When I found out that Tom Hanks had been hired to play Mr. Rogers in the new film, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, I marveled at the perfection of the casting. While Hanks doesn’t actually look much like the famous children’s TV star, he has something more important than superficial resemblance—like Rogers, he exudes decency, empathy, and compassion. Like Rogers, he makes being a good man look effortless.

Of course, being a good man was not effortless for Fred Rogers—he worked at it, every day—and that’s one of the themes of this often touching, occasionally frustrating film.

Matthew Rhys (of The Americans fame) plays Lloyd Vogel, a stand-in for famous Esquire journalist Tom Junod, who is assigned to write a story on Rogers for the magazine’s 1998 Heroes issue. (His editor is played by Christine Lahti, a laughable choice since, as far as I know, there has never been a female editor of Esquire). Vogel is going through some issues of his own—he is a new father, and having a hard time adjusting to the lifestyle change that represents—basically, he makes his attorney wife (Susan Kelechi Watson) do most of the work. He’s estranged from and still very angry at his own father (Chris Cooper), for reasons that will eventually come clear. He mopes around the house and office. In short, he’s a cynical, dark, wounded guy. Exactly the kind of guy Mr. Rogers loves, according to his manager.

So Vogel tromps off to Pittsburgh and gets to watch Mr. Rogers do his thing, including interacting with a child on set. At first, the child is unruly and his sheepish parents keep apologizing for his bad behavior. But Mr. Rogers keeps addressing the boy in that calm, steady voice of us—asking him questions, engaging him, until the boy envelops Rogers in a hug.

Vogel, watching from the sidelines, is both impressed and skeptical. He wonders if Rogers is full of shit. He must be, right? No one could possibly be that decent.

The best parts of A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood are the scenes between Vogel and Rogers, especially their interviews. Vogel keeps trying to get Rogers to open up, but he’s clearly not comfortable talking about himself. Oftentimes, Rogers will acknowledge the sensitivity or insightfulness of the question, without actually answering it. Even more frequently, he’ll turn around the question and try to get Vogel to share things with him—about being a father, about his own father, about his childhood.

Vogel is slightly annoyed by this—but resistance is futile. When Mr. Rogers stares at you with those limpid, caring eyes, you eventually spill your guts.

What I like about this is that it serves two purposes: It shows how Rogers’ genuine empathy has a soothing effect. But it also demonstrates that Rogers was likely a pain in the ass to interview.

I can’t say enough about Hanks’ performance here. I read Taffy Brodesser-Akner’s interview with Hanks in The New York Times, where he repeatedly reminds us that he is not Rogers, he’s very much acting. Indeed. To play Rogers, Hanks slows down his voice and affect. There was a stillness, a minimalism to Rogers’ bearing that Hanks captures perfectly. He also absolutely nails the way Rogers conducted himself on air—staring at the camera, as he explained, as though he were looking into the eyes of one particular child.

What I’m about to say might be a little controversial, but I also think Hanks captures the fact that there was something a little creepy, or at least uncanny, about Rogers: a brilliant adult who nonetheless behaved in a child-like way, who feigned guilelessness, who spent all of his public life physically caring. If nothing else, Rogers’ placid, attentive presence was a little unnerving—and Rhys does a great job of showing how Vogel tried, and mostly failed, to navigate it.

There are, however, a few things about the film I didn’t love. If you hadn’t told me that the director was a woman—Marielle Heller, responsible for the great The Diary of a Teenage Girl and one of my favorite films of last year, Can You Ever Forgive Me?—I would’ve assumed it was a guy. Because you see, Vogel is kind of a jerk. That’s fine, jerks are interesting subject matter. But everyone in the film is always propping him up, supporting him, loving him—including several women—when what he really needs is a swift kick in the ass. In that sense, the film comes dangerously close to the “great man” theory of bad behavior. Vogel is a brilliant writer, therefore, we are to put up with his pugilistic tendencies, his neglect of his wife and infant son, his all-consuming selfishness. Everyone, even Mr. Rogers (especially Mr. Rogers) works very hard to heal him.

My other gripe with the film is that it sags a bit when Rogers isn’t on screen. The film focuses a lot on the relationship between Vogel and his father, Jerry, and, frankly, I just didn’t care about them, at least partly because the Jerry Vogel character is written so broadly (the first time we meet him, he’s at a wedding and drunk). He never seems to have an interesting interior life.

Still, for a film that I occasionally resisted, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood sure made me cry a lot. That scene on the subway in the trailer when the kids sing to Mr. Rogers? It’s even longer and more moving than I expected. And then there’s a final gesture—a bit of sign language that Rogers taught Vogel—that wrecked me. Apparently, it’s not just Lloyd Vogel who needs a little Mr. Rogers in his life. I do, too.

Almost every parent of a young child I know has the same lament: “I buy my kid the most expensive toys money can buy and all he wants to do is play with this [insert common household object].”

That, at least partly, is the premise behind Toy Story 4, yet another funny, heartwarming, and uncommonly wise chapter in Pixar’s enduring film series.

Shortly after the film starts, our hero, the brave and loyal cowboy doll Woody (Tom Hanks), is separated from his girlfriend Bo (as in Peep). She’s been put in a box and is being shipped to, well, God knows where. She says it’s not too late for Woody to slip into the box and join her. After all, toys get lost all the time, she reminds him. Woody takes her hand, tempted. But then Andy—Woody’s boy—comes rushing out of the house, frantic, calling Woody’s name and they both know that Woody isn’t going anywhere. He’s was born to be Andy’s toy.

As always happens in these Toy Story movies, Andy gets older and gives Woody—and all the rest of his toys, including Buzz Lightyear (Tim Allen) and cowgirl Jessie (Joan Cusack)—to his little neighbor, Bonnie. Bonnie plays with Woody at first—there’s a great, gleeful sequence that shows first Andy and then Bonnie running in circles, holding Woody aloft like an airplane—until she doesn’t. More and more, he’s being left in the closet when she pulls out her toys for playtime. Then Bonnie is sent to orientation for kindergarten and, despite her tears, is told that she can’t bring a doll. Woody, in protective mode, sneaks into Bonnie’s backpack so he can look after her. And it’s a good thing, too. With a little help from Woody—who fished the materials out of the trash can—Bonnie creates a doll out of a spork, some pipe cleaner, some ice cream sticks, and some mismatched googly eyes, and names it Forky. Because she made it herself and because the teacher praised her cleverness, Bonnie is immediately attached to this toy above all others.

But Forky (voiced wonderfully by Tony Hale) wasn’t born to be Bonnie’s toy—or anyone’s for that matter. Forky was born to be used for one meal and then thrown away. “Trash?” Forky keeps saying hopefully, trying to do everything in his power to get to the comfort and warmth of a garbage can. It’s Woody’s job, in his mind at least, to keep Forky out of the trash and teach him that he now has a more noble purpose in life.

The Toy Story films, on top of being super nostalgic and bighearted remembrances of childhood, are always rollicking adventures and this one is no different. Bonnie’s family goes on a roadtrip and all the toys—including Forky—go along. Woody has to stand vigil because every time he lets Forky out of his sight, the little utensil goes dumpster diving. And then Forky escapes from the RV and Woody follows him to a quaint town that’s next to a big carnival (the elaborate and neon-lit computer animation at the carnival is wonderful, some of the best of the entire series). They end up at antique store, presided over by Gabby Gabby (Christina Hendricks), a bitter doll with a broken voicebox and no child to call her own, and her henchmen of ventriloquist dummies. The imaginativeness of this is off the charts. Toy Story has rarely veered into “creepy doll” territory, but it’s absolutely perfect here. Those dummies are terrifying and Gabby is a perfect cross section of cute and menacing.

Toy Story 4, more than the other films, is about all the other dolls, the ones who don’t have kids. So we meet those needy antique store dolls and then we meet the carnival dolls, stapled to a wall and waiting to go home. “So this is what gravity feels like,” says Ducky the plush doll (Keegan-Michael Key), released from his wall perch. We meet a bunch of dolls who live in a playground, waiting patiently for the daily rush when school gets out. And we are reunited with Bo, now a streetsmart “Lost Doll” who doesn’t feel she needs to be found. (Also look for a funny Keanu Reeves as Duke Caboom, a Canadian doll modeled after Evel Knievel, who has lost a bit of his nerve.)

At the center of all this is Woody, who embodies every quality of decency and honor and fealty you could ever hope for in a best friend. But what is Woody’s purpose if he’s not a treasured toy? Toy Story 4 asks the question: Can we reinvent ourselves? Can we find a new purpose in life? Can we muster up the courage to be exactly who we are supposed to be in this very moment?

Yup, Toy Story has done it again. They are four-for-four in making me laugh, ugly-cry, think, and marvel at the ingenuity of it all. Just take my money, Pixar. Take it all.