Charts: Lists
This page shows you the list charts. By default, the movies are ordered by how many times they have been marked as a favorite. However, you can also sort by other information, such as the total number of times it has been marked as a dislike.
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Coming of Age
Favs/dislikes: 8:0. Stories about growing up. Bildungsroman. Some are simple and sweet, others stunted, delayed, or disturbing. Sex, drugs, rock'n'roll, sports, war, divorce, religion, depression, punk, drought, graduation, lazy summers, first loves, death, puberty, domineering parents - these are the hazards and catalysts of change. -
FilmSchoolRejects - The 50 Best Coming of Age Movies
Favs/dislikes: 1:0. 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.