 1’: “Horizon: An American Saga — Chapter 1” marks Kevin Costner’s return to the Western genre that brought him into stardom nearly 40 years ago. Things could perk up and get rolling come August, when “Chapter 2” of this reverently labeled “American Saga” continues in theaters, to be followed by “Chapter 3” (currently filming) and then, finances and distribution/streaming arrangements with Warner Bros. and Max willing, the big finale. But “Chapter 1” feels like throat- clearing — a serviceable horse opera overture to a curiously dispassionate passion project. The first “Horizon” film divides itself into what feels like three one-hour TV episodes. Co-writers Jon Baird and Costner lay many miles of narrative track designed to transport several groups of characters in different parts of the West to the same destination, a tiny riverbank town in the making called Horizon in the San Pedro Valley, aka John Ford country. This is where the film starts, in 1859. It’s Apache land, and the white colonizers (fine, “settlers”) have put literal stakes in it to claim it for themselves. I can’t help but wonder if Costner didn’t take his cues from the wrong kind of Westerns. Watch Anthony Mann’s “The Naked Spur” (1953) sometime, which gave James Stewart one of his most bracing challenges; the movie is scenic but purposeful, lean, compact, character-driven, full of shifting allegiances and centered, however uneasily, by a fascinatingly self-doubting protagonist. Costner has it in him to work that same territory. “Horizon,” so far, anyway, is more about a certain set of movie memories than a movie of its own. 3:01. 2 stars. — Michael Phillips

‘INSIDE OUT 2’: Pixar’s “Inside Out” (2015) leaned into old, turbulent emotions in a new way, all the way. The story dealt with 11-year-old Riley, a Minnesota girl into hockey, who relocated, uneasily, with her parents to San Francisco. A big move means big challenges for any kid — and any parent. Director Pete Docter and the “Inside Out” screenplay acknowledged Riley’s depression while underscoring her ability to manage it and flourish. The emotions depicted in the control room of her mind — Joy, Sadness, Fear, Anger, Disgust — navigated their increasingly tricky human charge, as well as their own clashing personalities. “Inside Out 2” is the engaging sequel that pits 13-year-old Riley against new challenges and a tangle of new insecurities. But there are new kids in town, in her mind. Emotion management center honcho Joy (Amy Poehler) must accommodate these new emotions led by Anxiety (Maya Hawke), along with Envy (Ayo Edebiri), Embarrassment (Paul Walter Hauser) and Ennui (Adèle Exarchopoulos). Nostalgia pops in for a couple of appearances; June Squibb voices her, unerringly. Crucially, Phyllis Smith returns as the measured, morose voice of Sadness, alongside some new voices for familiar characters (Tony Hale in for Bill Hader as Fear; Liza Lapira in for Mindy Kaling as Disgust; Kensington Tallman replacing Kaitlyn Dias as Riley). It’s gratifying to see an ordinary and, yes, anxious 13-year-old’s life, like millions and millions of lives right now, treated as plenty for a good, solid sequel, and without the dubious dramatics of the first movie’s climax. What’s happening on the inside can be enough. 1:36. 3 stars. — Michael Phillips

‘JANET PLANET’: Annie Baker is a terrific playwright and has now made her feature film debut as writer-director with “Janet Planet,” and there’s so much right with it, beginning and ending with how Baker listens to, and frames, what her characters say, and how. And what they don’t. It’s set in early 1990s western Massachusetts, where Baker grew up, in the seldom-filmed Pioneer Valley region. At the start, Lacy, 11, sneaks a late-night call home from summer camp. She wants out. Her acupuncturist mother, Janet, retrieves her from camp. “Janet Planet” chronicles the rest of their summer at home, as Janet navigates her boyfriend, Wayne; her old and somewhat bossy actor friend, Regina, whom Janet and Lacy reconnect with at a performance of Regina’s cultlike theater troupe; and Avi, the theater director, who takes a stealthy interest in Janet because, as daughter Lacy says forthrightly, everyone’s always falling in love with her. How does this play out? In bracingly lifelike exchanges of precise, concise small talk, polite evasions and occasional, surprising connections, mostly between mother and daughter. The film is a mite thin, and occasionally glib. But Baker knows where the bittersweet human comedy lies in this mother, and this daughter. Those in need of conventional uplift in their family stories, or more assertive character arcs, never have to wait very long for what they require. Meantime there’s this, for the rest of us. 1:53. 3 1/2 stars. — Michael Phillips

‘KINDS OF KINDNESS’: Reconnecting with his roots as part of the so-called Greek Weird Wave, director Yorgos Lanthimos’ latest is the three-part anthology film “Kinds of Kindness.” It’s a luxe treatment of some puny satiric ideas, toned up by a cast led by Emma Stone and Lanthimos first-timer Jesse Plemons, who won the best actor prize this year at Cannes Film Festival. As with Lanthimos’ previous works, we learn the rules of societal engagement as we go. The actors, also including Willem Dafoe, play new characters in fables one, two and three. I laughed out loud exactly once, which, let’s face it, is one more laugh than some comedies I’ve seen lately. In the second segment, Plemons’ policeman character has his colleague (Mamoudou Athie) and the colleague’s wife (Margaret Qualley) over for a melancholy dinner, with the cop’s wife still missing presumed dead. The cop wants to spend a minute watching some old home-movie footage of he and his wife, in happier days. Reluctantly his guests consent, and what comes next is a perfectly timed sight gag straight out of the director’s debut feature: sharp, quick and brazen. Precious little of “Kinds of Kindness” manages any one or two of those qualities. Better luck next time. 2:44. 1 1/2 stars. — Michael Phillips

‘A QUIET PLACE: DAY ONE’: “A Quiet Place: Day One” works roughly as well as the first two films in this alien-invasion franchise, loved by many, liked by some, sort-of-liked by me. If it has the edge over the 2018 and 2020 movies, the reason is simple though her talent certainly isn’t: Lupita Nyong’o. Each minute she’s on screen as Samira, which is most of the hour and a half, Nyong’o is alert and invested in every fiber of her character’s constant predicaments. The movie follows a clear directive reasonably well. It is nothing but peril and exhaustion and superhuman resourcefulness in the face of two species not destined to get along. And Nyong’o plays the material for the highest possible stakes, mostly nonverbally — though the one moment Samira lets loose with a soul-clearing scream, a good-enough-for-this-summer prequel suddenly feels like it really, truly matters. 1:39. 2 1/2 stars. — Michael Phillips

RATINGS: The movies listed are rated according to the following key: 4 stars, excellent; 3 stars, good; 2 stars, fair; 1 star, poor.