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Otis already looks tired; MEETING YOUR MAKER only had to explain why. The weariness is there in his face, his posture, and the way he carries himself as he moves through a television studio, preparing to celebrate the 300th episode of the children’s show that made him a star. He’s a puppet surrounded by bright colors and manufactured happiness, but writer/director Gregory JM Kasunich doesn’t treat that as a joke. The funny part is that Otis is a puppet. The reason the movie works is that his exhaustion feels completely human.

Thibaut and Jimmy didn’t just grow up apart. They grew up with access to entirely different versions of what life could offer them. One became a celebrated conductor traveling between orchestras, while the other works in a school cafeteria and spends his free time playing trombone with a community brass band in northern France. Directior/co-writer Emmanuel Courcol could have used that disparity for a story about long-lost brothers discovering that they’re more alike than anyone thought. THE MARCHING BAND is far more interested in the uncomfortable question that comes afterward. How much of the distance between them was ever their choice?

I wasn’t sure what to expect here; I intentionally avoided reading about the film because the premise sounded so intriguing. PENNY LANE IS DEAD understands that friendships never look as perfect from the inside as they do looking back on them. Penny, Toni, Amy, and Kat know exactly where one another’s weak spots are, which jokes will sting, and how quickly affection can turn into embarrassment or resentment. Writer/director Mia-kate Russell spends enough time inside that little ecosystem that when a prank pushes the night into something much more dangerous, the bloodshed feels like an escalation rather than a completely different movie.

REAP THE WHIRLWIND: FOUR FILMS WITH ANGELA MAO works particularly well as a snapshot of Angela Mao at the beginning of her career and the rapid development that followed. THE ANGRY RIVER sees her in 1971, still settling into the screen presence that would soon make her one of Hong Kong action cinema’s defining stars, while THE HIMALAYAN arrives only five years later with Mao carrying herself with far greater confidence. That progression gives the collection an identity beyond just putting together four of her films, particularly as director Huang Feng repeatedly finds new settings, characters, and action styles through which Mao can demonstrate how quickly she was growing as a performer.

P.O. BOX TINTO BRASS is probably one of the clearest examples of what Tinto Brass wanted his erotic films to be by the mid-90s. There isn’t much interest in disguising his preferences behind an elaborate story, and the movie doesn’t pretend sex needs to lead toward tragedy, punishment, or some larger lesson. Brass plays himself, sits alongside his secretary Lucia as correspondence comes in from women describing their fantasies and experiences, and uses those letters as an excuse to wander through nine largely independent stories. It’s self-indulgent by design, sometimes ridiculously so, although that directness is also a large part of why it works.