Movies to Watch With Coming of age

Superboys of Malegaon

Dir. Reema Kagti

Based on the life of a real small town filmmaker, this coming-of-age film is a familiar underdog story. After their…

Bob Trevino Likes It

Dir. Tracie Laymon

With the anonymity of the internet, it’s hard to trust that the stranger on the other side would be a…

Forever

Based on the Judy Blume novel of the same name, Forever follows two teens in Los Angeles as they navigate…

Pillion

Dir. Harry Lighton

Given the other depictions of BDSM on film, we weren’t sure how Pillion would turn out. Much more so with…

Overcompensating

The most surprising thing about Overcompensating is that, underneath the sexual romps and irreverent humor, there exists something sweet in…

Young Hearts

Dir. Anthony Schatteman

Because of the progress society has made, modern day gay romances don’t need to rely on tragedy for conflict. That’s…

Jentry Chau vs the Underworld

After the cool partnerships Titmouse and Netflix had, their next work was bound to be something to look forward to.…

Blue Box

When a show is focused on a kid and their sport, chances are, the main character holds a passion for…

Boy Swallows Universe

Coming-of-age shows are practically Netflix’s bread-and-butter, but the working class side of Brisbane in the 80’s is a suburb we…

DAN DA DAN

During adolescence, teenagers get to learn and discover themselves and the world, but for most people, this means going through…

One Day

Dir. Molly Manners

With a film version that didn’t live up to the hype of the original novel, Netflix’s adaptation of One Day…

The Glassworker

Dir. Usman Riaz

Who hasn’t been inspired by Studio Ghibli? Pakistan’s first ever hand-drawn animated feature clearly takes inspiration from the famed film…

The Makanai: Cooking for the Maiko House

Dir. Female director & Hirokazu Kore-eda

On the surface, The Makanai is a simple, slice-of-life show about food and friendship. While it is that, to be…

Stonewalling

Dir. Huang Ji & Ryuji Otsuka

At two hours and nearly 30 minutes, Stonewalling is quite long. The third film from spouses Ryuji Otsuka and Huang…

Scrapper

Dir. Charlotte Regan

Be prepared to have the expectations you form after reading Scrapper’s synopsis shattered: though it is about a 12-year-old dealing…

Everything Now

Messier than Heartstopper, but tamer than Skins, Everything Now has everything you’d expect from a British teen show. Sexuality, vices,…

We Grown Now

Dir. Minhal Baig

Places evoke certain emotions, but even the most rundown, cramped projects feel special when they’re home. We Grown Now is…

Snack Shack

Dir. Adam Rehmeier

Snack Shack is the quintessential summer movie. It’s sun-soaked and full of mirth as it follows two rowdy boys fighting…

Perpetrator

Dir. Jennifer Reeder

There’s a degree of removal in Perpetrator which some viewers may find jarring: most visibly, in the performances, whose heightened…

Penelope

If you’ve seen one too many true crime documentaries, you might shake your head at the things sixteen-year-old Penelope does…

Polite Society

Dir. Nida Manzoor

Kill Bill meets Bend It Like Beckham in this wild ride about a martial arts-obsessed British-Pakistani teenager who views her…

Scott Pilgrim Takes Off

Watching the trailers, and even the first ten minutes, Scott Pilgrim Takes Off just seems like a rehash of the…

The Starling Girl

Dir. Laurel Parmet

The agonizing tug of war between dogma and desire is sharply illustrated in writer-director Laurel Parmet’s feature debut, set inside…

Janet Planet

Dir. Annie Baker

Many films have been made about that uniquely taut mother-daughter bond, but maybe none is as delicate as Janet Planet.…

Turtles All the Way Down

Dir. Hannah Marks

Those familiar with John Green’s many book-to-movie adaptations (The Fault in Our Stars, Paper Towns) will recognize the author’s signature…

Orion and the Dark

Dir. Sean Charmatz

Going to sleep is something we do every day, though, when we were kids, it certainly wasn’t easy. With family-friendly…

Blue Giant

Dir. Yuzuru Tachikawa

2023 was a great year for animation with films like Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, Nimona, and The Boy and the…

Suncoast

Dir. Laura Chinn

In Suncoast, writer-director Laura Chinn takes the personal tragedy of losing her brother to cancer and weaves it into something…

Remy & Arletta

Dir. Arthur De Larroche

Based on the novel from writer, producer, and lead Micaela Wittman, indie drama Remy & Arletta is deeply personal. It’s…

18×2 Beyond Youthful Days

Dir. Michihito Fujii

We sacrifice so much for our dreams, so if it all fails, whether that be because of ourselves or because…

Turn of the Tide

Also known as Rabo de Peixe, after the real town where the series is based, Turn of the Tide follows…

Falcon Lake

Dir. Charlotte Le Bon

The gorgeous grain of Falcon Lake’s lush 16mm cinematography instantly gives it an air of nostalgia, as if the movie…

The Lying Life of Adults

Based on a novel, The Lying Life of Adults might feel, at first, like a standard Netflix coming-of-age series, complete…

Last Film Show

Dir. Pan Nalin

Like many coming-of-age films about films, it’s easy to assume that Last Film Show would be a derivative of all-time…

Iwájú

White creators handling African stories rarely turn out well, so thankfully, Disney decided to collaborate with pan-African Kugali Studio for…