Browse Movies : Coming-of-Age

In White Bird, we follow Julian (Bryce Gheisar), who has struggled to belong ever since he was expelled from his former school for his treatment of Auggie Pullman. To transform his life, Julian’s grandmother (Helen Mirren) finally reveals to Julian her own story of courage — during her youth in Nazi-occupied France, a boy shelters her from mortal danger. They find first love in a stunning, magical world of their own creation, while the boy’s mother (Gillian Anderson) risks everything to keep her safe.

The uplifting true story of the bicycling team at Rite of Passage’s RidgeView Academy, a medium-security correctional school in Colorado. The film follows beleaguered coach Greg Townsend (Matthew Modine) as he rounds up an unlikely crew of incarcerated students for a seemingly impossible bike ride from Denver to the Grand Canyon.

17-year-old Sam (Collias) embarks on a three-day backpacking trip in the Catskills with her dad, Chris (Le Gros) and his oldest friend, Matt (McCarthy). As the two men quickly settle into a gently quarrelsome brotherly dynamic, airing long-held grievances, Sam, wise beyond her years, attempts to mediate. But when lines are crossed and Sam’s trust is betrayed, tensions reach a fever pitch, as Sam struggles with her dad’s emotional limitations and experiences the universal moment when the parental bond is tested.

Signs of Love takes place in the Port Richmond section of Philadelphia, a tough neighborhood where cultures mix but the law of the streets still rules. Frankie, a young man from north Philly who dreams of a better life, struggles to provide a normal existence for his teen nephew. Frankie just hopes they can escape the traps of petty crime and substance abuse his father has fallen into. When Frankie meets Jane, a deaf girl from a well-off nearby family, he suddenly sees hope for love, and a better life – but only if he can escape the predicament of the streets and the influence of his older sister.

A determined teenage boy struggles to find acceptance within the Jr. Lifeguards of Hermosa Beach while juggling relationships and challenges in the summer of 1986.

The film tells the story of Javed (Viveik Kalra), a British teen of Pakistani descent growing up in the town of Luton, England, in 1987. Amidst the racial and economic turmoil of the times, he writes poetry as a means to escape the intolerance of his hometown and the inflexibility of his traditional father. But when a classmate introduces him to the music of Bruce Springsteen, Javed sees parallels to his working-class life in the powerful lyrics. As Javed discovers a cathartic outlet for his own pent-up dreams, he also begins to find the courage to express himself in his own unique voice.

The Tender Bar tells the story of J.R. (Sheridan), a fatherless boy growing up in the glow of a bar where the bartender, his Uncle Charlie (Affleck), is the sharpest and most colorful of an assortment of quirky and demonstrative father figures. As the boy’s determined mother (Rabe) struggles to provide her son with opportunities denied to her — and leave the dilapidated home of her outrageous if begrudgingly supportive father (Christopher Lloyd) — J.R. begins to gamely, if not always gracefully, pursue his romantic and professional dreams — with one foot persistently placed in Uncle Charlie’s bar.

A coming-of-age movie that is loosely based on Steven Spielberg's own childhood growing up in Arizona

Coming-of-age film about Caleb, a South Florida teen. On the eve of his high school graduation, everything changes when he's exposed to HIV. While he waits three months for his results, he finds love in the most unlikely of places.

Follows a teenage boy who watches his parents’ marriage start to come apart after the family moves to Montana.

Inspired by true experiences of grief, girlhood, and growing up, Jessie Barr’s Sophie Jones provides a stirring portrait of a sixteen year old. Stunned by the untimely death of her mother and struggling with the myriad challenges of teendom, Sophie (played with striking immediacy by the director’s cousin Jessica Barr) tries everything she can to feel something again, while holding herself together, in this sensitive, acutely realized, and utterly relatable coming-of-age story.

Crossroads tells the story of three childhood friends, Lucy (Britney Spears), Kit (Zoë Saldana) and Mimi (Taryn Manning), who, after eight years apart, rediscover their friendship on a cross-country trip. With barely a plan, practically no money but plenty of dreams, the girls catch a lift with Mimi's handsome friend Ben (Anson Mount) in his convertible. Along the way they not only gather experiences that will change their lives, but they also discover how important it is to hold onto their hearts' desires.

Simultaneously follows the friendship formed between 13-year-olds Jake (Theo Taplitz) and Tony (Michael Barbieri), and an increasingly tense dispute between their parents - all set against a backdrop of the ever-changing socioeconomic situation in modern New York.

First Love follows Jim (Fiennes Tiffin), a senior in high school experiencing the highs and lows of his first love with Ann (Park) as they navigate their pending departure to college. At the same time, Jim’s parents (Kruger and Donovan) are dealing with the familial fallout of a financial crisis.

Fourteen-year-old Homer Macauley is determined to be the best and fastest bicycle telegraph messenger anyone has ever seen. His older brother has gone to war, leaving Homer to look after his widowed mother, his older sister and his 4-year-old brother, Ulysses. And so it is that as spring turns to summer, 1942, Homer Macauley delivers messages of love, hope, pain... and death... to the good people of Ithaca.

A look at what it’s like to grow up as a young woman in today’s modern world. Everyone knows that growing up is hard, and life is no easier for high school junior Nadine, who is already at peak awkwardness when her all-star older brother Darian starts dating her best friend Krista. All at once, Nadine feels more alone than ever, until the unexpected friendship of a thoughtful boy gives her a glimmer of hope that things just might not be so terrible after all.

London, 1962. Two teenage girls – Ginger and Rosa ­- are inseparable; they play truant together, discuss religion, politics and hairstyles, and dream of lives bigger than their mothers’ frustrated domesticity. But, as the Cold War meets the sexual revolution, and the threat of nuclear holocaust escalates, the lifelong friendship of the two girls is shattered - by the clash of desire and the determination to survive.

When her parents split and her father Kenichi moves out of their family home, Renko (Tomoko Tabata), a bright and energetic 6th grade girl, is left alone with her mother, Nazuna, in Kyoto. As Nazuna sets out new rules for their life together, Renko makes plans of her own, and sees to it that any changes happening in her family happen on her terms.