FilmSchoolRejects - The 50 Best Coming of Age Movies
Created by eiriknielsen.
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Growing up: we all do it. No two people have exactly the same coming-of-age story, yet more often than not, we’re drawn to many the same youth-centered stories on screen, deeming them classics and rewatching them again and again. Young people are rarely given the power to tell their own stories, so a coming-of-age film that captures a specific generation, culture, or subculture feels like a rare and special thing for those who are reflected on screen, especially when the film itself finds a viewer during their most formative phase. A good coming-of-age film can become an emblem of sorts, a touchstone that’s at once deeply personal in its description of a fleeting, emotional era of life, and universal in its appeal to anyone who’s lived through it.
The best coming-of-age films mix nostalgic familiarity, impressionistic experiences, and a dollop of brutal honesty that comes with the jarring, often unwelcome understanding of the adult world that accompanies adolescence. That last part is usually handed across time from the more experienced filmmaker to the younger protagonist, a retrospective technique that’s unique to the subgenre and that lends the greatest coming of age stories a sort of prismatic blend of naivety and wisdom.
Although the entries on this list span eight decades, you may notice a significant amount of recent movies. Have coming-of-age films gotten better over time? Maybe not, but American films have certainly begun to reflect the diverse realities of the off-screen world more in recent decades than ever before, so it’s no wonder the best new teen stories each feel honest, unique, and timeless. It’s worth noting that we made the editorial decision to leave off any would-be classics that are too new to look at with any distance, meaning that staff-loved 2019 films like Booksmart and Little Women are excluded from the ranking.
Read on for our list of the best coming-of-age stories of all time, then join us in being grateful to have made it out the other side of adolescence.
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1 new
Cidade de Deus
2002 — a.k.a. City of God, in 22 top lists Check -
2 new
Les quatre cents coups
1959 — a.k.a. The 400 Blows, in 26 top lists Check -
3 new
The Breakfast Club
1985, in 10 top lists Check -
4 new
Eighth Grade
2018, in 3 top lists -
5 new
Carrie
1976, in 11 top lists Check -
6 new
Stand by Me
1986, in 11 top lists Check -
7 new
Ferris Bueller's Day Off
1986, in 11 top lists Check -
8 new
Moonlight
2016, in 13 top lists Check -
9 new
Lady Bird
2017, in 11 top lists Check -
10 new
An Education
2009, in 1 top list Check -
11 new
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
2018, in 21 top lists Check -
12 new
The Virgin Suicides
1999, in 6 top lists Check -
13 new
Call Me by Your Name
2017, in 11 top lists -
14 new
Breaking Away
1979, in 8 top lists Check -
15 new
The Graduate
1967, in 29 top lists Check -
16 new
Y tu mamá también
2001, in 15 top lists Check -
17 new
20th Century Women
2016, in 1 top list Check -
18 new
35 rhums
2008 — a.k.a. 35 Shots of Rum, in 4 top lists Check -
19 new
Juno
2007, in 12 top lists Check -
20 new
The Edge of Seventeen
2016, in 0 top lists Check -
21 new
Dead Poets Society
1989, in 12 top lists Check -
22 new
Fish Tank
2009, in 8 top lists Check -
23 new
Lucas
1986, in 0 top lists Check -
24 new
Minding the Gap
2018, in 2 top lists -
25 new
American Graffiti
1973, in 17 top lists Check -
26 new
El laberinto del fauno
2006 — a.k.a. Pan's Labyrinth, in 33 top lists Check -
27 new
Rushmore
1998, in 11 top lists Check -
28 new
Hunt for the Wilderpeople
2016, in 3 top lists Check -
29 new
Star Wars
1977, in 40 top lists Check -
30 new
The Diary of a Teenage Girl
2015, in 1 top list Check -
31 new
The Tree of Life
2011, in 13 top lists Check -
32 new
Mommy
2014, in 5 top lists Check -
33 new
Rebel Without a Cause
1955, in 16 top lists Check -
34 new
Harold and Maude
1971, in 22 top lists Check -
35 new
Badlands
1973, in 23 top lists Check -
36 new
Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi
2001 — a.k.a. Spirited Away, in 39 top lists Check -
37 new
10 Things I Hate About You
1999, in 2 top lists Check -
38 new
Clueless
1995, in 8 top lists Check -
39 new
Persepolis
2007, in 9 top lists Check -
40 new
The Chocolate War
1988, in 0 top lists Check -
41 new
Raw
2016 — a.k.a. Delinquent, in 0 top lists Check -
42 new
Marie Antoinette
2006, in 4 top lists Check -
43 new
Boyhood
2014, in 16 top lists Check -
44 new
Dirty Dancing
1987, in 10 top lists Check -
45 new
Aparajito
1956 — a.k.a. The Unvanquished, in 15 top lists Check -
46 new
Picnic at Hanging Rock
1975, in 15 top lists Check -
47 new
Boy
2010, in 1 top list Check -
48 new
The Perks of Being a Wallflower
2012, in 2 top lists Check -
49 new
Sedmikrásky
1966 — a.k.a. Daisies, in 19 top lists Check -
50 new
Ginger Snaps
2000, in 6 top lists Check
Last updated on Jun 4, 2021; source