Coming Of Age Story / Film

• A perennial subgenre is the teenaged ensemble comedy. Examples include:
  • American Graffiti was the Trope Codifier for the nostalgia version of this type of film. It's a Random Events Plot involving teenagers at the end of summer vacation in the early 60s. Most of the film is based on George Lucas's own memories of growing up in that era.
  • The Confirmation: A major focus is the tween Anthony maturing and witnessing harsh realities about the world.
  • Fast Times at Ridgemont High follows a group of high school students over the course of one year as they all grapple with issues of impending adulthood.
  • Stand by Me starts out as a road movie where four boys walk a few miles to see a dead body, but morphs into this as the boys talk about their hopes for the future. Also subverts the Nostalgia Filter hard as it shows that 1950s suburbia was far from Arcadia.
  • The Outsiders deals with a feud between two rival gangs — Greasers and Socs. The protagonist is a teen who has to deal with running away from home, attempted murder, rebuilding his relationship with his brothers and the deaths of two friends.
  • Dazed and Confused manages to be this despite an Extremely Short Timespan. It follows the lives of high school students on the last day of school in 1976.
  • The first American Pie film deals with four teens on the verge of graduating high school, who view Sex as Rite-of-Passage and want to all lose their virginity together. Throughout the film, Jerk Jock Oz discovers a sensitive side, Kevin realises that his relationship probably won't last after school and nerdy Jim realises there's more to life than just sex.
• Time Travel elements aside, About Time is about a 21-year-old leaving his parents' home for the first time and going through adulthood. Most of Tim's experiences are very typical of a coming-of-age story: he gets a job, goes through heartbreak after getting rebuffed by his First Love Charlotte, falls in love with Mary, and deals with the grief of his father's death.
• American Honey follows teenaged Star as she joins a traveling sales crew and experiences all the hallmarks of adolescence—first love, finding her own identity, heartbreak, and belonging.
• A Monster Calls: Despite the fantastical themes, the story is ultimately about the brooding and cynical Conor coming to terms with not only the inevitability of his mother's death, but his guilt over his feelings about it. Specifically, Conor unconsciously wants his mother to die, because watching her die slowly is so painful to him, and he wants that pain (and hers) to end. But the end of that pain will only come with her death, which he doesn't really want. Part of what the Monster is ultimately trying to teach Conor is that it's OK to want to stop hurting so much, despite the only way it can do so, and it doesn't mean he doesn't love his mother or really wants her to be gone.
• Antopia is about a young ant named Buzz Lightbee. He begins as a naïve high school boy trying to impress his crush, Princess Samanta, to saving his town from certain destruction.
• An Angel at My Table is a biographical film about writer Janet Frame and follows her from childhood to adulthood, covering experiences ranging from family tragedy to mental illness and first love.
• The "Apu Trilogy" of Bengali films directed by Satyajit Ray, based on the novels Pather Panchali and Aparajito, follow the coming of age of the protagonist Apu Roy over thirty years. It is often considered one of cinema's greatest bildungsroman stories.
• The Big Night: On the night of his 17th birthday, George La Main goes gunning for the man who savagely beat his father: undergoing a traumatic passage into manhood in the process.
• Blue Is the Warmest Color's more accurate title is Life of Adèle: Chapters 1 and 2 rather than Blue Is the Warmest Color as in the original comic book. The film is more of a chronicle of how Adèle transitions from adolescence to adulthood rather than a lesbian love story even though their relationship is the centerpiece of Adèle's life.
• The overriding plot of A Bronx Tale, where teenage Italian-American youth Calogero grows up in the changing and divided world of the 1960s while trying to find his way. Influences pulling him in different directions include, but are not exclusive to his Opposed Mentors, (one being his honest, hardworking and poor immigrant father, the other being the intelligent Affably Evil and wealthy Mafia capo who is like a surrogate father to him) his racist, thuggish neighborhood friends, and his black love interest.
• Call Me by Your Name is about a young Jewish-American boy in 1980s Sicily who develops into an adult through a same-sex romance with his father's summer guest.
• CODA: The film is about Ruby's journey to figure out her own path in life and to realize her independence.
• Dead Poets Society is about a band of friends at a 1950s boarding school who are inspired by their English professor to live life to the fullest.
• Dear Zindagi: Over the course of the film, young artist Kaira gets in touch with herself, starts mending her relationship with her parents, and completes a short film that she needed to kickstart her career.
• The Delinquent: The titular teen delinquent is a school dropout trying to impress his father and girlfriend, but can only work menial jobs and remain a nobody for most of his life. His only skills being his fists, he ends up catching the attention of a mob boss who convinces him to join his gang.
• The Diary Of A Teenage Girl: Minnie an aspiring comic book artist has a secret sexual relationship with Monroe, her mom's boyfriend. Most of the film is about her life growing up in this situation.
• The Devil's Playground is about a 13 year old boy growing up in a Catholic juniorate in 1950s Australia and dealing with the onset of puberty and subsequent conflicts with his conservative religious upbringing.
• For Keeps tackles the topic of teen pregnancy where Stan and Darcy are forced to drop out of school and take up jobs to support their child.
• The Generation Gap stars David Chiang and Agnes Chan as a pair of Star-Crossed Lovers who fled from home after their romance is forbidden by their families. Respectively being a school dropout and a teenager, both protagonists learns the hardships of growing up, struggling in a society that rejects them, matures as a result of their actions, but in typical Chang Cheh fashion don't expect the story to have a happy outcome.
• The Getting of Wisdom is about a teenage girl in 1890s Australia being sent to a prestigious boarding school, where she struggles with such issues as acceptance, conformity, romance, friendship, and achievement.
• Ginger Snaps: More for Brigitte than for Ginger. The film juxtaposes both of them growing up as teens while having to deal with Ginger's lycanthropy (and her normal development, as she gets her period at the same time, which ties into this since both are controlled by the moon). Brigitte has to become very much a young woman, finding the way to cure Ginger but then when that doesn't work at last stabbing her to death in self-defense.
• The Graduate is about directionless college student Benjamin Braddock trying to find himself and escape the suburban ennui that his parents and his girlfriend's parents have found themselves in. He more or less fails.
• In Graduation, four best friends, about to graduate from high school, must find a way to raise money to help a family member in need. When one of them discovers her banker father having an affair, the foursome plots to rob his bank during graduation ceremonies. When things don't go according to plan, they end up learning more about themselves in one day than they ever did in school.
• Handsome Devil deals with the coming of age of nerdy outcast Ned and star athlete Conor at a rugby-mad boarding school, when they're forced to share a room together.
• Labyrinth: A girl learning to grow up, at least to some extent, and leave childish things behind and value her family. Note the scene where the Junk Lady starts digging up all of Sarah's old toys to distract her, and Sarah says "It's all junk!"
• Lady Bird: The titular character is a strong-willed and stubborn teenager navigating her final year of high school as she falls In with the In Crowd, attempts to find love, clashes with her equally strong-willed mother, and tries to escape her Hated Hometown of Sacramento by applying to college in New York.
• Licorice Pizza follows the complicated friendship, bordering on romance, that forms between Gary, a 15-year-old child actor eager to grow up, and Alana, an aimless 25-year-old who has no idea what she wants to do with her life, set in the San Fernando Valley during the summer of 1973.
• A Little Princess is a pretty dark version. The rich heroine Sara Crewe is left an orphan and has to work as a servant to survive. Throughout the story, she learns to hold onto her kindness and use her imagination to survive the bad days.
• The Man in the Moon is about 14-year-old Dani, who is in the early stages of adolescence and experiences first love, sibling rivalry, and heartbreak.
• Man of Steel is about Kal-El growing into his role as the guardian of Earth, Superman, while also going through hardships that come with the territory, where he learns the value of faith in others and hope.
• Moonlight is a coming-of-age story about a young black boy who struggles with bullying and his sexuality.
• My Life as a Dog is a coming-of-age story about a boy's personal growth as he deals with adjusting to life in a new area, friendship, and loss.
• On the Wrong Track is a Shaw Brothers drama revolving around a rebellious teen juvenile delinquent with a disapproving father who forbids his romance with a Vietnamese refugee. One of the examples with a Downer Ending.
• Picture Day is about a Canadian high school student who has to repeat her senior year, and finds herself getting romantically involved with a freshman she used to babysit.
• Pitch Perfect, despite being often described as a film about a cappella singing competitions, is actually about Beca Mitchell's journey from misanthropic jerkass protagonist to a more emotionally mature person capable of friendship and love. It can be argued that the most important musical numbers are not the competition but the more impromptu numbers: the riff-off in which she discovers that despite having joined the Bellas because of a deal made with her father she actually enjoys singing with them, singing Party in the USA on the bus shows her accepting that she's one of those weirdos and likes them, and the practice in the pool in which, by asking Aubrey to pick a song, she shows that she respects the other Bellas.
• Plan B (2021): Definitely. Two friends have to run away from home to brave the wilds of conservative South Dakota to get contraception.
• Punch! is about a high-school senior in Korea trying to find a direction in life, while simultanously bonding with the Missing Mom who abandoned him as a baby.
• Real Women Have Curves is about a Latina teen who tries to forge her own path in life, outside of the expectations her traditional family has set for her.
• Renaissance Man treats several of the Army students in Mr. Ringo's class in this manner.
• Secondhand Lions: A boy is left with his two crotchety uncles while his mother goes out of state to work. At first it's all awkward discomfort, but then they warm up to each other, and one of the uncles tell the boy stories about their "past exploits." By the end he has grown from his shy awkward self, to a self-confident young man determined to take charge of his own life.
  Tagline: Every boy deserves an adventure.
• Smooth Talk (1985) is about Connie, a teenage girl caught between childhood and womanhood. The film is about her exploring her sexuality and the effects that come with that.
• The Spectacular Now has a shallow party boy falling in love with a Geek girl and learning that there is more to life than just having fun and living "in the now".
• As noted above in Comic Books, Spider-Man across all three film continuities fits this in some way.
  • The Sam Raimi-directed Spider-Man Trilogy featured this across each installment. Firstly dealing with Peter leaving high school, his first job, and learning how judgemental the world can be. The second film dealt with him seeping into depression and losing his powers, and him trying to figure out how he's supposed to live his life. The third film played a more fantastical version of the 'first experiment with drugs' version, as he's exposed to the alien 'black suit' that causes him to begin behaving like a drug addict, and eventually overcome the unstoppable rage it gives.
  • The Mark Webb-directed The Amazing Spider-Man and its sequel (and most likely, the cancelled third entry), played even more like a Coming Of Age movie. The first film explored Peter's issues concerning his birth parents, and dealt extensively with his grief over Uncle Ben's death in more focus and detail, showing how he goes from being angry to learning the 'great responsibility' Aesop. The second film follows the first films' love story as it grows into an adult romance, Peter's continued issues with his parents' mysterious death, and reconnecting with a childhood friend.
  • The Jon Watts-directed Spider-Man: Homecoming Trilogy: Spider-Man: Homecoming, Spider-Man: Far From Home and Spider-Man: No Way Home takes this a step further, trying to emulate classic John Hughes films. Homecoming follows Peter getting his first job and him throwing himself into the excitement of the 'grown up world', and learning to slow down and appreciate his youth and school life. Far From Home deals with his grief following Iron Man's death in Avengers: Endgame, and going in the opposite direction of the previous movie, learning to step up and become a more responsible, adult figure. No Way Home concludes the character's journey, with Peter learning his "great responsibility": keeping going in spite of all the hardships he may encounter and all the mistakes he might make, but above all - sacrificing his happiness for the sake of the others. The trilogy ends with young Spider-Man stripped of his privileges, resources and relationships. But the boy has grown into a man. And he's ready for whatever life holds in store for him.
• Splendor in the Grass is about two high-school sweethearts coping with their sexual awakening in a repressed small-town 1920s environment.
• Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope and Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace for Luke, Leia, Anakin, and Padme. Luke and Anakin Skywalker leave their home and family to begin their training as Jedi Knights while Princess Leia and Padme Amidala have to prove themselves as successful leaders.
• Submarine plays with this. The film has the typical arc of a coming of age story, with a teenage protagonist who gets his first girlfriend, and has some adventures. Oliver, the Genre Savvy narrator and protagonist, seems to think he's the star of his own bildungsroman narrative. However, he steadfastly refuses any character development, and ends the movie throwing a temper tantrum that makes him look incredibly immature.
• Summer of '42 has its teenage protagonist falling hopelessly in love—and lust—with a young war bride whose husband is off fighting.
• Super8 is the tale of a young boy and the girl he likes coming to grips with a shared family tragedy... while a scary escaped alien runs amok in their town.
• Thelma: A horror-filled version. Thelma leaves home for university, the first time she's out of her strict Christian parents' supervision, doing more adult things such as going to parties, drinking and becoming involved with another girl (against their beliefs). Along with that however she's coming to show extreme psychic powers, which Thelma cannot control at first. Breaking out into her own person (for better or worse), accepting her own sexuality and controlling these powers are main intertwined themes.
• 3 Generations: The film is about the life of a teenage trans boy as he tries to transition and find out about his Disappeared Dad.
• Though a minor theme in the first three installments of the Transformers Film Series regarding its human characters, the Continuity Reboot Bumblebee hones in on it, which makes sense given it focuses on the Kid-Appeal Character of the franchise and tells a more character-driven, low-key story. While Bumblebee himself deals with recovering from a horrible attack by a Decepticon seeker that leaves him unable to talk and without his memory, he befriends a human girl named Charlie who, in-turn, is dealing with the recent death of her father, her mother's remarriage, and her difficulties in life. While Bumblebee re-learns who he is and develops an appreciation for earth, Charlie learns to open herself up again, comes to term with her father's death, and begins to grow more confident.
• Ultraman Gaia: The Battle In Hyperspace, taking a break from the series' norm of being set in the Ultra's universe, is instead a Real-World Episode taking place in our reality. For most of the film, it's about a friendless young boy named Tsutomu who idolizes Ultramen, and wishes the Ultras are real, and most of the film deals with Tsutomu struggling with his peers and dealing with bullies in school.
• The Wanderers is about a youth gang in the Bronx. The story focuses on their coming of age in the social turmoil caused by the Kennedy assassination and the Vietnam War.
• The Way He Looks deals with both sexuality and wanting to be independent, with being handicapped as an obstacle.
• The Way, Way Back: Summer vacation, first job and a family crisis.
• Wild Boys of the Road is a pretty dark example of this trope. Two fresh-faced, golly gee-whiz teens hit the road as hobos during The Great Depression because their families don't have enough money to feed them. They suffer through things like brawls with railroad goons, brawls with police, rape, and losing limbs in railroad accidents.
• The Wise Kids involves Crisis of Faith and dealing with sexuality in a heavily Christian small town.
• Wish You Were Here (1987): A coming-of-age story about a teenage girl in 1950s England without a maternal figure, to be exact.
• Given its genre Wonder Woman (2017) has a very nuanced and coherent coming of age story. Diana starts the movie with a strong moral core and a desire to do make the world a better place, but she is also impulsive, prone to Black-and-White Morality, and judgmental. Throughout the movie she learns more about the world and about herself, and by the end of the movie she has applied the lessons. Some of the key lessons she learns are:
  • Forgiveness
  • Seeing the difference between a person and the role they act or are forced into
  • The relationship between fear and courage
  • She herself can fail to uphold her ideals
• You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah: The entire movie centers around Stacy preparing for her bat mitzvah, and her Character Development is learning what it means to grow up.
• Youth (2017): The story follows a group of Chinese youths through the 1970s as members of a military performing arts troupe, facing personal struggles, loss of innocence, and war. When the troupe is ultimately disbanded, it's a sad day all around as they close a chapter of their lives and have to leave the place and people they've spent years with.