We study the existence, nonexistence and multiplicity of positive solutions for the family of problems $-\Delta u=f_{\lambda }(x,u)$, $u\in H_0^1\left(\Omega \right)$, where $\Omega$ is a bounded domain in ${ℝ}^N$, $N\ge 3$ and $\lambda >0$ is a parameter. The results include the well-known nonlinearities of the Ambrosetti–Brezis–Cerami type in a more general form, namely $\lambda a\left(x\right)u^q+b\left(x\right)u^p$, where $0\le q<1<p\le 2^{*}-1$. The coefficient $a\left(x\right)$ is assumed to be nonnegative but $b\left(x\right)$ is allowed to change sign, even in the critical case. The notions of local superlinearity and local sublinearity introduced in [9] are essential in this...