Best films of 2019: five-star movies to catch up with

Beautiful Boy

David and Nic Sheff are the father and son living through addiction and heartbreak in Beautiful Boy, Felix Van Groeningen's stunning feature.

Steve Carell and Timothée Chalamet bring unfiltered love and commitment to the roles, as the film expands its factual reach to pack a serous emotional punch.

Can You Ever Forgive Me?

The Diary of a Teenage Girl director Marielle Heller teams up with Melissa McCarthy to show the actor's compelling dramatic strength as literary forger and writer Lee Israel.

The result is an empathetic and deeply touching portrait of an imperfect woman, played brilliantly by McCarthy alongside Richard E. Grant in an Oscar-nominated performance.

If Beale Street Could Talk

A story of everlasting love against adversity comes to the fore in the first English-language screen adaptation of a James Baldwin novel.

Barry Jenkins follows his Oscar win on Moonlight with a deeply tender film, showcasing his enduring talent.

Benjamin

From the fame of Never Mind the Buzzcocks, Simon Amstell has grown leaps and bounds. The comedian directs his second film, Benjamin, as a balm for self-torturing lonely souls.

The story focuses on a coming of age that somewhat mirrors that of its maker. Colin Morgan plays the eponymous lanky, pale young man with a mop of dark curly hair. He too has just made his second film. Amstell pours himself into Benjamin, brimming with wit and endless, obsessive self-questioning about his emotional threshold.

Happy as Lazzaro

After winning Best Screenplay in Cannes last year, Happy As Lazzaro, Alice Rohrwacher's pastoral Italian tale, wowed the world when it hit cinemas this Spring.

What begins as a commentary on rural precarity turns into something altogether more hypnotic and hazy. Rohrwacher gives a voice to marginalised groups in a pastoral setting, but never sacrifices the alchemy of more abstract cinema.

Mid90s

Jonah Hill marks his directorial debut with a hard exploration of male adolescence. Stevie (Sunny Suljic) befriends a group of older skaters to escape his abusive home life.

Mid90s is a mini-masterpiece that doesn’t look down on or up to its flawed characters – they simply are. The skaters’ incompetence and general sense of danger don’t matter, it’s merely showing a truthful entrance into teenagehood.

Madeline's Madeline

Indie filmmaker Josephine Decker returns with her third feature film Madeline's Madeline, featuring a star-making debut performance from Helena Howard.

The knotty ideas are brought to life with unprecedented immersion that never sacrifices sophisticated intelligence. Decker builds a world where the audience is thrust into the fiction's feelings with immense strength.

Toy Story 4

Woody, Buzz, Bo Peep and friends are back in Pixar's most soulful film in years – Toy Story 4 delivers enough love and laughter for a lifetime.

The film’s arrival fallacy allows the emotional climax to be felt strongly, balancing sparkling humour with the rewards of enduring loyalty that has supported a lifelong adventure.

Midsommar

Midsommar may be the most disturbing break-up movie ever made. Ari Aster's follow-up to Hereditary travels to a Swedish cult to unpeel anxieties in a young couple.

Florence Pugh offers a knockout performance in a sunny nightmare that will have you thinking about your less-than-perfect ex for weeks.

The Souvenir

National treasure Joanna Hogg returns with her fourth feature, a loosely autobiographical portrait of a creative young woman facing emotional upheaval.

Honor Swinton Byrne (daughter of Tilda) makes her beguiling debut opposite Tom Burke in a decadent, dangerous love story that's both elegant and alarming.

Marriage Story

Noah Baumbach (Frances Ha) returns with a tender film about the difficulties of divorce on an intimate scale, with the help of Scarlett Johansson, Adam Driver and Laura Dern.

The portrait of a separation is simple and sincere, but the film operates with such lucid compassion that it feels like Marriage Story could hold the key to the most intimate and complex humanity in the faintest of heartbeats.

The Irishman

Martin Scorsese is back with a new title, and a whole host of stars. The Irishman gives Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci and Al Pacino the roles of a lifetime.

The story, based on Charles Brandt’s 2004 memoir I Heard You Paint Houses, retells the life of Frank Sheeran, a war veteran, driver and hired hitman, through his alliances with (and involvement in the disappearance of) politician Jimmy Hoffa, and the crime business of the Bufalino family.

Little Women

Louisa May Alcott's seminal novel has been adapted for the big screen almost 10 times now – but in Greta Gerwig's hands, Little Women feels brand new. The director follows Lady Bird with another female coming-of-age experience, even more ambitious.

Saoirse Ronan, Florence Pugh, Eliza Scanlen and Emma Watson star as the March sisters, alongside Timothée Chalamet as Laurie Laurence. It's at once familiar and wholly original – a fresh take already sure to be beloved by the entire world.