Jessica Chastain and Oscar Isaac in A Most Violent YearLike a squirrel gathering nuts before winter, I made a conscious effort to catch all five of this past weekend's debuting releases before our area was hit by the blizzard from Hell. (An oxymoronic expression, but whatever.) And because, with the exception of the museum's feature, even the really good one will likely be gone before the snowy onslaught begins to melt, let's take care of 'em quickly. In descending order of preference ... .

Anne Hathaway and Matthew McConaughey in InterstellarINTERSTELLAR

With his breathlessly anticipated, behemoth-sized space opera Interstellar, has Christopher Nolan finally bitten off more than he can chew, or simply more than I can chew? I'd like to believe the latter, considering I like three of Nolan's eight previous features and adore four others (with apologies to Batman Begins, which I merely tolerate), and considering half the movie's dialogue is elaborate techo-jargon that I was predisposed not to understand. But like an itchy lover who says "It's not you; it's me" when he really means the opposite, I'm still laying most of my dissatisfaction at Nolan's feet, and for a pretty basic reason: For all of its narrative and technical razzle-dazzle, Interstellar is the man's first film that's expressly about humans, and humans aren't remotely close to being Nolan's strong suit.

Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Jessica Chastain, Isabelle Nélisse, and Megan Charpentier in MamaMAMA

A new film titled Mama opened this past weekend, and it stars Jessica Chastain. Given the current Oscar nominee's cinematic omnipresence over the past two years, you may be inclined to say, "Well, of course it does." But I'm leading with that information because in addition to being almost insanely prolific, Chastain (whose recent résumé also boasts The Tree of Life, The Help, Take Shelter, and, of course, Zero Dark Thirty) is about as reliable an indicator of quality as this decade's movies have provided. And against considerable odds, not the least being its unpromising January release date, director Andrés Muschietti's outing is a supernatural fright flick of considerable quality - gripping and nerve-racking and sensationally well-made, and yet another showcase for Chastain's stirring soulfulness and remarkable versatility.

Jessica Chastain in Zero Dark ThirtyZERO DARK THIRTY

As an orchestrator of cinematic suspense, Kathryn Bigelow might currently be without peer in American movies. The sequences of Jeremy Renner dismantling explosives in the director's Oscar-winning The Hurt Locker were miniature masterpieces of sustained excitement; despite our knowing, through much of the film, that it was too early for Renner's Sergeant William James to be killed off, each masterfully shot and edited act of bomb disposal vibrated with legitimate threat. In Zero Dark Thirty - Bigelow's and screenwriter Mark Boal's fictionalized docu-drama about the decade-long search for Osama bin Laden - nearly every scene feels like a ticking time bomb. There is, of course, never any doubt about the narrative's outcome, yet Bigelow's gifts for composition and pacing ensure that you still watch the picture with rapt attention and dread. And blessedly, she's also a spectacular entertainer. The movie is tough-minded and sometimes tough to watch, but even when Bigelow is fraying your nerves, she's tickling your senses.

Denzel Washington in FlightFLIGHT

Within the first 15 minutes of director Robert Zemeckis' Flight, you'll witness what must rank as one of cinema's most frightening, emotionally wrenching plane crashes. Yet in the end, and as harrowing as this passage is, I'm not sure that it's actually more terrifying or heartbreaking than the scenes of Denzel Washington's Whip Whitaker - the pilot whose heroic actions save 96 lives aboard that ill-fated flight - battling his urge to drink and, with only the mildest feelings of regret, losing that battle again and again and again.

Jeffrey Dean Morgan in The PossessionTHE POSSESSION

The new horror thriller The Possession is about a little girl who requires an exorcism to remove the evil dybbuk inhabiting her body, and it opens with a title card informing us that the film is "based on a true story." You know what I'm aching to see one of these days? An exorcism-themed entertainment that isn't based on a true story. Can you imagine how much fun these things could be if we weren't consistently asked to believe in them?

Logan Marshall-Green, Noopi Rapace, and Michael Fassbender in PrometheusPROMETHEUS

After many months of speculation, the question of whether Ridley Scott's Prometheus is, in fact, a prequel to the director's Alien can finally be answered: Hell yeah it is. And a good thing, too, because the enticing echoes of that 1979 sci-fi/horror essential are among the scant few elements that truly resonate in this visually extraordinary but only fitfully engaging endeavor.

Sam Worthington and Jessica Chastain in The DebtTHE DEBT

After her moving, memorable performances in The Tree of Life, The Help, and the current John Madden thriller The Debt, I'm beginning to think that Jessica Chastain can do almost anything. As evidenced by the actress' latest (though not last) 2011 release, however, one thing she cannot do is pass for a younger version of Helen Mirren, or at least Mirren as she appears here; beyond their ill-matching features, Chastain's empathetic soulfulness and emotional accessibility bear little relation to the detached calm and haunted inscrutability of her more seasoned counterpart.

Having said that, if one of your few complaints about a movie lies in the casting of Jessica Chastain and/or Helen Mirren, obviously you have very little to bitch about.

Emma Stone, Octavia Spencer, and Viola Davis in The HelpTHE HELP

Based on Kathryn Stockett's much-loved bestseller, The Help concerns the tenuous relationships between black domestic workers and their privileged white employers in early-'60s Mississippi, and it's a fairly obvious movie, with director Tate Taylor opting for broad brushstrokes over subtlety, and the occasionally wrenching drama sitting, rather uncomfortably, alongside klutzy jokiness. Yet offhand, I can't think of another popular entertainment whose flaws matter less than this film's, because everything that's lacking in the picture is more than made up for in the fearless, emotionally precise, and oftentimes devastating portrayals of Taylor's cast. The Help is easy to complain about, but all it takes is one of the magnificent Viola Davis' fierce, tearful stares - or a blast of Octavia Spencer's anger, or a flash of Emma Stone's heartbreak, or a burst of Jessica Chastain's joy - to make your complaints feel positively moot.

Brad Pitt and Tye Sheridan in The Tree of LifeTHE TREE OF LIFE

Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life is total bliss, and I mean that in the term's general and theological definitions.