Coming of age is a phenomenon that has been immortalised and perfected on screens for decades. As semester one comes to a close, seniors are faced with the fact that in four short months they will be walking across the graduation stage, free of ever having to walk into another high school again. The walk across that stage captures the freedom of the rest of your life beginning and the relief of your years ruled by a higher power coming to an abrupt end.
Each generation has a coming of age movie that manages to encapsulate all of these emotions on top of each generational struggle, so here is my list of the best coming-of-age movies of the past four generations.
Baby boomers – The movie American Graffiti (1973), directed by George Lucas immediately comes to mind. Before Lucas got swept up into the Star Wars universe, he directed the movie that set up the very possibility of it. American Graffiti follows four friends on their last day of summer break after they have graduated high school.
They cruise the streets in their classic ‘60s cars, listening to iconic ‘60s songs and grapple with their future. Bestfriends Curt and Steve are meant to leave for college on the East but, while Steve spends the night arguing about the state of his relationship with his soon-to-be long distance girlfriend, Curt looks for a reason to stay in his small town despite receiving a generous scholarship.
Terry and John both become trapped by a sidekick for the night, Terry with a girl way out of his league and John with a flippant pre-teen. The summer of ‘62 may have been the last summer of innocence for this generation, before Vietnam, JFK’s assassination and the rioting, a summer of having no clue of what lies ahead, which is exactly the emotion captured in this film. This movie manages to keep you engaged with plenty of humor, drama and a sense of not knowing without ever feeling cynical or depressing because the cast has no idea of what’s to come.
Gen X – The Breakfast Club (1985) follows five high school students from different walks of life who meet while stuck in a Saturday detention. A rebel, a princess, a jock, a basket case and a brainiac in forced proximity discover how, despite physically portraying their stereotypes, they are sick of being labeled as them. This movie manages to be sympathetic toward some of the stupidest choices that teenagers make because it recognizes that these people who don’t truly know who they are yet, restricted by their home lives and the boxes that school puts them in, are just people.
They don’t undergo a magical transformation and in fact, they will walk into school on Monday playing into the same archetypes that they have been for years, but this time they will do so with the knowledge that they are surrounded by unheard stories. The Breakfast Club builds a complex story crowded with identity crisis, family turmoil and suicidal ideation and how these manifest in different social groups.
Millennial – Mean Girls (2004) is undeniably a classic high school coming-of age-comedy. Despite the stereotypically written characters, the script is well-written and directed with clever jokes, nice set-ups and payoffs, iconic quotable lines and an accurate depiction of high school relationships. Teen Cady Heron was raised by her scientist parents in South Africa but faces a harsh reality when she is moved to the suburbs of Evanstan, Illonois. This is a movie, once again, about the classic cliques of high school in which every character, main and side, manage to grab your attention and deliver an unforgettable performance.
Gen Z – It was a difficult pick between The Edge of Seventeen (2016) and Booksmart (2019) but I ended up going with The Edge of Seventeen, which portrays Nadine (Hailee Steinfield) as an angsty, depressed and lonely teenager who is left reeling after her best friend starts dating her brother. With a challenging work load, family life and now rocky friendship, Nadine falls even deeper after developing an obsessive crush.
This movie captures the awkwardness and common anxieties that come with being a teenager in this age. The tie of Nadine and the cast in general to the overwhelming effect of screens and phones on their lives doesn’t feel forced or blameful. The movie does start off at a point that seems like it will be weak and formulaic but manages to weave out of that hole smoothly with a functional script that works to carry the cast out of a generic movie. A movie filled with dramatic revelations and an ultimately happy ending is one sure to find its crowd and ease the feeling of fear among it.
In the same way that you are not meant to fix something that isn’t broken, these three movies simply shift the perspective of an effect that has and will become familiar to every single person. Coming-of-age movies are often meant to make their audiences laugh, cry, yearn for a different time, form an insightful view or all of the above, and these movies do just that.