At first, the film conjures Harmony Korine’s Spring Breakers as it revels in the shallow inanity of carousing drunk teens. But wait for its second half.

A mentorship-based coming-of-age film with a well-known ancestry (Good Will Hunting, Finding Forrester, Stand and Deliver).

A softhearted yet somewhat stringent and bitter coming-of-age tale.

Brought up in a God-centered Kentucky fundamentalist community, 17-year-old Jem’s life path is laid out for her—until she meets a restless youth pastor.

A gentle, knowing portrait of an 11-year-old girl undergoing puberty and a religious identity crisis.

You rarely see such committed, honest performances in actors this young as in this French film. They are absolute naturals.

Lukas Dhont’s second feature explores the fallout from the sudden implosion of a friendship between two boys.

A heartbreaking, resonant coming-of-age film about a 14-year-old boy and his newfound, problematic father figure.

The cozy medieval world (minus the smelly horse droppings and chicken dung) of Karen Cushman’s middle-grade novel has been re-created in this stylized–and deliberately anachronistic–adaptation.