Five-star films to see in Melbourne this weekend

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is a massively fun shaggy-dog story that blends fact and fiction, inserting made-up characters at the heart of real, horrible events (Charles Manson horrible) and then daring history to do its worst. Sitting at the mature, Jackie Brown end of Tarantino’s work, the film is also a love letter to Los Angeles and the film industry, bringing his tongue-in-cheek storytelling together with exquisite craft and killer lead performances from Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio. 

It’s rare for a movie to combine cinematic fireworks and social commentary in quite the thrilling and mischievous way that Korean director Bong Joon-ho manages with Parasite, a slick home-invasion drama that mirrors the masks worn by its characters: polite until they drop the pretence. The director of The Host and Snowpiercer tells the story of a poor Seoul family infiltrating the lives of a super-rich household through suspense, drama, laughs and farce, allowing moments of pure terror, quiet observation and baroque noise to sit happily alongside each other. 

Horror is what happens to people who are already emptied out and vulnerable. It’s an insight that has already yielded Aster two world-class performances, first from Hereditary’s Toni Collette as a ragged, raging mother at sanity’s end, and now from Midsommar’s apple-cheeked Florence Pugh as Dani, an Ativan-popping grad student trembling with concern for her suicidal sister. Pugh joins the guy squad of her frustrated boyfriend, Christian (Jack Reynor), on a Swedish escape, guests of their amiable friend Pelle (Vilhelm Blomgren), who wants to introduce them to his hippieish commune where everyone hugs. All is not what it seems, and the fallout is savage.

The most perfect movie that will ever be made about its subject, Apollo 11 takes the purest documentary idea imaginable – telling the story of the first journey to the moon and back using only the footage captured in the moment – and rides it all the way home. Filmmaker Todd Douglas Miller places an unmistakable emphasis on the thousands of people who toiled in modest synchronicity, pulling off America’s greatest mission without a hitch. Apollo 11 will bring you to tears: it’s a reminder of national functionality, of making the big dream happen without ego or divisiveness.