This documentary examines the American credit industry, its history, and the way consumers become misinformed and get into trouble when it comes to consumer debt, particularly with credit cards and mortgage debt. Released two years before the 2008 financial crisis started, the warnings here were timely cautions of economic collapse.

Grade: B+.

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Dito Montiel, played by Robert Downey Jr, returns home to Astoria, New York, after 15 years away, to visit his dying father and reconnect with his old childhood friends. Wonderful acting performances permeate this autobiographical work, both in present day and in flashbacks to his adventurous adolescence in the 1980s.

Grade: B.

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Neil Patrick Harris stars as a video blogging criminal mastermind, Dr Horrible, in this short Joss Whedon superhero musical. Nathan Fillion is Captain Hammer, his nemesis, who is chasing the girl Dr Horrible wants. With more than a dozen funny songs and a hilarious story, this fantasy is amazingly fun.

Grade: A.

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The authors of Freakonomics, Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner, narrate an adaptation of their best-selling book, in which economic theory is tested by experiment and examination, yielding unexpected results about incentivizing education, the economic impact of names, corruption in athletics, and how legalized abortion affected crime rates.

Grade: B.

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Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Emma Stone, and Abigail Breslin star in this hilarious, yet bad-assed comedy about a group of people trying to find a sanctuary in a zombie apocalypse. Harrelson’s character, Tallahassee, presents a set of rules for surviving zombies, which the film explores in side-splitting ways.

Grade: B+.

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In this tight engrossing crime thriller, two brothers in financial trouble decide to rob their parents’ jewelry store. After the event takes place, their father becomes obsessed with finding the culprits. The acting performances in this difficult piece are jaw-droppingly virtuosic, with moments of real pain and palpable menace.

Grade: A-.

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Director Lukas Moodysson’s critique on globalization centers around a New York family — a businessman who has to travel to Thailand, an emergency room surgeon, their young daughter, their Filipina nanny, and her family back home. The lead performances in this picture are beautifully realized, particularly Michelle Williams as the doctor.

Grade: B+.

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In this animated feature, a group of young owlets are captured by a sinister group of slave-holding owls, mentored by an old slave owl, and seek out a group of the heroic Guardians of Ga’hoole. This feel-good story, mainly aimed at children, delivers lessons in perseverance against oppression.

Grade: B+.

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John Amsterdam is an immortal NYPD detective, who gained immortality after rescuing a Native American girl from his fellow Dutch soldiers in 1642. He uses his intimate centuries-long knowledge of New York City to solve crimes while trying to find true love. This eight-episode series is worth watching.

Grade: B.

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Edward J. Larson examines the election of 1800 in deep detail in this engrossing history. The minute battles between John Adams’ Federalists and Thomas Jefferson’s Democratic-Republicans are covered. This is a fascinating look into the early history of the United States and Larson writes the story in approachable style.

Grade: A-.

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