Based on the best-selling pair of memoirs from father and son David and Nic Sheff, Beautiful Boy chronicles the heartbreaking and inspiring experience of survival, relapse and recovery in a family coping with addiction over many years.

After his death sometime in his 43rd year, suburbanite Lester Burnham tells of the last few weeks of his life, during which he had no idea of his imminent passing. He is a husband to real estate agent Carolyn Burnham and father to high school student Jane Burnham. Although Lester and Carolyn once loved each other, they now merely tolerate each other. Typical wallflower Jane also hates both her parents; the three suffer individually in silence in their home life. Jane tries to steer clear of both her parents. Carolyn, relatively new to the real estate business, wants to create the persona of success to further her career, aspiring to the professional life of Buddy Kane, the king of the real estate business in their neighborhood. Lester merely walks mindlessly through life, including at his job in advertising. His company is downsizing, and he, like all the other employees, has to justify his position to the newly hired efficiency expert to keep his job. Things change for Lester when he falls in love at first sight with Jane's more experienced classmate, Angela Hayes. Both Janie and Angela can see Lester's sexual infatuation with Angela, who courts such attention from any man as a sign that she is model material, she having once appeared in Seventeen and is a career to which she aspires. Lester's infatuation with Angela gives him a reenergized view on life, where he openly doesn't care anymore what anyone thinks about what he does, anyone except Angela. This infatuation coincides with the Fittses moving in next door: homophobic disciplinarian US Marine Colonel Frank Fitts who rules the house with a military fist (that fist being both figurative and literal), his semi-comatose wife Barbara Fitts, and their bright and quietly subversive 18-year-old son Ricky Fitts, who openly abides by his father's rules while behind the scenes lives by his own quite different perspective. Much like Lester's infatuation, Ricky immediately becomes infatuated with Jane; he considers girls like Angela as ordinary. The entry of Angela and the Fittses into the Burnhams' lives ultimately leads to each of the players confronting what is truly in his or her heart.

Zack and Miri are two lifelong platonic friends who make an adult film to pay the rent of their apartment. With their friend Delaney, the couple set out for auditionees for their porn film, but in the process of filming, they realize they feel more for each other than they had before.

In the dystopian world of 2027 London, humans have been incapable of reproducing for 18 year for an unknown reason, meaning the imminent extinction of the species. Britain is the one remaining civilized society on the planet, which has resulted in people wanting to migrate there, so it has become a police state to handle the immigrants, who are placed into refugee camps. Lowly government bureaucrat Theo Faron, once an activist, is approached by the Fishes, deemed a terrorist group, led by his ex-wife Julian Taylor, whom he hasn't seen in almost 20 years, since their marriage disintegrated after their infant son Dylan's death during the 2008 flu pandemic. Although the Fishes did use terrorist means in their on-going revolution against the state in the fight for immigrant rights, Julian vows that they now garner support solely by speaking to the people, and she wants Theo to use his connections to get transit papers for a young immigrant woman named Kee who needs to get to the coast. Although initially reluctant to do it because of the difficulty, Theo is able to grant Julian this favor, however with the change that he now needs to accompany Kee on her journey. As Theo and Kee progress on that journey, Theo learns more and more about what's going on, including the reason that Kee needs to get to the coast, the fact that no one in the group knows if their end destination even exists, and that his and Kee's lives are in greater danger than he believed when they started the journey. But Theo's sole mission becomes to help Kee at any cost for the survival of the species.

In a lonesome house in the countryside between woods and cornfields live nine-year-old twin brothers who are waiting for their mother in the heat of summer. When she comes home, bandaged after cosmetic surgery, nothing is like before. The children start to doubt that this woman is actually their mother. An existential struggle for identity and fundamental trust emerges.

2014 film by Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala

Longing for freedom, the lowly bureaucrat of the Ministry of Truth, Winston Smith, summons up the courage to write down his unspoken desires in his little secret diary. Serving silently at the pleasure of the grim, autocratic hyper-state of Oceania, Smith knows that the English Socialist Party's supreme leader, the omnipotent Big Brother, watches his every move, condemning the already terrified people into a life of slavery. Under those dire circumstances--as the totalitarian government's suffocating stranglehold tightens more and more--Julia, another equally seditious party member, crosses paths with Winston, and a dangerous clandestine affair begins. Now, there's no turning back, and, sooner or later, the illicit couple will have to pay for its hideous crimes against the dictatorial state. What makes a good citizen?

A warrior travels wild expanses on horseback, pursuing the monster that murdered his daughter. His thirst for revenge is the driving force of a film constructed with very few elements, minimalistic and epic at the same time, where fantasy and horror find their more physical and gory incarnations (synopsis in the 2018 Sitges Filmfestival programme catalogue).

The Road Within is about Vincent, a young man suffering from Tourette Syndrome. His mother dies so his estranged father, Robert, is forced to step in. However, Robert's running for political office and doesn't want his son on the campaign trail - so Robert puts Vincent in a clinic that's run by the unconventional Dr. Mia Rose. Once there, Vincent falls in love with an anorexic woman named Marie. Together, they steal Dr. Rose's car, and end up having to kidnap his OCD roommate, Alex, when he threatens to tell on them. With Robert and Dr. Rose in hot pursuit, Vincent, Marie and Alex go on a life changing road trip to deliver the ashes of his mother to the ocean.

Calvin Barr, an old, bitter recluse who was once a legendary assassin for the US government, and whose task to kill Hitler almost changed the course of WWII, is asked to come back from retirement for one final top secret mission - to track down and eliminate a Bigfoot that became infected with a deadly disease that could spread to others if the creature remains on the loose in the forest for too long. During the mission, Barr's WWII past is shown through flashbacks.

Rural England, 1865. Katherine is stifled by her loveless marriage to a bitter man twice her age, whose family are cold and unforgiving. When she embarks on a passionate affair with a young worker on her husband's estate, a force is unleashed inside her, so powerful that she will stop at nothing to get what she wants.

A woman misses the 1:30 train from New York to Boston and a street musician spends the night trying to help her make it back home before her husband does. Throughout the night they learn a lot about one another and eventually find a romance.

2014 American film directed by Chris Evans

Josh Srebnick is 44. He is married to Cornelia, 43, the daughter of Leslie Breitbart, a respected documentary filmmaker. The couple lives comfortably in New York Village and gives the image of happiness. But things are not so rosy as they look: on a personal level, their relationships have been cooling down while they suffer from not having children. On a professional plane, things have deteriorated as well. Josh, who is also a documentary filmmaker like his father-in-law, has lost inspiration: he has been grappling with his last movie for eight years now without being able to complete it. To be true, Josh goes nowhere and his marriage is on the rocks. Things start changing when Josh and Cornelia meet another married pair: Jamie and Darby, a generation younger, express their admiration for Josh (Jamie wishing to become a documentary filmmaker himself). Plus, they are much cooler, smarter and more uninhibited than the two forty-odds. Could they help Josh and Cornelia to revive their couple? Could they give Josh an extra boost of energy to make a fresh start in his art?

Protagonist Alex DeLarge is an "ultraviolent" youth in futuristic Britain. As with all luck, his eventually runs out and he's arrested and convicted of murder. While in prison, Alex learns of an experimental program in which convicts are programmed to detest violence. If he goes through the program, his sentence will be reduced and he will be back on the streets sooner than expected. But Alex's ordeals are far from over once he hits the streets of Britain..

A man stranded in the Arctic after a plane crash must decide whether to remain in the relative safety of his makeshift camp or to embark on a deadly trek through the unknown in hopes of making it out alive.

New England, 1630: William and Katherine try to lead a devout Christian life, homesteading on the edge of an impassible wilderness, with five children. When their newborn son mysteriously vanishes and their crops fail, the family begins to turn on one another. 'The Witch' is a chilling portrait of a family unraveling within their own sins, leaving them prey for an inconceivable evil.

TO WATCH

More lists by Raluca-Maria Georgescu

SEEN

CURRENTLY