Adolescence isn’t easy, from raging hormones to peer pressure and the need to find your place in a world that is just beginning to open up. Turbulent Teens brings you 16 coming-of-age movies exploring the rollercoaster of adolescence, tackling themes ranging from rebellion and sex to peer groups and puberty.
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1. Donnie Darko (2001)
I do not intend to unpack Richard Kelly’s sublime slice of science fiction, horror, and drama entirely; after all, even a fair few dissertations have been unable to nail down all the themes held in Donnie Darko. Kelly’s movie is the cinematic equivalent of an earworm, as it consumes your thoughts for days, weeks and even months after viewing. It’s like being shrunk and injected into the confused and volatile mind of a teenager or a vivid dream that gnaws away at you long after you wake.
Donnie Darko is a cinematic masterpiece that came close to never being released in theatres. Like so many of the best films ever made, from Citizen Kane to 2001: A Space Odyssey, Kelly’s film means different things to different people and morphs into something new with every repeat journey down the cinematic rabbit hole, and to be Frank, that’s a damn rare and precious thing. In this collection of 15 adventures in time and space, Donnie Darko is without doubt the most fascinating, engaging and mysterious puzzle box movie.
2. Harold and Maude (1971)
To say Harold Chasen’s life is turbulent is an understatement; after all, he spends all his time devising new suicide scenarios while taunting his emotionally distant mother (Vivian Pickles). Harold (Bud Cort) is disturbed! But he is also looking for something we all seek at one time or another: the meaning of life.
Upon attending an individual’s funeral, he doesn’t know, Harold meets 79-year-old Maude (Ruth Gordon). Maude is a live wire —eccentric, kind, and mysterious —and to Harold, she is magnetic and beautiful. As Harold and Maude grow closer, they slowly become one as they explore the meaning of life and the foundations of love, friendship and companionship.
Harold and Maude may have bombed at the box office, but it has since earned cult status thanks to its wickedly sharp comedy, incredibly tender love story, and humanism. Alive with the music of Cat Stevens, Harold and Maude is a hilarious, heartbreaking, beautiful, and rare film that carries a deep, significant meaning —one that continues to resonate as two souls find each other in the right place at just the right time.
Turbulent Teens – 16 Coming of Age Movies
3. The Outsiders (1983)
Based on the 1967 novel of the same name by S. E. Hinton, Francis Ford Coppola’s The Outsiders would launch the so-called ’80s Brat Pack. But despite a who’s-who of talent on screen, including Emilio Estevez, Rob Lowe, and a young Tom Cruise, the movie belongs to C. Thomas Howell, Matt Dillon and Ralph Macchio, and to the stunning cinematography of Stephen H. Burum.
Francis Ford Coppola’s exquisite journey into the no-man’s land between childhood and adulthood writhes with themes of class struggle, gang culture, brotherly love and confusion – its razor-sharp commentary a world away from the dulcet tones of Stevie Wonder’s ‘Stay Gold’ that opens the film.
The setting is Tulsa, Oklahoma, and the time period is the early 1960s. Here, two gangs — the Greasers and the Socs — find their allegiances and lives divided by wealth, educational opportunity, and family surname. But that doesn’t stop Ponyboy Curtis (C Thomas Howell) from falling for Cherry Valance (Diane Lane), a soc in all but name. But before you think this is a simple rewrite of West Side Story, Ponyboy’s best friend, Johnny (Ralph Macchio), accidentally kills a soc in self-defence.
Dally (Matt Dillon) gives them cash and tells Johnny and Ponyboy to get out of town, leading them to a dangerous, abandoned church where love, heroism, and tragedy await. The Outsiders is at its strongest when discussing the interface between poverty and opportunity. Here, the fault lines that still divide the United States are laid bare as we witness two boys explore the social barriers and restricted opportunities surrounding them in a story that shares many of the same beats as West Side Story and Rebel Without a Cause.
As Ponyboy and Johnny hide in a church, it’s the poetry of Robert Frost and the words of Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With the Wind that offer solace, the first offering a discussion on the fleeting beauty of youth and the second the nature of chivalry and masculinity. Johnny and Ponyboy are not just friends or gang acquaintances; they are two sides of the same coin and brothers in all but blood.
Turbulent Teens – 16 Coming of Age Movies
4. Kes (1969)
Ken Loach’s second feature film, Kes, would see him adapt Barry Hines’ novel A Kestrel for a Knave, working closely with the author to maintain the book’s themes. Here, Loach would explore the British education system and its failure to support working-class children, often forcing them into manual labour despite their skills and abilities.
Influenced by the ‘Kitchen Sink‘ movement and Italian neo-realism, Loach would craft a film bathed in documentary-like realism as he unpicked late ‘60s Britain and the class divide that haunted education, employment and opportunity. Loach beautifully captures the hostile environment surrounding young Billy and the moments of calm and solitude he finds through his Kestral, Kes, as the adult world threatens to derail his freedom. Loach layers Billy’s journey with moments of humour, love, and profound sadness as Kes lays bare the realities of poverty, class oppression and isolation. While we would hope things have now moved on, Billy’s life and Loach’s commentary sadly continue to feel all too relevant in Britain today.
Turbulent Teens – 16 Coming of Age Movies
5. The Dreamers (2003)
The ’60s would see a new generation define the Western world’s cultural landscape. This new generation was bold, creative, and driven by a collective need to break free from the sterility of the past. They rebelled against their parents’ worldview and challenged traditional political thought, while also giving rise to a new form of cinematic art and expressionism.
Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Dreamers is set during the student protests and riots that engulfed Paris in 1968, but this is no ordinary coming-of-age story of rebellion. Bertolucci’s narrative about art, film, and personal reinvention is driven by hormonal energy and sex. It’s about the need for escape and belonging, and the rebellious urge to redefine the boundaries of sex and love, as we follow Matthew (Michael Pitt), an American exchange student, and the free-spirited twins Théo (Louis Garrel) and Isabelle (Eva Green).
Alive with hormonal energy, excitement and uncertainty, Bertolucci captures the vibrant colours of youth in a way few films have managed through the heat of infatuation and the joy and pain of sexual discovery. The Dreamers eloquently plays with expressionism and escape, and never hesitates to explore the blurred lines between art, sex, and cinema as American conservatism meets European liberalism on the streets of Paris.
6. Eighth Grade (2018)
Eighth Grade is unique; it captures a universal perspective on an immensely subjective experience. If you had said before 2018 that a male comedian in his late twenties would perfectly capture the feelings of a female middle-schooler in the online age, many, including me, would have scoffed. Yet, that is precisely what Bo Burnham achieved with his stunning directorial debut.
This treasure was crafted through Bo Burnham’s comedy routine over many years as he grappled with themes of sexuality, the sense of self, mental illness, and anxiety amidst an online audience. Maybe for that reason, Eighth Grade is one of the most anxiety-inducing films I have ever watched, a trait typically reserved for terrifying horror or heart-pumping thrillers. Of course, for some, Eighth Grade is a horror as it puts the terror of mingling as a teen on full display, with a grossly honest depiction of how truly awkward adolescence is.
In interviews, Burnham commented on the importance of the eighth grade (Year 9 in the UK) as a crucial year for forming self-awareness, and perhaps that’s what makes the film strangely terrifying. We walk alongside Kayla Day (Elsie Fisher) as she struggles with social connections, yearns to return to childhood and desperately seeks adult experiences. It is as if Burnham somehow bottled the modern essence of being thirteen before releasing it on an unsuspecting audience. The way that Kayla, Olivia, and Gabe interact is authentic, as are the anxieties and uncertainties with an internet-age bow.
However, for all of Burnham’s mastery, newcomer Fisher was the real star. Bo decided on Elsie because “she was the only one who felt like a shy kid pretending to be confident – everyone else felt like a confident kid pretending to be shy.” That statement alone reflects the experience of so many of us. I don’t believe we ever stop pretending to be confident – fake it till you make it, right? This is why Eighth Grade is such a heart-pounding experience. It feels like you’ve been dropped into a nightmare from secondary school, and you’re perpetually in fight-or-flight mode. You desperately want to reach out and tell Kayla, “This will pass,” just as you wished someone had told you the same.
One of Eighth Grade’s most fascinating assets to this day is Anna Meredith’s soundtrack, where scenes pulsate with electronic melodies and technological sonnets. In Meredith’s musical world, each sound underscores the emotions Kayla conveys to her online audience and friends throughout the film. But when she finally speaks with her dad, it’s silent, her fire-side chat with Mark (Josh Hamilton), the film’s beating heart.
7. White Squall (1996)
Some films vanish without a trace for no real reason, and White Squall is one of those movies. Directed by Ridley Scott with an all-star cast of up-and-coming actors, including Scott Wolf, Ryan Phillippe, Balthazar Getty, Jeremy Sisto and Ethan Embry, White Squall should have knocked the ball out of the park on its theatrical release. Despite being led by Jeff Bridges, Caroline Goodall, and John Savage and distributed by Hollywood Studios (Disney), White Squall was the second Ridley Scott movie to flop in a row, following 1492: Conquest of Paradise (1992).
In 1961, thirteen teenage boys set off for a year in the Caribbean on the Ocean Academy Albatross schooner. Under the guidance of their Captain, Christopher Sheldon (Jeff Bridges), and his wife, Dr Alice Sheldon (Caroline Goodall), the boys would learn teamwork, mathematics, seamanship, and more as they worked together across the Ocean. However, in 1961, the Albatross was hit by a reported White Squall, and the boy’s journey and education ended in tragedy. Scott’s fictionalised account of the journey plays fast and loose with the facts but is elevated by the outstanding performances of its young cast.
White Squall is, in essence, a coming-of-age movie about the bonds of brotherhood, the expectations of masculinity that are often difficult to navigate in youth, and the desperate need to escape to find oneself.
Turbulent Teens – 16 Coming of Age Movies
8. Days of the Bagnold Summer (2019)
Do you remember the long summer holidays away from school at the tender age of 15? As we grow older, many of us now look back on those summer breaks through rose-tinted glasses, but they were often painful, disappointing, and challenging for both our parents and us. During those forced holidays, our hormonal confusion and desire for freedom clashed with relentless boredom and frustration, leading to uncomfortable conversations, brief moments of pleasure and embarrassing excursions.
The reality of those long summer vacations is rarely reflected in film, with many movies opting to tell us tales of rebellion, defiance, sex and drugs over teenage life’s tedious and frustrating realities. Simon Bird’s Days of the Bagnold Summer joyously breaks that convention. Bird offers us a delightfully intuitive comedy as we follow mother and son, Sue and Daniel Bagnold (played by Earl Cave and Monica Dolan), during a lazy, challenging, and transformative summer holiday. Bird celebrates the uneasy, uncertain love between a mother and son as adolescence takes hold, reflecting an unspoken reality: adolescence and midlife both suck!
9. The 400 Blows (1959)
François Truffaut’s debut remains one of the most powerful, sublime and cutting explorations of youth committed to celluloid; it is a masterpiece that leaves an enduring mark. Antoine Doinel (Jean-Pierre Léaud) is a troubled boy from an unhappy home who steals to pass the time, is a truant, and sits on the periphery of society, never fitting the expectations or rules adults impose. For a class assignment, Antoine copies a passage from Balzac’s Quest of the Absolute (1834) to tell the story of his grandfather’s death. However, his teacher doesn’t celebrate his appreciation for literature or his creativity in using and adapting the text; instead, he punishes Antoine, pushing him further to the edge and out of school.
From this point on, Antoine’s life is caught in a spiral that sees his mother, stepfather, and community continue to fail him as a detention centre for troubled young people comes into view. Nobody celebrates his love of literature, art or life, and no one sees beyond the “troubled” label he has been given. Antoine’s only saviour will be himself if he can escape the repressive and restrictive adult world surrounding him. As Truffaut’s film ends, that escape comes into view, the possibility of a new beginning shining through the darkness.
Les Quatre Cents Coups adopts a first-person filmmaking approach, giving rise to the French New Wave. But for all its artistic prowess and power in shaping films to come, the lived experience behind Truffaut’s film remains its most compelling element, as Truffaut invites us to explore the pain, rejection, and confusion of his youth through Jean-Pierre Léaud’s naturalistic performance.
Turbulent Teens – 16 Coming of Age Movies
10. Dazed and Confused (1993)
It’s the final day of school during the summer of 1976 in Austin, Texas. As the classrooms empty, nervous junior high graduates face the horror of “hazing” by a group of seniors led by O’Bannion (Ben Affleck). This ritual involves a paddle and a derrière, protected only by a thin layer of denim.
Richard Linklater’s masterpiece perfectly encapsulates the shifting teenage subcultures of ’70s America through a cloud of weed smoke, exhaust fumes, peer pressure, and booze. Like American Graffiti many years before, Linklater explores the transition from school to adult life while reflecting on the final years of a dramatically changing youth culture. This is America before the sharp transition to a 1980s culture of capitalism, personal wealth, power and possessions. It’s a culture bound together by emerging women’s liberation, initiations, peer-group belonging, and bonding. Here, the prerequisites of popularity are defined not by what you have but by how cool you are in the eyes of others and your musical tastes.
Like the smoke from a joint riding on the light summer breeze, we watch as one night unfolds, a night not unlike many others but captivating all the same, in a movie that feels as directionless and cool as the teens at its heart.
11. A Love Story (1970)
Few films encapsulate the emotion and intensity of teenage life like Roy Andersson’s beautiful and complex tale of young love in ’70s Sweden. Anderson tenderly explores the first throws of love, jealousy and emotion against a backdrop of dysfunctional family life. In A Love Story, the beauty of Bergman dovetails with a darkly comic, tender coming-of-age tale that demonstrates how family life shapes young people’s life chances. However, for all its visual beauty, it is the film’s realism, particularly in its exploration of first love, sex, and emotional development, that makes it a work of art.
Often overlooked, A Love Story is undoubtedly one of the most beautiful explorations of first love ever brought to the screen. Anderson’s tale carries a Romeo-and-Juliet-inspired intensity as two young lovers meet, fall apart amid family struggles, and attempt reconciliation in one of the best coming-of-age movies ever made.
12. Boyz n the Hood (1991)
John Singleton’s uncompromising exploration of inner-city life for young African Americans not only broke the glass ceiling but also took a sledgehammer to it, creating one of the most influential and important films of the 1990s. While many may argue Boyz n the Hood is a typical coming-of-age film of the period, nothing could be further from the truth. Here, Singleton’s movie not only embraced the spirit and drive of Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing (1989) but further explored the reality of inner-city life for African-American teens in the early 1990s.
Singleton would directly confront systemic racism, neglect, and police/community relations at a time when the Rodney King case only further highlighted the institutional racism still rampant in American society. Boyz n the Hood would be the first of several movies from Singleton exploring race and culture in the United States, and it remains his finest work.
Turbulent Teens – 16 Coming of Age Movies
13. Lean on Pete (2018)
Andrew Haigh’s Lean on Pete is a stunning exploration of one young man’s journey through the emotional, social, and personal turmoil of family breakdown and neglect. Haigh’s tale of modern America and the relationship between family, community, and opportunity is challenging, relentless, and rooted in conversations about the social divisions of the United States. Through the journey of Charley (Charlie Plummer), Haigh captures the loneliness and isolation of teenage life, as well as the devastating realities of childhood poverty and neglect, as we follow Charley and an ageing racehorse named Pete.
Plummer’s performance is stunning as he delicately explores the coming-of-age process through the eyes of a hurt and isolated young man who has lost all trust in humanity. Charley’s only peace, calm and solace comes from an animal who listens without judgment. But, as Charley discovers, the world is far from a forgiving place, and no matter how far and how fast you run, we all have to face the demons of our past eventually.
14. Léolo (1992)
Whether Jean-Claude Lauzon‘s French-Canadian film is a dark fantasy or a powerful exploration of adolescent mental health, sexual discovery, and dysfunctional family remains debatable. Lauzon’s film shifts between Léo’s fantasy world and the darkness of the real world surrounding him. His imaginary world is full of childhood fears, comedy, fantasies and uncertain but exciting new sexual thoughts. At the same time, his external world is rooted in fragmented family relationships, declining mental health and community isolation.
While Lauzon’s film may initially inhabit Italian-inspired dark comedy, Léolo takes a much more serious turn as we realise that Léo has no choice but to live in the fantasy world of his writing, the real world far too painful and upsetting for his young mind. As Léo says, “Solitude is my castle. That’s where I have my chair, my table, my bed, my breeze and my sun. When I sit anywhere but in my solitude, I sit in exile. I sit in Fakeland. Because I dream, I’m not”. Here, Lauzon offers us a profoundly challenging and complex portrait of adolescent mental health and escapism through the often grotesque dream-like state of a boy trying to make sense of an incomprehensible adult world.
Turbulent Teens – 16 Coming of Age Movies
15. I Killed My Mother (2009)
In 2009, Xavier Dolan emerged as one of the most exciting young writers and directors of his generation with his debut, I Killed My Mother. Dolan would explore the anger, frustration, and hurt of teenage life through family conflict, unspoken love, and the need for escape, as a mother and son clashed in a dance of independence.
Dolan wrote the screenplay for I Killed My Mother at the tender age of sixteen, and as a result, he conveys the volatility of youth in a way few adult writers could. Themes of family breakdown, emerging sexuality and an urgent need for independence dovetail with the need to escape parental control in a film that understands the complexity and fireworks of the teenage/parent relationship.
16. Mommy (2014)
I Killed My Mother may have announced Xavier Dolan’s arrival, but Mommy would cement his place as one of his generation’s most exciting writers and directors. Mommy would embrace the loneliness and uncontrollable anger of teenage rebellion, as well as the heartbreak of parental support against all odds, through a poignant, emotional, and beautiful story of a mother’s struggle to support her son. Here, themes of isolation, rebellion, freedom, and social imprisonment surround each character as they scream for escape, clawing at the social bars that contain them.
Mommy is Xavier Dolan at his very best, as he challenges the audience with powerful discussions of belonging, love, and despair, through a captivating screenplay and outstanding performances that writhe with emotion and energy. Once seen, never forgotten, Mommy is a modern cinematic masterpiece.
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