50 Greatest Coming of Age Movies
by jordanhores | created - 16 Aug 2018 | updated - 19 Aug 2019 | PublicThese coming of age movies are rated by how much focus among children and teenagers, adolescent storyline, situations and issues surrounding the struggle between youth and adulthood. Excluding animated films and film franchises. No specific ranking.
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1. The Breakfast Club (1985)
R | 97 min | Comedy, Drama
Five high school students meet in Saturday detention and discover how they have a great deal more in common than they thought.
Director: John Hughes | Stars: Emilio Estevez, Judd Nelson, Molly Ringwald, Ally Sheedy
Votes: 436,062 | Gross: $45.88M
2. American Graffiti (1973)
PG | 110 min | Comedy, Drama
A group of teenagers in California's central valley spend one final night after their 1962 high school graduation cruising the strip with their buddies before they pursue their varying goals.
Director: George Lucas | Stars: Richard Dreyfuss, Ron Howard, Paul Le Mat, Charles Martin Smith
Votes: 98,036 | Gross: $115.00M
3. Pretty in Pink (1986)
PG-13 | 97 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
A poor girl must choose between the affections of dating her childhood sweetheart or a rich but sensitive playboy.
Director: Howard Deutch | Stars: Molly Ringwald, Jon Cryer, Harry Dean Stanton, Annie Potts
Votes: 88,493 | Gross: $40.47M
4. Sixteen Candles (1984)
PG | 93 min | Comedy, Romance
A girl's "sweet" sixteenth birthday is anything but special: her family forgets about it, and she suffers from every embarrassment possible.
Director: John Hughes | Stars: Molly Ringwald, Anthony Michael Hall, Justin Henry, Michael Schoeffling
Votes: 126,148 | Gross: $23.69M
5. Stand by Me (1986)
R | 89 min | Adventure, Comedy, Drama
A writer recounts a childhood journey with his friends to find the body of a missing boy.
Director: Rob Reiner | Stars: Wil Wheaton, River Phoenix, Corey Feldman, Jerry O'Connell
Votes: 441,101 | Gross: $52.29M
6. River's Edge (1986)
R | 99 min | Crime, Drama
A high school slacker commits a shocking act and proceeds to let his friends in on the secret. However, the friends' reaction is almost as ambiguous and perplexing as the crime itself.
Director: Tim Hunter | Stars: Crispin Glover, Keanu Reeves, Ione Skye, Daniel Roebuck
Votes: 20,636 | Gross: $4.60M
7. Mermaids (1990)
PG-13 | 110 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
An unconventional single mother relocates with her two daughters to a small Massachusetts town in 1963, where a number of events and relationships both challenge and strengthen their familial bonds.
Director: Richard Benjamin | Stars: Cher, Bob Hoskins, Winona Ryder, Michael Schoeffling
Votes: 35,812 | Gross: $35.42M
8. Heavenly Creatures (1994)
R | 99 min | Biography, Crime, Drama
Two teenage girls share a unique bond; their parents, concerned that the friendship is too intense, separate them, and the girls take revenge.
Director: Peter Jackson | Stars: Melanie Lynskey, Kate Winslet, Sarah Peirse, Diana Kent
Votes: 67,369 | Gross: $3.05M
9. Empire of the Sun (1987)
PG | 153 min | Drama, War
A young English boy struggles to survive under Japanese occupation of China during World War II.
Director: Steven Spielberg | Stars: Christian Bale, John Malkovich, Miranda Richardson, Nigel Havers
Votes: 134,196 | Gross: $22.24M
10. The Journey of Natty Gann (1985)
PG | 101 min | Adventure, Drama, Family
In the 1930s, a tomboy runs away from her guardian to join her single father who is 2,000 miles away, where he has found work.
Director: Jeremy Kagan | Stars: Meredith Salenger, John Cusack, Jed, Ray Wise
Votes: 6,874 | Gross: $2.14M
11. Tex (1982)
PG | 103 min | Drama
After their mother dies and their father leaves them, teenage brothers Tex and Mason McCormick struggle to make it on their own.
Director: Tim Hunter | Stars: Matt Dillon, Jim Metzler, Meg Tilly, Bill McKinney
Votes: 2,446 | Gross: $7.00M
12. Holes (2003)
PG | 117 min | Adventure, Comedy, Drama
A wrongfully convicted boy is sent to a brutal desert detention camp where he joins the job of digging holes for some mysterious reason.
Director: Andrew Davis | Stars: Shia LaBeouf, Sigourney Weaver, Jon Voight, Tim Blake Nelson
Votes: 100,083 | Gross: $67.41M
13. Dazed and Confused (1993)
R | 103 min | Comedy
The adventures of high school and junior high students on the last day of school in May 1976.
Director: Richard Linklater | Stars: Jason London, Wiley Wiggins, Matthew McConaughey, Rory Cochrane
Votes: 199,120 | Gross: $7.99M
14. Where the Day Takes You (1992)
R | 105 min | Crime, Drama, Thriller
King is a young man, but he's already a veteran of life on the streets of Los Angeles. The leader of a group of runaways, King acts as a mentor to troubled kids such as gay hustler Little J and junkie Greg.
Director: Marc Rocco | Stars: Dermot Mulroney, Robert Knepper, Laura San Giacomo, Sean Astin
Votes: 3,906 | Gross: $0.39M
15. Almost Famous (2000)
R | 122 min | Adventure, Comedy, Drama
A high-school boy in the early 1970s is given the chance to write a story for Rolling Stone magazine about an up-and-coming rock band as he accompanies them on their concert tour.
Director: Cameron Crowe | Stars: Billy Crudup, Patrick Fugit, Kate Hudson, Frances McDormand
Votes: 293,111 | Gross: $32.53M
16. The Last Picture Show (1971)
R | 118 min | Drama, Romance
In 1951, a group of high schoolers come of age in a bleak, isolated, atrophied North Texas town that is slowly dying, both culturally and economically.
Director: Peter Bogdanovich | Stars: Timothy Bottoms, Jeff Bridges, Cybill Shepherd, Ben Johnson
Votes: 52,319 | Gross: $29.13M
17. Next Stop, Greenwich Village (1976)
R | 111 min | Comedy, Drama
The ups and downs of life as experienced by a group of aspiring young artists in the early Fifties New York.
Director: Paul Mazursky | Stars: Lenny Baker, Shelley Winters, Ellen Greene, Lois Smith
Votes: 2,466
18. Summer of '42 (1971)
PG | 104 min | Drama, Romance
During his summer vacation on Nantucket Island in 1942, a youth eagerly awaiting his first sexual encounter finds himself developing an innocent love for a young woman awaiting news on her soldier husband's fate in WWII.
Director: Robert Mulligan | Stars: Jennifer O'Neill, Gary Grimes, Jerry Houser, Oliver Conant
Votes: 9,107 | Gross: $7.38M
19. Dead Poets Society (1989)
PG | 128 min | Comedy, Drama
Maverick teacher John Keating returns in 1959 to the prestigious New England boys' boarding school where he was once a star student, using poetry to embolden his pupils to new heights of self-expression.
Director: Peter Weir | Stars: Robin Williams, Robert Sean Leonard, Ethan Hawke, Josh Charles
Votes: 544,924 | Gross: $95.86M
20. The Karate Kid (1984)
PG | 126 min | Action, Drama, Family
A martial arts master agrees to teach karate to a bullied teenager.
Director: John G. Avildsen | Stars: Ralph Macchio, Pat Morita, Elisabeth Shue, Martin Kove
Votes: 244,225 | Gross: $90.82M
21. Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982)
R | 90 min | Comedy, Drama
A group of Southern California high school students are enjoying their most important subjects: sex, drugs and rock n' roll.
Director: Amy Heckerling | Stars: Sean Penn, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Judge Reinhold, Robert Romanus
Votes: 115,621 | Gross: $27.09M
22. Say Anything (1989)
PG-13 | 100 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
A noble underachiever and a beautiful valedictorian fall in love the summer before she goes off to college.
Director: Cameron Crowe | Stars: John Cusack, Ione Skye, John Mahoney, Lili Taylor
Votes: 95,825 | Gross: $20.78M
23. Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986)
PG-13 | 103 min | Comedy
A popular high school student, admired by his peers, decides to take a day off from school and goes to extreme lengths to pull it off, to the chagrin of his Dean, who'll do anything to stop him.
Director: John Hughes | Stars: Matthew Broderick, Alan Ruck, Mia Sara, Jeffrey Jones
Votes: 386,039 | Gross: $70.14M
24. Bridge to Terabithia (2007)
PG | 96 min | Drama, Family, Fantasy
A preteen's life turns upside down when he befriends the new girl in school and they imagine a whole new fantasy world to escape reality.
Director: Gabor Csupo | Stars: Josh Hutcherson, AnnaSophia Robb, Zooey Deschanel, Robert Patrick
Votes: 173,096 | Gross: $82.27M
25. Superbad (2007)
R | 113 min | Comedy
Two co-dependent high school seniors are forced to deal with separation anxiety after their plan to stage a booze-soaked party goes awry.
Director: Greg Mottola | Stars: Michael Cera, Jonah Hill, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Bill Hader
Votes: 631,728 | Gross: $121.46M
26. The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (2005)
PG | 119 min | Comedy, Drama, Romance
Four best girlfriends hatch a plan to stay connected with one another as their lives start off in different directions: they pass around a pair of secondhand jeans that fits each of their bodies perfectly.
Director: Ken Kwapis | Stars: Amber Tamblyn, Alexis Bledel, America Ferrera, Blake Lively
Votes: 64,978 | Gross: $39.01M
27. Rebel Without a Cause (1955)
PG-13 | 111 min | Drama
A rebellious young man with a troubled past comes to a new town, finding friends and enemies.
Director: Nicholas Ray | Stars: James Dean, Natalie Wood, Sal Mineo, Jim Backus
Votes: 97,849
28. East of Eden (1955)
PG | 118 min | Drama
Two brothers in 1910s California struggle to maintain their strict, Bible-toting father's favor as an old secret about their long-absent mother comes to light.
Director: Elia Kazan | Stars: James Dean, Raymond Massey, Julie Harris, Burl Ives
Votes: 48,776
29. Mean Girls (2004)
PG-13 | 97 min | Comedy
Cady Heron is a hit with The Plastics, the A-list girl clique at her new school, until she makes the mistake of falling for Aaron Samuels, the ex-boyfriend of alpha Plastic Regina George.
Director: Mark Waters | Stars: Lindsay Lohan, Jonathan Bennett, Rachel McAdams, Tina Fey
Votes: 434,576 | Gross: $86.06M
30. The Yearling (1946)
Approved | 128 min | Drama, Family, Western
A boy persuades his parents to allow him to adopt a young deer, but what will happen if the deer misbehaves?
Director: Clarence Brown | Stars: Gregory Peck, Jane Wyman, Claude Jarman Jr., Chill Wills
Votes: 6,461 | Gross: $5.20M
31. The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer (1947)
Approved | 95 min | Comedy, Romance
A high school girl falls for a playboy artist, with screwball results.
Director: Irving Reis | Stars: Cary Grant, Myrna Loy, Shirley Temple, Rudy Vallee
Votes: 9,601
32. The Secret Garden (1949)
Approved | 92 min | Drama, Family
A girl is sent to live with her uncle on his estate when her parents die. There she discovers much intrigue, family history and secrets and personal baggage. In particular, a screaming child and...a secret garden.
Director: Fred M. Wilcox | Stars: Margaret O'Brien, Herbert Marshall, Dean Stockwell, Gladys Cooper
Votes: 3,302
33. Our Vines Have Tender Grapes (1945)
Passed | 105 min | Drama, Family
A Norwegian farmer lovingly raises his daughter in rural World War II-era Benson Junction, Wisconsin.
Director: Roy Rowland | Stars: Edward G. Robinson, Margaret O'Brien, James Craig, Frances Gifford
Votes: 2,344
34. Tenth Avenue Angel (1948)
Passed | 74 min | Drama
While a man was in prison, a little girl who is very close to him was told that he was traveling the world. What will happen if she discovers the truth?
Director: Roy Rowland | Stars: Margaret O'Brien, Angela Lansbury, George Murphy, Phyllis Thaxter
Votes: 926
35. Bright Eyes (1934)
Approved | 85 min | Comedy, Drama, Family
An orphaned girl is taken in by a snobbish family at the insistence of their rich, crotchety uncle, even as her devoted aviator godfather fights for custody.
Director: David Butler | Stars: Shirley Temple, James Dunn, Jane Darwell, Judith Allen
Votes: 2,460
36. West Side Story (1961)
Approved | 153 min | Crime, Drama, Musical
Two youngsters from rival New York City gangs fall in love, but tensions between their respective friends build toward tragedy.
Directors: Jerome Robbins, Robert Wise | Stars: Natalie Wood, George Chakiris, Richard Beymer, Russ Tamblyn
Votes: 121,096 | Gross: $43.66M
37. The Night of the Hunter (1955)
Not Rated | 92 min | Crime, Drama, Film-Noir
A self-proclaimed preacher marries a gullible widow whose young children are reluctant to tell him where their real dad hid the $10,000 he'd stolen in a robbery.
Director: Charles Laughton | Stars: Robert Mitchum, Shelley Winters, Lillian Gish, James Gleason
Votes: 97,229 | Gross: $0.65M
38. National Velvet (1944)
Passed | 123 min | Drama, Family, Sport
A jaded former jockey helps a young girl prepare a wild but gifted horse for England's Grand National Sweepstakes.
Director: Clarence Brown | Stars: Mickey Rooney, Elizabeth Taylor, Donald Crisp, Anne Revere
Votes: 7,996
39. Crime in the Streets (1956)
Passed | 91 min | Action, Crime, Drama
Social worker tries to befriend local slum gang.
Director: Don Siegel | Stars: John Cassavetes, Sal Mineo, James Whitmore, Mark Rydell
Votes: 1,386
40. Wild Boys of the Road (1933)
Passed | 68 min | Adventure, Drama
In the depths of the Depression, two teenage boys strike out on their own in order to help their struggling parents and find life on the road tougher than expected.
Director: William A. Wellman | Stars: Frankie Darro, Rochelle Hudson, Edwin Phillips, Dorothy Coonan Wellman
Votes: 2,332
41. My Brother Talks to Horses (1947)
Approved | 92 min | Comedy, Romance
A classic film featuring a boy who is able to hear what the racehorses at the track are thinking. Using his knowledge of their moods, he figures out how well they will run, and tells his ... See full summary »
Director: Fred Zinnemann | Stars: Jackie 'Butch' Jenkins, Peter Lawford, Beverly Tyler, Edward Arnold
Votes: 282
42. Down to the Sea in Ships (1949)
Approved | 120 min | Action, Adventure, Drama
Whaling ship captain Bering Joy takes his grandson Jed on a whaling trip to teach him core life values while First Mate Dan Lunceford is tasked with tutoring Jed.
Director: Henry Hathaway | Stars: Richard Widmark, Lionel Barrymore, Dean Stockwell, Cecil Kellaway
Votes: 1,104
43. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1945)
PG | 129 min | Drama, Family, Romance
Encouraged by her idealistic if luckless father, a bright and imaginative young woman comes of age in a Brooklyn tenement during the early 1900s.
Director: Elia Kazan | Stars: Dorothy McGuire, Joan Blondell, James Dunn, Lloyd Nolan
Votes: 8,403
44. Home, Sweet Homicide (1946)
Passed | 90 min | Adventure, Comedy, Crime