12 Finest Motion pictures Like 2003’s 13

The 2003 indie drama “13” was broadly acclaimed upon launch whereas elevating the careers of filmmaker Catherine Hardwicke (who was paid simply $13 for the job) and actors Evan Rachel Wooden and Nikki Reed. “13” was lauded for its searing, modern depiction of the lives of impressionable American youngsters. For these on the lookout for films tackling related material and themes, there isn’t any scarcity of sweet sixteen coming-of-age dramas. From triumphs to tragedies, loads of films have explored the on a regular basis lifetime of American youngsters, each previous “13” and launched within the 2003 movie’s wake.

From dramedies to tonally uncompromising dramas, these pivotal teenage years are ripe for cinematic exploration. Even the comedies on this coming-of-age listing do not draw back from the heavier elements of the teenage expertise, together with unlawful drug use, psychological well being considerations, and teenage being pregnant. Merely put, rising up could be a grueling ordeal, and these films discover the heartbreak and humor in lower than very best coming-of-age eventualities. Listed below are the 12 greatest films like Catherine Hardwicke’s 2013 movie “13.”

Filmmaker Sofia Coppola got here out the gate swinging together with her 1999 function directorial debut “The Virgin Suicides.” True to its title, the film is a darkish portrait of a gaggle of sisters headed by overprotective mother and father withdrawn from the remainder of the neighborhood. Through the summer season of 1975, the household’s youngest daughter, Celicia (Hanna R. Corridor), kills herself, making her mother and father much more restrictive of their surviving daughters. This results in the women reacting in their very own rebellious methods, significantly the household’s oldest daughter, Lux (Kirsten Dunst).

Unfolding like a contemporary fairytale, there’s a sense of surrealism that permeates all through “The Virgin Suicides” and its cautionary story of overbearing mother and father. That dream-like high quality progressively turns right into a lurid nightmare because the story grows extra foreboding and sinister. Coppola hews faithfully to 1993 novel supply materials by Jeffrey Eugenides, whereas giving the story a extra ethereal really feel. Coppola went on to have her personal in depth directorial profession although with nothing close to as darkish as “The Virgin Suicides” to this point.

The identical 12 months that Natalie Portman made her “Star Wars” debut as Queen Amidala, she additionally starred within the 1999 dramedy “Wherever however Right here.” Portman performs Ann, a young person who relocates from small-town Wisconsin to Los Angeles together with her mom Adele (Susan Sarandon). As Adele struggles to make ends meet, she hopes that Ann will efficiently land a job as an actor. Nevertheless, Ann is extra all for making pals within the new city and attending Brown College as a substitute, placing the mom and daughter at odds.

What carries and elevates “Wherever however Right here” from being one other throwaway drama are Sarandon and Portman’s performances. Portman, particularly, offers a extra understated and insightful efficiency as Ann, a younger girl a lot wiser and restrained than her mom. On the similar time, Ann is a personality who has her personal reckless hopes and desires, however approaches them a lot in another way than Adele. A showcase for its leads, “Wherever however Right here” promised robust issues from Portman, a promise she has persistently delivered upon.

Winona Ryder had began her on-screen profession with quite a few coming-of-age roles within the late ’80s and early ’90s. Years later, she took on a a lot darker and mature coming-of-age position for 1999’s “Lady, Interrupted.” Based mostly on the memoir of Susanna Kaysen, Ryder performs Kaysen, who’s admitted to a New England psychiatric hospital in opposition to her will in 1967 after enduring a nervous breakdown. As Kaysen receives therapy, she meets Lisa Rowe (Angelina Jolie), a sociopathic affected person with a penchant for escaping confinement and stirring up bother.

Prime-to-bottom, “Lady, Interrupted” has a stacked ensemble solid, with Ryder and Jolie joined by Clea Duvall, Elisabeth Moss, Vanessa Redgrave, and extra. Whereas Ryder greater than holds her personal as Kaysen, Jolie is totally magnetic in her efficiency as Rowe. Every time Jolie is on-screen, she’s a pressure of nature, intensely unpredictable and commanding all the eye in her scenes. Jolie would earn a well-deserved Academy Award for her work within the movie whereas “Lady, Interrupted” ended Ryder’s run of coming-of-age roles on a stable and cathartic word.

Based mostly on the ’90s comedian guide of the identical identify by Daniel Clowes, 2001’s “Ghost World” focuses on that final gasp earlier than bonafide maturity, the summer season after highschool commencement. Finest pals Enid (Thora Birch) and Rebecca (Scarlett Johansson) face no critical future prospects as they seek for jobs and a spot to stay. Whereas attending a remedial artwork class to earn her diploma, Enid befriends Seymour (Steve Buscemi), a lonely middle-aged man on the lookout for companionship. Enid’s budding relationship with Seymour strains her dynamic with Rebecca as the 2 younger ladies progressively develop aside.

Utterly angst-ridden in its pondering tour of younger grownup alienation, “Ghost World” is as restrained and understated as its protagonist. Birch offers a career-best efficiency as Enid, a tragic determine, drifting in the direction of life’s subsequent essential crossroads. Equally, Buscemi is exact and delicate in his dealing with of Seymour, a personality who might simply be a creep reworked right into a sympathetic misfit. Stunning in its depiction of social malaise, “Ghost World” is an ignored masterful comedian guide adaptation, and it is considered one of Scarlett Johansson’s greatest films too.

Kirsten Dunst and Jay Hernandez play a highschool couple from reverse sides of the monitor in 2001’s “Loopy/Stunning.” Hernandez performs Carlos, a young person from East Los Angeles who travels to a highschool within the Pacific Palisades to satisfy his dream of attending the U.S. Naval Academy. Carlos begins courting Nicole (Dunst), a classmate and the rebellious daughter of an area congressman. Because the couple grows extra critical, their completely different backgrounds put a pressure on their relationship, with each units of oldsters feeling they’re a nasty match for one another.

Although “Loopy/Stunning” won’t have essentially the most unique story, the lead performances from Hernandez and Dunst mild up what might’ve been formulaic materials. Dunst and Hernandez have a pure chemistry, with each giving earnest performances as their characters give into younger love with reckless abandon. Dunst, particularly, shines as Nicole, whose hard-partying methods conceal a broken and susceptible coronary heart. “Loopy/Stunning” would not reinvent the coming-of-age wheel but in addition would not attempt to, as a substitute specializing in crafting a stable L.A. love story.

Although the subject of sweet sixteen being pregnant won’t appear to be a supply of comedy, 2007’s “Juno” manages to search out laughs in its mature material. Minnesota excessive schooler Juno MacGuff (Elliot Web page) turns into pregnant after sleeping together with her good friend Paulie Bleeker (Michael Cera). Deciding to surrender the incoming child for adoption, Juno meets with the potential adoptive mother and father Vanessa Loring (Jennifer Garner) and her husband Mark (Jason Bateman). As Juno’s being pregnant progresses, she struggles together with her emotions for Paulie over whether or not they need to merely stay pals as a substitute of changing into a pair.

Web page delivers the efficiency of a lifetime as Juno, alternating between hilarious to fully susceptible right away. Director Jason Reitman stacks the deck round Web page with the bigger ensemble solid, particularly with the inclusion of Allison Janney and J.Okay. Simmons taking part in Juno’s mother and father. Each actor performs their respective half to the hilt, simply delivering screenwriter Diablo Cody’s well written dialog, with Web page making the position of Juno all their very own. With everybody within the solid and crew firing on all cylinders, “Juno” pulls off the difficult feat of by some means being a feel-good film about teen being pregnant.

British journalist Lynn Barber’s 2009 memoir “An Schooling” was loosely tailored right into a function movie the identical 12 months, starring Carey Mulligan as protagonist Jenny Mellor. Jenny desires of attending the College of Oxford after finishing her education in 1961 London when she meets an older man named David (Peter Sarsgaard). Regardless of the age distinction, Jenny’s mother and father approve of the coupling, impressed by David’s obvious social connections and background. Nevertheless, as Jenny prepares to marry David and discard her collegiate desires, the darkish reality about him surfaces.

“An Schooling” begins out as a storybook romance, full with a lush musical soundtrack and picturesque detours to Paris as Jenny and David’s whirlwind courtship escalates. This swerves right into a darkly misleading flip of occasions, particularly given how a lot Jenny offers as much as make her relationship with David work. Mulligan performs each side of this state of affairs properly, avoiding outright melodrama as she retains sight of Jenny’s wounded coronary heart. A profession breakthrough for Mulligan, “An Schooling” performs like a duplicitously postmodern tackle a Prince Charming archetype whereas sustaining hope for its naive protagonist.

Sapphire’s acclaimed 1996 novel “Push,” was tailored into the 2009 “Valuable,” starring Gabourey Sidibe as its teenage title character. Set in 1987 Harlem, Valuable lives together with her abusive mom Mary (Mo’Nique) in poverty, elevating her daughter and pregnant together with her second baby from being raped by her absent father. Whereas Mary insists Valuable stay on welfare via her kids, she attends another faculty the place she learns learn how to learn and write. Issues between Valuable and Mary come to a head after Valuable offers start to her second baby, with Valuable able to construct a greater future for herself and her kids.

“Valuable” shouldn’t be a straightforward watch, totally grim however providing audiences a glimmer of hope for a greater tomorrow by the tip. Each actor on this all-star ensemble performs their respective elements to the hilt, particularly Sidibe and Mo’Nique. “Valuable” would not pull any of its punches, however it will really feel like a disservice to the story if it did, setting the harrowing stakes earlier than including a way of empowerment. A type of films that you simply solely watch as soon as, “Valuable” sticks with viewers in its unflinching portrait of maximum poverty and familial abuse.

Writer Stephen Chbosky received the uncommon alternative to adapt his personal novel, adapting his 1991 guide “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” for the silver display screen in 2012. Set within the Pittsburgh suburbs within the early ’90s, Charlie (Logan Lerman) begins highschool after a stint in a psychological establishment for extreme melancholy. Charlie befriends siblings Patrick (Ezra Miller) and Sam (Emma Watson), becoming a member of their group of social misfits. Because the close-knit ensemble progresses via the varsity 12 months, the circumstances behind Charlie’s troubled previous are progressively revealed.

“The Perks of Being a Wallflower” is a interval piece that does not really feel like one, with the story and its themes as related now as they have been in 1991. Lerman and Miller are by no means higher than their respective roles on this film, Lerman because the withdrawn Charlie and Miller as unfailingly outgoing Patrick. An important film about the highschool expertise, “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” weaves in its heavier parts at a deliberate tempo, making the heartbreak really feel extra earned. However regardless of the tragedy that the characters endure, their friendship makes life all of the extra price residing, rallying collectively to beat life’s greatest challenges.

Parental loss and the subsequently complicated household dynamics cling closely over the 2016 dramedy “The Fringe of Seventeen.” A number of years after dropping her father out of the blue, excessive schooler Nadine Franklin (Hailee Steinfeld) nonetheless has a rocky relationship together with her mom Mona (Kyra Sedgwick) and older brother Darian (Blake Jenner). That is exacerbated when Darian begins courting Nadine’s greatest good friend Krista (Haley Lu Richardson), making Nadine really feel betrayed and remoted. Nadine tries to make new pals, together with together with her exasperated instructor (Woody Harrelson), as she tries to win the affections of an older classmate (Alexander Calvert).

“The Fringe of Seventeen” actually provides Steinfeld a unbelievable showcase to point out each her comedic and dramatic skills in equal measure. Like all youngsters, Nadine is a very advanced and sophisticated character, and Steinfeld deftly retains her likable and relatable. Steinfeld’s extra lighthearted scenes with Harrelson provide a buoyant distinction to her rawer scenes reverse Sedgwick and Jenner and their tense familial relationship. Like its protagonist, “The Fringe of Seventeen” is, at turns, acerbic, biting, humorous, and heartbreaking, however at all times honest.

Whereas Walt Disney World will be the happiest place on Earth, these residing round it won’t at all times really feel that corporately manufactured magic. That juxtaposition informs the 2017 drama “The Florida Undertaking,” which focuses on single mom Halley (Bria Vinaite) and her six-year-old daughter Moonee (Brooklynn Kimberly Prince). Residing collectively in a finances motel close to Disney World in Kissimmee, Florida (making it probably the greatest films set within the state), Halley struggles to make ends meet after dropping her job as a stripper. The pair’s life grows extra sophisticated as they meet a equally financially-strapped household led by one other single mom, Ashley (Mela Homicide).

A frank have a look at the lifetime of the underprivileged residing within the shadow of prefabricated pleasure, “The Florida Undertaking” brings coronary heart to a uncared for group. Halley and Ashley aren’t good mother and father, however we perceive why they every make the alternatives they make to outlive and care for his or her youngsters as greatest they understand how. Advised primarily from Moonee’s perspective, this makes the extra uncooked sequences a bit extra palpable, refracted via the lens of early childhood innocence. Although not an uplifting story, “The Florida Undertaking” provides a glimpse of empathy and understanding for a inhabitants society has largely written off as a misplaced trigger.

Whether or not it is Barbies studying learn how to change into human or interval piece sisters rising up, filmmaker Greta Gerwig excels at coming-of-age tales. Gerwig’s 2017 dramedy “Woman Chook” extra explicitly locations this sensibility in an early 2000s highschool setting. Sacramento highschool senior Christine McPherson (Saoirse Ronan) who hopes to attend an East Coast college, straining her relationship together with her mom (Laurie Metcalf). Nicknamed Woman Chook, Christine goes via the ultimate trials and tribulations of highschool whereas ready on her school acceptance determination.

Gerwig discovered a unbelievable collaborative associate in Ronan, completely delivering upon Gerwig’s writing and route as her semi-autobiographical protagonist. Christine’s tumultuous relationship together with her mom is the emotional centerpiece of the story, with Ronan and Metcalf capturing that fiery dynamic properly. And as fraught as Christine’s experiences get, Gerwig nonetheless finds the incidental humor all through the film, holding issues from being lethal critical on a regular basis. Gerwig’s masterpiece, “Woman Chook” is a coming-of-age triumph and Ronan’s biggest on-screen efficiency to this point.