Two Oscar hopefuls step into the spotlight this week, but only one deserves the adulation.

We review both, as well as a terrific new detective series on Max.

Here’s our roundup.

“The Seed of the Sacred Fig” >> It’s baffling that there’s not more awards hype for Mohammad Rasoulof’s family drama/thriller that has forced the acclaimed director to live in exile in Germany. In his native Iran, there is an eight-year prison sentence waiting for him for making the film.

Rasoulof’s epic (2 hours, 47 minutes) is Germany’s entry for best international film at the upcoming Oscars. The drama dismantles Iran’s patriarchal system and illustrates how its sexist views stifle women, some of whom are rebelling and paying for it with violence. It’s one of the most powerful films this year, with a timeline that mirrors the Woman, Life, Freedom uprising in Iran that took flight after the death of Jina Amini in a Tehran hospital following her arrest for not wearing a wearing a hijab. Yet Rasoulof miraculously finds morsels of hope for the future.

Rasoulof — already familiar with having been arrested for his “propaganda” films — shot “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” in secret in Iran. But you’d never know it from how accomplished this film looks and feels.

A family crisis ensues when Iman (Misagh Zare) lands a promotion as an investigative judge. The job seems too good to be true and will help Iman better provide for his wife Najmeh (Soheila Golestani) and daughters Rezvan (Mahsa Rostam) and Sana (Setareh Maleki). But it comes at moral cost — Iman’s true job is to rubber stamp government judgments without ever viewing them. Some are death sentences.

That action heightens safety concerns for his family and leads him to get a firearm that later goes missing. Meanwhile, his daughters’ outrage over how women and protesters in Iran are being treated escalates, which further fuel Iman’s anger. His job demands everyone in the family keep a low profile and stay off social media — something his daughters are not inclined to do.

The situation grows ever more intense and leads to a resolution laden with metaphor.

Rasoulof effectively weaves video of real protests into his story, giving it a vibrant, electric resonance. While it might sound like “The Seed of the Sacred Fig” forsakes storytelling for activism, there is compelling story here. Yes, Rasoulof is angry over what he sees playing out in his homeland, but he equally values creating full-blooded characters and complex situations that don’t go where you think they would. The result is a surprising and revelatory film that shakes its first at an authoritarian government and, in doing so, turns into one of the best films of 2024.

Details >> out of 4; opens in limited release Friday and expands Dec. 20.

“Maria” >> A gripe that many have with biography films is that they tend to adhere to the moldy infant-to-death trajectory of its subject’s life. Pablo Larraín scoffs at that approach. His string of biopics — 2016’s “Jackie,” 2016’s “Neruda,” 2021’s “Spencer” and his latest on opera singer Maria Callas (Angelina Jolie) — defy the linear approach and consistently come up with alternative interpretations of the lives, loves and actions of its main characters: Jackie Kennedy, Pablo Neruda, and Princess Diana (even giving her life a happy yellow brick road ending). Unlike the bulk of those films,“ Maria” seems far more traditional and less adventurous. That’s curious since Steven Knight’s screenplay uses the drugged-out visions in the last week of Callas’ tragic life as his opportunity to open up the story, summoning imaginary characters such as a journalist named Mandrax (Kodi Smit-McPhee, a good actor wasted here) to egg her on.

The scenario also leads Callas to re-create rehearsals in a (mostly) empty theater, giving the film the opportunity to flash back to some of her grand performances, presented well here. Jolie is a very good actor, but too many times Larraín’s camera stays focused for far too long on her posing face, resulting in the feeling that film is stuck on the surface and never gets under the skin.

To make the film, well, sing, Jolie’s own singing got blended in with actual recordings of Callas’ amazing voice, and it benefits Jolie’s performance. But even with all the sumptuous visuals (cinematographer Edward Lachman’s work is to die for), elaborate costumes and lush production elements, the film itself feels rather passionless, and that’s a problem given that it’s about a commanding opera star who led a passion-filled life.

Larraín and Jolie fare best when the director uses black-and-white (as he did in his hugely underrated “El Conde”) for flashbacks of exchanges between Callas and Aristotle Onassis (Haluk Bilginer) and one, briefly, with JFK (Caspar Phillipson). More time gets devoted to Callas and her relationship with her butler (Pierfrancesco Favino) and housemaid (Alba Rohrwacher) in her Paris apartment. Those scenes are indeed entertaining, particularly when Maria insists that a piano get moved again and again. But “Maria” never quite reaches the high note the singer deserves.

Details >> ; drops this week on Netflix.

“Get Millie Black” >> Celebrated author Marlon James created, executive produced and wrote the compelling story for this terrific five-part Max series. It ventures far beyond the traditional crime solving story and opens a window to a welcome, new perspective, although the staples of a mystery — red herrings, suspects and twists aplenty — are all there. James’ crime story sinks its roots deep into the gnarled past of a family in Kingstown, Jamaica. Former Scotland Yard detective Millie-Jean Black (Tamara Lawrance) returns to that capital city and moves back into the home that is festering with bad memories and still occupied by her sibling (a very good Chnya McQueen) and her abusive mother. As the family drama intensifies, so does Black’s search for a missing female teen, a case that mushrooms in importance. “Get Millie Black” devotes time to all of its characters’ stories, which heightens its portrayal of why Black is so determined to bring bad people to justice at all costs.

Details >> ; available on Max.

Contact Randy Myers at sotisrandy@gmail.com.