25 Coming-of-Age Movies You’ll Never Forget
High school never looked as agonizing or as beautiful as in Greta Gerwig’s first film. Star Saoirse Ronan was funny, endearing, bratty, and overall, relatable, and her relationship with her mother (Laurie Metcalf) showed a complicated but always loving dynamic. And the supporting cast—Tracy Letts, Beanie Feldstein, and Timothée Chalamet and Lucas Hedges in early career roles—is absolutely pitch perfect.
Few films can compare to Barry Jenkins’ second feature, which he adapted from Tarell Alvin McCraney’s play In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue. We see Chiron, who is growing up in a low-income Miami neighborhood, as a young boy, a teenager, and a young adult. He experiences abuse from his mother but also love and guidance from the adult figures who show him support and acceptance. It’s a subtle, quiet, but incredibly powerful portrait of Black coming of age.
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Based on Louise McHugh’s 1964 book about a curious girl whose surreptitious written observations make her an outcast when her friends find her notebook, this adaptation is a revved-up and zippy Nickelodeon film with surprising sensitivity. Harriet’s (Michelle Trachtenberg) farewell to her fired nanny, Golly (Rosie O’Donnell), is just heartbreaking, but there are also eccentric twists like a wealthy Miss Havisham-esque neighbor played by Eartha Kitt.
Alike (Adepero Oduye) is a 17-year-old in Brooklyn struggling to find her identity. While her father supports her, her mother refuses to accept the fact that she might be gay and instead pushes feminine clothing on her. Pariah is director Dee Rees’s first feature film and is partly based on her own life.
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It’s rare for a small indie from a new director to have a cast this stacked. Brie Larson, John Gallgher, Jr., LaKeith Stanfield (in his film debut), Kaitlyn Dever, Rami Malek, and Stephanie Beatriz all starred in Destin Daniel Cretton’s second film. Set at a group home for at-risk kids run by Grace (Larson), it shows how caregivers can struggle in many of the same ways that the kids they care for. It features layered performances and moments of levity.
Richard Linklater filmed star Ellar Coltrane each year from ages six to 18 to naturalistically show the way a child grows up. The script was simple and adjusted for changes that came as Ellar got older. You see the changes in his character, Mason, as his parents (played by Patricia Arquette and Ethan Hawke) divorce, the family moves, and he falls in love, as well as changes in the larger world, like the family’s work on the Obama campaign.
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After a boarding school clears out for Christmas, the campus’s sole occupants are Angus (Dominic Sessa), an angry student whose parents blew him off for the holiday, Mr. Hunham (Paul Giamatti), a cranky teacher annoyed to be working during the break, and Mary (Da’Vine Joy Randolph), the grieving school cook. Newcomer Sessa’s performance makes the film, and Randolph’s earned her a Best Supporting Actress Oscar.
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This ‘90s coming-of-age classic shows four women looking back on their 12-year-old selves during a formative summer. Lesli Linka Glatter found two sets of perfect actresses to play the four characters. Christina Ricci and Rosie O’Donnell each played Roberta at different ages, Thora Birch and Melanie Griffith were Teeny, Demi Moore and Gabby Hoffmann were Samantha, and Ashleigh Aston Moore and Rita Wilson played Chrissy.
Four boys spend a wild weekend looking for a 17th-century pirate’s treasure to save their homes from being turned into land for a golf course. It’s a warm and thrilling movie and features before-they-were-famous performances from Josh Brolin, Sean Astin, Martha Plimpton, and Ke Huy Quan.
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Never have child runaways been so charming. Sam (Jared Gilman), a young boy at summer camp, and Suzy (Kara Hayward) write letters back and forth before deciding to escape together. They feel free on a beach alone together, and what could be terrifying (missing children) seems sweet when cast in Wes Anderson’s glow.
The quintessential ’80s teen movie, The Breakfast Club brings together five kids, each from a very different social group, for a Saturday morning detention. Each of their stories about what led to their punishment is revealing, and as they tell them, bonds form and new understandings are made.
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Igby, a ridiculously wealthy teenager, played by Kieran Culkin with the sardonic tone he’ll later use on Succession, rages at the hypocrisy of his family and their social circle. His mother (Susan Sarandon) is mean, his father (Bill Pullman) is ill, and his brother (Ryan Phillippe) is a conservative. When his mother runs out of schools to send him to, he ends up escaping to New York City.
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One of the most beloved depictions of the student and teacher relationship, Dead Poets Society introduces us to Mr. Keating (Robin Williams), a dynamic English teacher at an all-boys boarding school in 1959. He shows the boys how to see the beauty in poetry and insists that they seize the day. We all could’ve used a professor like Mr. Keating, but for those of us who didn’t, this is the next best thing.
Bo Burnham’s directorial feature debut shows middle school in painfully accurate detail. Desperate to no longer be seen as shy, Kayla (Elsie Fisher) puts on a confident persona in YouTube videos that no one seems to see and tries to make new friends despite being lost and confused. Whether or not social media was a part of your childhood, you’ll find lots to relate to here.
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Over here, Paul Mescal fans! Sophie (Frankie Corio) is an 11-year-old on a resort vacation with her young father (Mescal). Frankie’s time is full of adventures, making friends, and bonding with her dad, all of which she documents with her video camera. Her father struggles, however, and when Sophie revisits this time through her videos, she gains a new perspective years later.
While high, Elliott (Maisy Stella), an 18-year-old living in beautiful seaside Canada, is visited by her 39-year-old self (Aubrey Plaza). Grown-up Elliott has plenty of advice and warnings for younger Elliott in her last summer before college; some are shaped by wisdom, others by fear, and young Elliott needs to figure out which will keep her safe and which will hold her back.
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As the only hearing member of her family, Ruby (Emilia Jones) is in an unusual place. Her parents (Marlee Matlin and Troy Kotsur) and brother (Daniel Durant) have experiences she doesn’t understand, while she’s able to do things they can’t. She works on her family’s fishing boat, but when she joins her school’s choir and begins to nurture her own talent, she starts to realize she might one day do something different from her family.
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