Reel Fives Movie Rankings Aggregator: Best Coming of Age Movies of All Time

Scene from Stand by Me (1986) ranked number one coming of age movie.

Welcome to our Reel Fives pre-launch movie rankings for the best coming-of-age films of all time. Our Reel Fives team found 42 ranked lists of the top coming-of-age movies published online and ended up with 88 movies that made the list. For each ranked list of greatest movies for the genre, we have taken the top five ranked films. The movie rankings of top coming-of-age films we aggregated are included at the bottom of this post and include the best movies in the genre as ranked by movie experts and polling sites, such as ranker.com.

Coming-of-age films aim to capture some aspect of the pains of growing up, oftentimes teaching the characters a moral lesson in the process. Consider Stand by Me (1986), the all-time best coming-of-age film, and how it captures the moment when children’s innocence is taken. Four 12-year-old boys learn about the harsh realities of life when they go look for the body of a missing boy in the Oregon wilderness but wind up finding a lot more. Coming-of-age movies portray the loss of innocence all children face at some point in their lives. Dazed and Confused (1993), ranked third, focuses on the last day of the school year at a Texas high school in 1976. The seniors, in a rite of passage, haze the upcoming freshmen. This is their last hurrah, and they intend to drink a lot of beer and smoke a lot of weed to make it count. The film also demonstrates the downside of refusing to grow up, showing that maturing is not only preferred, but necessary. The French film The 400 Blows (1959), ranked fifth, illustrates the difficulties of growing up poor and alone. Though Antoine Doinel (Jean-Pierre Léaud) has parents, they just don’t understand him, and he rebels. His parents let him face the harsh realities of the world and he must grow up—quickly. Coming-of-age films teach moral lessons through the eyes of their protagonists, and the great ones do so without preaching.

Teen movies attempt to understand the intricacies of high school and what comes after graduation. Director and writer John Hughes’ iconic films focused on high school. The Breakfast Club (1985), ranked second, brings together five seemingly-different teens during a Saturday detention. Throughout the course of the day, they realize they are more alike than they initially appear. The film shows that teens are just as capable of depth as adults. In another John Hughes film, Ferris Bueller (Mathew Broderick) decides to ditch school, and plays a day-long cat-and-mouse game with his principal, in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986), ranked sixth. In a hilarious and unlikely fashion, Ferris gets his wish. The film shows the whimsical side of the teenage years, and the inherent determination to be free. Almost Famous (2000), ranked fourth, shows the difficulties of being thrown into adulthood. Rolling Stone magazine hires a fifteen-year-old boy to write a story on an up-and-coming band and the teen learns about more than just the band. The film shows that teens still have a lot to learn about life, love, and music. Some teen movies stand the test of time and these movies demonstrate that teen movies—and the young people they focus on—can be taken seriously.

The coming-of-age rankings did not have too many surprises, and it is the clear that the 1980s remains highly influential in the genre. We are interested in where Boyhood (2014) will rank, as it follows a boy over the course of twelve years and tells the story from his perspective. Currently, it is tied for seventeenth, but we expect it to rise in the rankings. The genre still has room to grow in terms of diversity. There are a variety of coming-of-age stories to tell and we believe the film industry can and should capture all types of coming-of-age stories.

Top 88 Coming of Age Movies based on 42 published rankings

Percent of online top fives movies appear in shown

1 . Stand By Me (1986): 52.3%

2 . Breakfast Club (1985): 33.3%

3 . Dazed and Confused (1993): 21.4%

4 . Almost Famous (2000): 21.4%

5 . The 400 Blows (1959): 16.6%

6 . Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986): 16.6%

7 . The Last Picture Show (1971): 16.6%

8 . Rebel Without a Cause (1955): 14.2%

9 . The Graduate (1967): 14.2%

10 . The Sandlot (1993): 11.9%

11 (tied). Big (1988): 9.52%

11 (tied). The Spectacular Now (2013): 9.52%

13 (tied). Juno (2007): 9.52%

13 (tied). Y Tu Mamá También (2001): 9.52%

15 . Sixteen Candles (1984): 9.52%

16 . Good Will Hunting (1997): 7.14%

17 (tied). Dead Poets Society (1989): 7.14%

17 (tied). Boyhood (2014): 7.14%

19 (tied). The Outsiders (1983): 7.14%

19 (tied). The Virgin Suicides (1999): 7.14%

21 . American Graffiti (1973): 7.14%

22 . Empire of the Sun (1987): 7.14%

23 . Superbad (2007): 7.14%

24 . Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012): 7.14%

25 . To Kill A Mockingbird (1962): 4.76%

26 (tied). American Beauty (1999): 4.76%

26 (tied). Garden State (2004): 4.76%

28 (tied). Boyz n the Hood (1991): 4.76%

28 (tied). The Lion King (1994): 4.76%

30 . The Goonies (1985): 4.76%

31 . Submarine (2010): 4.76%

32 (tied). My Life as a Dog (1985): 2.38%

32 (tied). Donnie Darko (2001): 2.38%

32 (tied). Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982): 2.38%

32 (tied). Charlie Bartlett (2007): 2.38%

32 (tied). Last Summer (1969): 2.38%

32 (tied). Frances Ha (2012): 2.38%

32 (tied). Summer of ’42 (1971): 2.38%

32 (tied). Looking for Alibrandi (2000): 2.38%

32 (tied). Pump Up the Volume (1990): 2.38%

32 (tied). Deep End (1970): 2.38%

32 (tied). St. Elmo’s Fire (1985): 2.38%

32 (tied). Reality Bites (1994): 2.38%

32 (tied). Napoleon Dynamite (2004): 2.38%

32 (tied). Milk Money (1994): 2.38%

32 (tied). Yi Yi (2000): 2.38%

47 (tied). Now and Then (1995): 2.38%

47 (tied). Atonement (2007): 2.38%

47 (tied). Clueless (1995): 2.38%

47 (tied). Pretty in Pink (1986): 2.38%

47 (tied). The Return (2003): 2.38%

47 (tied). My Girl (1991): 2.38%

47 (tied). This is England (2006): 2.38%

54 (tied). Wet Hot American Summer (2001): 2.38%

54 (tied). City of God (2002): 2.38%

54 (tied). Once Upon a Time in America (1984): 2.38%

54 (tied). Mermaids (1990): 2.38%

54 (tied). Bicycle Thieves (1948): 2.38%

54 (tied). Kes (1969): 2.38%

54 (tied). Ghost World (2001): 2.38%

54 (tied). The Tree of Life (2011): 2.38%

54 (tied). Outside Providence (1999): 2.38%

54 (tied). Mud (2012): 2.38%

54 (tied). 5/25/1977 (2007): 2.38%

54 (tied). American Pie (1999): 2.38%

54 (tied). Heavenly Creatures (1994): 2.38%

54 (tied). La Chinoise (1967): 2.38%

68 (tied). Kids (1995): 2.38%

68 (tied). Teen Wolf (1985): 2.38%

68 (tied). Cinema Paradiso (1988): 2.38%

68 (tied). The Kid With a Bike (2011): 2.38%

68 (tied). Neon Genesis Evangelion: The End of Evangelion (1997): 2.38%

68 (tied). A Bronx Tale (1993): 2.38%

68 (tied). The Professional (1994): 2.38%

68 (tied). The Flamingo Kid (1984): 2.38%

68 (tied). What’s Eating Gilbert Grape (1993): 2.38%

68 (tied). Liberal Arts (2012): 2.38%

68 (tied). Diner (1982): 2.38%

79 (tied). Good Morning (1959): 2.38%

79 (tied). Fish Tank (2009): 2.38%

79 (tied). Fanny and Alexander (1982): 2.38%

79 (tied). Rushmore (1998): 2.38%

79 (tied). Harold and Maude (1971): 2.38%

79 (tied). Goodbye, Lenin! (2003): 2.38%

79 (tied). The Squid and the Whale (2005): 2.38%

79 (tied). The Inbetweeners 2 (2014): 2.38%

79 (tied). Moonrise Kingdom (2012): 2.38%

79 (tied). Next Stop, Greenwich Village (1976): 2.38%

Coming of Age Movie Ranking Sources

Flavorwire

List of top 25 (link)

Taste of Cinema

List of top 25 (link)

Mamamia

List of top 11 (link)

Huffington Post

List of top 25 (link)

Complex

List of top 30 (link)

MTV

List of top 50 (link)

Flickchart

List of top 1223 (link)

Ranker

List of top 157 (link)

AMC

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Thursday, April 28, 2016

Best Coming of Age Movies of All Time - Based on 42 Published Sources

Scene from Stand by Me (1986) ranked number one coming of age movie.

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