BISMARCK, North Dakota. In 2012, when Michelle Duppong, who was about to become director of adult formation for the Diocese of Bismarck, North Dakota, asked Jacqueline Matta Balzer if she could be her roommate, Balzer had no idea she was dealing with a possible future saint. Still, “You could just sense there was a holiness about her,” Balzer recalls.

NEW YORK. Fans of the 2017 film “Wonder” may recognize the character of Julian Abans (Bryce Gheisar), a student on whose adjustment to a new school the opening scenes of the touching wartime drama “White Bird” (PG-13, Lionsgate) focus. Julian was the bully who persecuted the facially deformed but heroic-hearted protagonist of the earlier movie.

NEW YORK. Cast aside any concerns about the dangers of artificial intelligence — “The Wild Robot” (PG, Dreamworks) has arrived, a Mary Poppins bot ready to chase your cares away in this warm and fuzzy animated adaptation of the bestselling children’s book by Peter Brown.

NEW YORK. “The afterlife is so random,” observes a character in the horror-comedy sequel “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” (PG-13, Warner Bros.). If the disorganized structure of returning director Tim Burton’s follow-up to the Reagan-era film that first made his reputation as a conjurer of Gothic atmosphere is anything to go by, it must be arbitrary indeed.