31 Best Teen Movies of All Time to Relive Your Youth
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Growing up, everyone would remind me to enjoy my youth. “These are the best days of your life,” they’d insist. As it turns out, that’s not true. Life gets considerably better when your frontal lobe develops, but I get the gist. As a teenager, your only job is to grow up. Sure, everyone had responsibilities to tend to, but perfection wasn't expected.
You could act out, cry, fall in love, and be reckless—because your youth is about finding yourself. Adulthood is about tending to the person you’ve become. Which, honestly, is rather exhausting. So instead of doing all that self-work your therapist keeps talking about, why don’t we take a walk down memory lane with a coming-of-age movie?
There are plenty of options, but we’ve taken the liberty of narrowing the roster down to 31. Below, you’ll find the best coming-of-age movies of all time—with everything from the adventure-comedy Dope to the A24 classic, Lady Bird. We hope this soothes your inner child, or at the very least, saves you from a bout of existential dread. Enjoy!
Dope
Dope follows three nerdy high schoolers who are roped into the adventure of a lifetime. Malcolm, Jib, and Diggy think their live are on an upswing when they’re invited to a wild party. After the event takes a violent turn, they flee the scene and accidentally steal a bag of drugs on the way out. Suddenly, the trio is in a mad dash to get rid of the contraband before a group of thugs hunt them down.
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10 Things I hate About You
A nearly inevitable part of growing up is getting your heart broken. 10 Things I Hate About You is a modern lesson in love, based on Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew. In this adaptation, Julia Stiles stars as Kat Stratford, a teenage girl who is uninterested in dating. Her younger sister, Bianca, desperately wants to find a mate—but her parents forbid it until Kat finds a boyfriend. Naturally, Bianca forges a scheme to set her sister up with the new kid at school.
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Holes
In Holes, a young man is wrongfully sent to a behavioral camp after he's accused of stealing shoes. He expects to spend time working on his alleged bad behavior, but soon discovers the camp is really a farce. Instead of rehabilitation, the children are forced to dig holes for an unknown reason—that is, until someone discovers a sinister secret.
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House Party
The 1990 classic, House Party, centers around two goofy best friends: Kid (Christopher Reid). Play (Christopher Martin). When Play's parents go out of town for the weekend, he decides to throw the party of the year. Kid sees this as the perfect opportunity to make a move on his crush, Sydney, but his plans are foiled when he's grounded. With a little determination and a lot of tomfoolery, Kid sneaks out to attend the event. But a series of... unexpected challenges stand in his way.
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UnPregnant
In UnPregnant, a seventeen-year-old girl named Veronica (Haley Lu Richardson) experiences an unplanned pregnancy. With plans to attend an Ivy League in the fall, she invites an old friend on a top-secret road trip. The objective? Get out of Missouri and drive to New Mexico, where she can get an abortion.
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The Edge of Seventeen
The Edge of Seventeen follows Nadine (Hailee Steinfeld), a high school junior whose life turns upside down when her best friend and brother start dating. After casting them both out of her life, she forms an unlikely relationship with her teacher—and learns a thing or two about growing up.
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Clueless
The 1995 coming-of-age comedy loosely based on Jane Austen’s Emma follows Beverly Hills teenager Cher Horowitz (Alicia Silverstone) as she befriends a new student at school and navigates the trials of adolescence, popularity, and...step-sibling romance. Stay for the iconic plaid outfits.
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The Breakfast Club
The 1985 John Hughes classic is a can’t-miss. The Brat Pack plays five high school students who manage to tackle important topics like identity, stereotypes, and love all in one day-long Saturday detention.
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Mean Girls
Any movie that has its own holiday is legendary in it's own right (ICYMI, October 3 is Mean Girls Day). Tina Fey’s 2004 comedy tackles high school drama, bullying, and romance, and takes us back to the halcyon days of Lindsay Lohan, before she purchased her club in Greece.
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John Tucker Must Die
John Tucker Must Die is a 2006 teen romantic comedy in which three girls learn that high school basketball star John Tucker is simultaneously dating all of them and so they band together to take him down. After several pranks backfire, they enlist a classmate to lead him on and break his heart.
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Rushmore
Wes Anderson’s 1998 comedy Rushmore introduced Jason Schwartzman as Max Fischer, an underachieving, overzealous high school student who befriends the wealthy father of two of his classmates—played by Bill Murray—before entering into a rivalry with him over the love of a new young teacher.
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Ferris Bueller's Day Off
The quintessential John Hughes high school comedy stars Matthew Broderick as the titular character, who spends a wild day playing hooky around Chicago with his girlfriend and best friend.
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Dirty Dancing
While on vacation with her parents, Baby (Jennifer Grey) falls for the resort’s rebellious dance instructor (Patrick Swayze) against her father’s wishes. And a reminder: you can enjoy this movie without attempting the dances at home.
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Juno
Elliot Page, along with Michael Cera, Jennifer Garner, Jason Bateman, Allison Janney, and J. K. Simmons, star in the heartfelt 2007 film that tackles teenage pregnancy, adoption, and love with compassion and comedy.
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Bring It On
Kirsten Dunst’s Torrance Shipman walked so Gabi Butler could run. Bring It On is the quintessential cheerleading movie—rivalries, romance, and a lot of energetic choreography.
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Heathers
The incredibly dark 1988 film, Heathers, stars Winona Ryder as Veronica Sawyer, who, after falling for the mysterious new kid in school, J.D. (Christian Slater), ends up roped into a series of violent murders. The cult film has spawned both a musical and a TV series spinoff.
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Grease
The classic musical starring John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John as star-crossed teenage lovers Danny and Sandy never gets old. Go on and get out your old leather jacket. We know you know the dance.
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Lady Bird
Greta Gerwig’s 2017 coming-of-age film starring Saoirse Ronan, Beanie Feldstein, Lucas Hedges, and Timothee Chalamet is a hilarious, poignant modern classic. It follows Catherine “Lady Bird” McPherson as she longs for adventure and navigates her Catholic high school, college applications, and first romance.
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Love, Simon
Love, Simon is a touching 2018 teen rom-com about Simon Spier (Nick Robinson), a closeted high school student who falls in love with an anonymous classmate via email. When another student finds the emails and begins blackmailing Simon, he is forced to confront truths about his friendships, his family, and his identity.
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Superbad
Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg’s teen comedy inspired a generation of bad fake IDs. The 2000s classic launched the careers of Emma Stone and Jonah Hill and tells the raunchy and hilarious story of a disastrous night out.
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The Last Picture Show
Peter Bogdanovich's Oscar-winning The Last Picture Show is a classic in the coming-of-age genre. In 1951, two high school seniors, Sonny (Timothy Bottoms) and Duane (Jeff Bridges), contemplate their futures in their small, dying Texas town.
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The Hate U Give
Based on the novel by Angie Thomas, The Hate U Give follows the life of 16-year-old Starr Carter (Amandla Stenberg) in the aftermath of her childhood friend's murder by a police officer.
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Fast Times at Ridgemont High
Based on his experience going undercover as a student at a California high school, Cameron Crowe's Fast Times at Ridgemont High is a funny, refreshing look at American teen life in the 1980s. It's also a pop cultural touchstone, which helped launch the careers of Jennifer Jason Leigh, Phoebe Cates, Judge Reinhold, Forest Whitaker, Anthony Edwards, Eric Stoltz, and Sean Penn.
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Blockers
Blockers is a fun, sensitive, feminist twist on a classic high school movie formula: the prom night sex pact. When their daughters vow to have sex for the first time on prom night, three parents (Leslie Mann, Ike Barinholtz, John Cena) pull out all the tricks to stop them.
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Dazed and Confused
Richard Linklater's high school stoner comedy chronicles the first night of summer in a Texas town: the seniors haze the freshmen, and everybody parties at the moon tower. Randall 'Pink' Floyd must choose between his football team and the freedom to be his reefer-loving self. Alright, alright, alright.
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Rebel Without a Cause
In the world of coming-of-age films about confused, emotional teenagers in the suburbs, 1955's Rebel Without a Cause was the blueprint. It's a groundbreaking story about the moral turmoil of American youth, starring Natalie Wood and James Dean in his last iconic role.
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The Diary of a Teenage Girl
The Diary of a Teenage Girl is an honest gem of a coming-of-age film, based on a semi-autobiographical graphic novel. In 1970s San Francisco, 15-year-old Minnie (Bel Powley) embarks on a journey of sexual self-discovery.
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American Pie
Gloriously gross and undeniably funny, American Pie is a quintessential youth sex comedy that spawned an iconic franchise. Five high school senior guys make a prom night sex pact, and raunchy hilarity ensues. Bonus: it features Eugene Levy years before he would be re-embraced for his turn on Schitt's Creek.
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Almost Famous
Almost Famous is Cameron Crowe's love letter to 1970s rock and roll, but it's also a tender coming-of-age story. Based on Crowe's real experiences as a teenage music journalist, the story follows 15-year-old William as he goes on the road with Stillwater and falls in love with a "Band Aid" named Penny Lane (Kate Hudson).
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Dead Poets Society
Set in 1959 at an elite boys boarding school, Dead Poets Society stars Robin Williams in one of his greatest roles, as an English teacher who inspires a group of boys by showing them the magic of poetry.
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