Banned in China, the powerful eighth feature (1993) of Tian Zhuangzhuang (The Horse Thief) follows its fictional hero, Tietou, and his family from 1953 to 1968. It’s a sublime and often subtle look at how history and politics disrupt ordinary lives, with memorable use of its central courtyard location and a profound sense of how individuals strive to maintain a sense of ethics within a changing society that periodically confounds those ethics or makes them irrelevant. In Mandarin with subtitles. 138 min. (JR)