These tales of youth and growing pains are excellent.

Don’t expect jump scares or the blood-flowing final acts of many A24 titles in the genre. Jane Schoenbrun is much more interested in placing you in the shoes of a feeling.

The Holdovers is now in wide release, and critics are weighing in on Paul Giamatti's new coming-of-age Christmas dramedy.

Spider-Man: No Way Home director Jon Watts is now creating his very own Star Wars TV series.

Amy Poehler's new Netflix film Moxie adds to a great cinematic tradition.

On the surface, Charm City Kings seems like a fairly standard coming-of-age story. It follows a young man thinking he wants his life to be one way before learning some hard lessons that show him that he should live a different way instead. But within these broad strokes, director Angel Manuel Soto paints an exciting drama within the motorcycle culture of West Baltimore. Grounded by a sympathetic and captivating performance from young lead actor Jahi Di’Allo Winston, Charm City Kings comes alive as it explores criminal allure without feeling exploitative. Like the best coming-of-age movies, …

I wish I had never heard of Greta Thunberg. A world where I’ve never heard of Greta Thunberg is a sane world. She gets to go be a regular teenager in Sweden, we get to live on a planet that isn’t falling apart from climate change, and everyone wins. Unfortunately, we live in a world where Thunberg sees no option but to get on the frontlines in the fight for a better planet. Some may find her fight heroic and uplifting, but watching Nathan Grossman’s documentary I Am Greta, I see a tragedy. I see a stolen …

The urban cowboys of North Philadelphia are a real thing. While American history has whitewashed the image of the cowboy into a white man, these Black riders have taken care of horses for generations and continue to do so into the modern day even as the world radically changes around them. The intersection of their personal identity and American iconography is fascinating, but unfortunately Concrete Cowboy director Ricky Staub forces it to reside in a fairly predictable coming-of-age story. Despite strong performances from the cast, Concrete Cowboy undermines its unique world by trying to tell a broad bildungsroman …

One of my absolute favorite things about the festival circuit is how it’s often a springboard for emerging talent and an opportunity to debut a stellar first feature with an especially warm embrace. I had high hopes that’d be the case for Nicole Riegel’s feature debut, Holler, earlier this year at SXSW, but now I’m hoping we can maintain a similar level of fanfare with an in-person/virtual hybrid event because the 2020 Toronto International Film Festival selection certainly deserves it. The cliche combination of hard work and determination can certainly be useful tools to …

Two-time Oscar winner George Clooney is in negotiations to direct and produce the coming-of-age film The Tender Bar for Amazon Studios. The film is based on the bestselling 2005 memoir by J.R. Moehringer, about a boy growing up in Long Island who seeks out unlikely father figures among the patrons at his uncle’s bar. It's unclear whether Clooney plans to act in the film himself, but he has starred in every film he has directed with the exception of his most recent movie, Suburbicon, where he entrusted the lead to his Ocean's 11 …

At first glance, it would seem like you could easily dismiss Judd Apatow's latest effort, The King of Staten Island. It's another 2-hour-plus tale of arrested development about a guy in his 20s who spends all day getting high and hanging with friends, but must work to put his life together. But that broad description doesn't do justice to the maturity Apatow shows in his direction, nor does it properly respect the unique vibe that co-writer and star Pete Davidson brings to the picture. Although The King of Staten Island is kind of a …

Coming of age movies can make growing up a lot more funny.

At first glance, Netflix's new super-powered teen series I Am Not Okay with This seems to be an obvious companion to Stranger Things. Not only do the two shows share producers and feature young girls with mystifying powers, but I Am Not Okay with This also stars two of the child actors of the IT films (Sophia Lillis and Wyatt Oleff, who co-starred in the blockbuster films alongside Stranger Things' Finn Wolfhard), has a distinctly 80s vibe (despite its contemporary setting), and contains a pointed Stephen King nod within its opening moments: a shell-shocked Sydney (Lillis) …

Netflix has released the trailer for I Am Not Okay With This starring Sophia Lillis and Wyatt Oleff. Blending together the vibes, themes, and settings of movies and TV shows like Carrie, Twin Peaks, and Stranger Things, I Am Not Okay With This brings to life Charles Forsman's 2017 graphic novel of the same name. The series comes from director/executive producer Jonathan Entwistle and the producers of Stranger Things. The trailer focuses on Lillis' character, Sydney. Sydney is a jaded teen navigating changing dynamics with her friends, Stanley Barber (Oleff) and Dina (Sofia Bryant) as well as the …

Alex Wolff has been making a name for himself since he was 10 years old, starring in the Nickelodeon musical comedy series The Naked Brothers Band with his brother, Nat Wolff. After a stop on HBO's In Treatment earlier this decade, Alex has slowly been gaining more and more recognition for his work in high-profile projects like Hereditary and Patriots Day, as well as Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle and its upcoming sequel Jumanji: The Next Level. He's an actor, composer, producer and former teen heartthrob, and now you can add writer and director to his resume …

AppleTV+ has released the trailer for Minhal Baig’s drama Hala. The film follows Pakistani American teenager Hala (Geraldine Viswanathan) trying to come to grips with her community and upbringing as she makes a startling discovery about her father. I caught the film at Sundance earlier this year, and while I had high hopes for it due to the subject matter and Viswanathan in the lead, I felt slightly underwhelmed by the lack of character development and clear storytelling. From my review: What I liked most about Hala and what I wish it did more was simply let me into …

It would be easy to overlook The Walking Dead's second spinoff series coming to AMC in 2020. With the original Walking Dead series now a staple of the AMC lineup and its first spinoff, Fear the Walking Dead, met with middling success, it's easy to argue there might be no reason to watch yet another entry into this growing franchise. What more is there left to explore in the zombie apocalypse? Series creator (and Walking Dead franchise overseer) Scott M. Gimple explained in a recent interview with Deadline there are some very good reasons to tune into the …

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Coming-of-age movies are a fascinating genre. We take a look at which film you are, according to your Myers-Briggs Personality Type.

Netflix releases a look at their upcoming coming of age dramatic comedy film, Tall Girl, which stars newcomer Ava Michelle and Luke Eisner.