Beautiful Boy is a 2018 American biographical drama film directed by Felix van Groeningen, in his English-language feature debut.

The film stars Steve Carell, Timothée Chalamet, Maura Tierney, and Amy Ryan, and deals with a father-son relationship increasingly strained by the latter's drug addiction.

Beautiful Boy had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 7, 2018, and was theatrically released in the United States on October 12, 2018, by Amazon Studios.

Nic eventually completes his rehab program, and seeing his improvements, combined with wishful thinking, David allows him to go away to college on his own, to become a writer.

Around this time, beginning to become suspicious of his slowly changing behavior, such as stealing his younger siblings' savings, David decides to read Nic's diary.

To his horror, Nic has filled half the pages by colorfully describing his growing addictions through worrying words and disturbing cartoons.

He attends 12 step meetings, spends time with his sponsor Spencer, and even works at a drug clinic to help newer patients overcome their addiction.

Seeing Nic back to his old self, interacting happily with his two younger half-siblings, David is proud of his son's newfound sobriety, as is his wife Karen.

Later that night, Nic drives into San Francisco, where he runs into Lauren, a fellow drug addict from his past, and confesses his desire to "party," despite having been clean for quite some time.

He added, "while we deliberately did not choose a [well-known actor] at the time of the auditions... there is less burden, now of course, it's great... Nobody had foreseen that he would suddenly become world-famous, but it is completely deserved.

"[16] In March 2017, Amy Ryan, Maura Tierney, Kaitlyn Dever, Timothy Hutton, and LisaGay Hamilton joined the cast of the film.

[22] Prior to filming, van Groeningen arranged for two weeks of rehearsals with the cast, a common practice in productions in his native Belgium but not in Hollywood.

[23][24] Production designer Ethan Tobman used the house from the TV series Big Little Lies for a set, to which he made numerous alterations including to the counters.

[25] The first scenes shot for the film were the most intense, according to van Groeningen, and involved Chalamet's character being hospitalized for a drug overdose.

The website's critical consensus reads: "Beautiful Boy sees Timothée Chalamet and Steve Carell delivering showcase work that's often powerful enough to make up for the story's muted emotional impact.