Coming-of-Age Movies, Ranked

Rob Reiner's adaptation of Stephen King's novella 'The Body' distilled boyhood friendship into a single train-track summer; it earned an Oscar nomination for its screenplay and remains a fixture on greatest-of-all-time lists.

Linklater filmed the same cast over 12 real years to watch a boy age from 6 to 18 on screen; it won the Golden Globe for Best Drama and Patricia Arquette a Best Supporting Actress Oscar.

Truffaut's semi-autobiographical debut launched the French New Wave and won him Best Director at Cannes; its final freeze-frame of a boy running to the sea is one of cinema's most cited images.

Told in three chapters of a Black gay man's life in Miami, it won the Academy Award for Best Picture in 2017 (after the famous envelope mix-up) on a budget of roughly $1.5 million.

Greta Gerwig's solo directorial debut earned five Oscar nominations including Best Picture and Best Director, and its senior-year Sacramento portrait was widely praised for its mother-daughter honesty.

John Hughes locked five high-school archetypes in a Saturday detention and let them talk; it became the defining teen film of the 1980s and cemented the 'Brat Pack.'

Set over an Italian summer, it won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for James Ivory and made Timothée Chalamet, then 22, the youngest Best Actor nominee since 1939.

Robin Williams's inspirational-teacher drama won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay and turned 'O Captain! My Captain!' and 'carpe diem' into pop-culture shorthand.

John Singleton became the first Black filmmaker and youngest person ever nominated for the Best Director Oscar for this South Central Los Angeles drama, made when he was just 23.

Cameron Crowe's semi-autobiographical tale of a teen writing for Rolling Stone won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay and is beloved for its 'Tiny Dancer' tour-bus singalong.

Stephen Chbosky adapted and directed his own bestselling novel, giving Emma Watson and Logan Lerman a tunnel-drive anthem and a sincere take on trauma and first friendships.

Bo Burnham's directorial debut captured middle-school anxiety in the smartphone age so acutely it won the Writers Guild award for Best Original Screenplay and Elsie Fisher an Indie Spirit nod.

Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg's raunchy last-night-of-high-school comedy launched Jonah Hill, Michael Cera, and 'McLovin' into stardom and became a defining teen comedy of its era.

Diablo Cody won the Best Original Screenplay Oscar for this quick-witted teen-pregnancy comedy, which grossed over $230 million worldwide against a $6.5 million budget.

Matthew Broderick's fourth-wall-breaking Chicago hooky day is one of the most quotable teen films ever, though it's more wish-fulfillment fantasy than the genre's usual emotional reckoning.

Miles Teller and Shailene Woodley earned a Sundance Special Jury acting prize, but the film's slow, alcohol-shadowed romance never broke out beyond critical circles.

A cult deadpan comedy that made 'Vote for Pedro' a phenomenon, but its plotless quirk is more meme fuel than genuine coming-of-age depth.

John Hughes's directorial debut has genuinely tender Molly Ringwald moments, but its racist Long Duk Dong caricature and a queasy date-rape subplot have aged badly.

Adapted from One Direction fan-fiction, it holds a rock-bottom Rotten Tomatoes score around 17% and was widely panned for romanticizing a toxic relationship.

A Netflix hit that critics savaged for its possessive love interest and 'no-dating-my-sibling' premise; it scored a dismal 17% on Rotten Tomatoes yet spawned two sequels.