Wondering what else is in theaters this weekend? Here are six films recommended by The New York Sun’s critics that you can still catch around town.

THE ILLUSIONIST
PG-13, 110 minutes

From the moment he arrives in Vienna in 1900, brooding, sly Eisenheim the Illusionist (Edward Norton) establishes himself as a crowd-dazzler. In the words of a fictional critic, his work “transcends mere illusion and approaches the realm of art,” but others, sensing the dark side of his craft, wonder if he has sold his soul. His true rivals — like the ambitious, seemingly unscrupulous Inspector Uhl (Paul Giammati) and the brutish Crown Prince Leopold (Rufus Sewell) —refuse to believe that his stagecraft is anything more than the usual sleight-of-hand.

Tightly written, convincingly acted, and superbly structured, “The Illusionist” is at once an attractive period piece, a probing meditation on truth and illusion, and, by its conclusion, a reminder that the contemporary equivalent to Eisenheim’s astonishments is found in the cinema.

— David Grosz

ANDY WARHOL: A DOCUMENTARY FILM
Unrated, 240 minutes

We will probably never know all about the King of Pop Art or his contradictory depths, but that is not the fault of “Andy Warhol,” the new four-hour documentary in PBS’s American Masters series playing now at Film Forum), which attempts to tackle Warhol’s dual reputation as pioneer and fraud.

Director Ric Burns has crafted a thorough, engaging, and thoughtful production. Happily, almost no celebrities appear: You won’t see Dennis Hopper or “Love Boat” extras rattling on about their experiences with the bewigged one. Instead you will find a clutch of critics, friends, and others integral to Warhol’s life telling his story and, somewhat surprisingly, making a long, impassioned case for his work.

— Daniel Kunitz

THIS FILM IS NOT YET RATED
NC-17, 95 minutes

With humor and fearless gusto, “This Film Is Not Yet Rated,” the new documentary by Kirby Dick, takes square aim at the surprisingly secretive organization that minds our PG’s and R’s. The Motion Picture Association of America may be best known as moderator of the movie-going public’s intake of sex and violence, but Mr. Dick uncovers an organization rather less savory than its family image.

The film initially concerns itself more with the organization’s questionable practices as ratings arbiter than with its business role, but it ultimately shows how the two are inextricable. It also sets about identifying the mysterious faces of the members on the appeals board of the MPAA.

— Nicolas Rapold

RIDING ALONE FOR THOUSANDS OF MILES
PG, 108 minutes

The Chinese director Zhang Yimou is known for lovingly photographing landscapes, but he’s never shot one that’s bleaker or more godforsaken than Ken Takakura’s face. Blasted feelings leak out of his hooded eyes and long buried regrets twist his thin lips. Between 1955 and 1976, Mr. Takakura played the same role with minor variations in 180 movies. He was an old-school yakuza in a modernizing world, and by the last reel you always knew he was going to sacrifice everything — his girl, his gang, his life — to honor an old debt that no modern gangster would dream of fulfilling.

Now, at 75, instead of being a self-destructively loyal gang member, he plays a father self-destructively loyal to his estranged son.

— Grady Hendrix

HALF NELSON
R, 106 minutes

The indie drama “Half Nelson” packs a wallop with the year’s best performance so far. Ryan Gosling again showcases his talent for inhabiting characters with his incarnation of Dan, a 20-something Brooklyn schoolteacher, idealist, and drug addict. Instead of a clichéd portrait of torment, we see a young guy buoyed by dreams but slowly, slowly sinking.

The film, which grew out of Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden’s equally impressive 19-minute short, “Gowanus,” is set in the short’s eponymous Brooklyn neighborhood. The fulcrum is the fraught rapport between Dan and one of his middleschool students, Drey (Shareeka Epps). But the movie isn’t some quixotic innercity schoolhouse schlock, or even chiefly about their fragile bond. The real lived-in drama occurs outside the classroom and inside Dan.

— Nicolas Rapold

THE DESCENT
R, 99 minutes

A savage drama of spelunking gone awry, “The Descent” covers some of the same underground as 2005’s “The Cave,” but with far more style, chills, thrills, panache, and gore. There are times, notably in its tense and claustrophobic first half, when it ascends to the level of classic horror.

Six yuppie women decide to bond with a caving trip to Appalachia. The descent itself, deep into the caves and deeper into trouble, is brilliantly and grippingly filmed. You’ll feel that you’re there. You’ll wish you didn’t. Our luckless ladies discover that uncooperative geology and one really nastily broken leg are the least of their problems. They have company down there.

The film swaps suspense for splatter, slaughter, cannibal-snacking, and some of the most satisfying images of human-onmonster combat since that bus ride in the remake of “Dawn of the Dead.”

—Andrew Stuttaford

SHERRYBABY
R, 96 minutes

Maggie Gyllenhaal plays the title character, and just like Julia Roberts in “Erin Brockovich,” she sets out on a scantily clad expedition to exceed preconceived notions about herself. But “Sherrybaby” is everything that “Erin Brockovich” was not. Thanks mostly to Ms. Gyllenhaal’s tumultuous performance, it is a much more realistic portrayal of someone struggling against the constraints of low expectation.

Though an ex-con and former heroin addict, Sherry is determined to straighten out her life. She returns home after three years, expecting to rehabilitate her relationship with her daughter. While it is endearing to watch someone turn her life around for the sake of a child, it is nevertheless difficult to watch someone who, despite a strong desire to do right, just can’t cut it.

— Meghan Keane