Based on a true story.

For many movie-going audiences, seeing those words on the big screen is enough to send a spike of pleasure down their spine. Biopics and films based on real-life events are insanely popular, going on to win 16 of the most recent Best Picture awards at the Oscars. Of the five nominees in Best Actor at the 2019 Academy Awards, four were performances from a biopic. The exception to the rule was Bradley Cooper’s blistering performance as Jackson Maine in A Star Is Born, but the winner, famously, was Rami Malek as Freddie Mercury in Bohemian Rhapsody.

Audiences and critics alike can’t get enough of biopics, and we don’t blame them. There’s something thrilling about watching a true story, featuring familiar faces, on the silver screen. It’s more exciting and intimate than reading about them in a history book – in a biopic, it feels like you’re really getting under the skin of the person whose life story you are watching unfold.

Like Fred Rogers, the celebrated American children’s television host who is the subject of a new biopic A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood (in cinemas in the US and the UK on 22 November). Directed by female filmmaker Marielle Heller and starring Tom Hanks as the entertainer himself, the film attempts to dig into the question of what it means to be a celebrity, and what it means to be a hero. BYO Kleenex for this one.

Your definitive guide to 2019’s best biopics and real-life movies