coming of age movies

Four childhood friends, now in their thirties, are having a reunion. Their lives have gone separate and very different ways. Together again they reminisce about their younger years, especially the eventful period when they were 12 years old.

A socially inept fourteen year old experiences heartbreak for the first time when his two best friends--one an older-brother figure, the other a girl with whom he is in love-- fall for each other.

Chicago Sun Times copy editor Josie Gellar (25), who was desperate to graduate from perfectionist copy editor to reporter, gets her chance when the goody owner orders the editor to cover the high-school scene by undercover. Josie, who was a frustrated, ridiculed nerd, gets a popular make-over from her drop-out, naturally funny brother Rob Geller. Both siblings find love and joys of youth again. But in Josie's case, it's sensitive bachelor teacher Sam Coulson, who enjoys sophisticated conversation. As the publication deadline approaches, the price of blowing their cover seems ever more daunting, yet inevitable unless she sacrifices her career.

Follows a group of high school students growing up in southern California, based on the real-life adventures chronicled by Cameron Crowe. Stacy Hamilton and Mark Ratner are looking for a love interest, and are helped along by their older classmates, Linda Barrett and Mike Damone, respectively. The center of the film is held by Jeff Spicoli, a perpetually stoned surfer dude who faces off with the resolute Mr. Hand, who is convinced that everyone is on dope.

Vivian's family are penniless nomads, moving from one cheap flat to another in Beverly Hills so she and her brothers can attend the city's schools. Uncle Mickey sends them money to survive. When Mickey's daughter Rita runs away from an asylum, Vivian's dad offers shelter to her if Mickey will pay for a plush flat. Vivian must babysit her adult cousin, making sure she gets to nursing school and avoids pills and booze. But Vivian has her own problems: she's curious about sex, likes an older neighbor kid, has inherited her mother's ample breasts, and wants a family that doesn't embarrass her. Can she help Rita, keep Uncle Mickey happy, and feel OK about her body and her family?

Cher, a high school student in Beverly Hills, must survive the ups and downs of adolescent life. Her external demeanor at first seems superficial, but rather it hides her wit, charm, and intelligence which help her to deal with relationships, friends, family, school, and the all-important teenage social life.

Samantha's life is going downhill fast. The sixteen-year-old has a crush on the most popular boy in school, and the geekiest boy in school has a crush on her. Her sister's getting married, and with all the excitement the rest of her family forgets her birthday! Add all this to a pair of horrendously embarrassing grandparents, a foreign exchange student named Long Duk Dong, and we have the makings of a hilarious journey into young womanhood.

Lindsay Lohan stars as Cady Heron, a 16 year old homeschooled girl who not only makes the mistake of falling for Aaron Samuels (Jonathan Bennett), the ex-boyfriend of queenbee Regina George (Rachel McAdams), but also unintentionally joins The Plastics, led by Regina herself. Join Cady as she learns that high school life can and will be really tough.

It's been three weeks, two days, and 23 hours since Tris broke up with Nick. And now here she is at his gig, with a new guy. How could she have moved on so fast? This begins the night of Nick, Norah and Manhattan. The night of stripping nuns, hotel ice rooms, Russian food, psychotic ex-boyfriends and lovingly trashy ex-girlfriends. It's the night of Julio and Salvatore. The night of holding hands and writing songs and singing in the rain. It's a night they'll never forget.

Carmen Lowell is working on the backstage of a play at Yale. When the lead actress, her friend Julia, invites her to Vermont with her to work on a play with a professional cast, she decides to stay with her friends and her pregnant mother. However, she changes her mind after she finds that her friends will all leave for the summer: Lena Kaligaris will travel to a drawing course, Bridget Vreeland, who is in an existential crisis, missing her mother, will travel to an archaeological dig in Turkey, and Tibby Tomko-Rollins is working in a rental and still editing her documentary. Carmen grows a crush on the lead actor Ian, who convinces her to participate in an audition, and she is then invited by the director Bill Kerr to perform the lead female role. Later she finds the truth about the friendship of Julia. The broken-hearted Lena finds that Kostas has just married, and she dates the model of her drawing class. Bridget finds letters addressed to her from her grandmother that her father has hidden, and decides to visit her, discovering information about her mother. Tibby makes love with her boyfriend Brian McBrian and gets scared of a possible pregnancy. In the end, the girlfriends discover that their friendship is real and amounts to more than just a pair of jeans.

Ronald Miller is tired of being a nerd, and makes a deal with one of the most popular girls in school to help him break into the "cool" clique. He offers her a thousand dollars to pretend to be his girlfriend for a month. It succeeds, but he soon learns that the price of popularity may be higher than he expected.

One night at a friend's house party, a somewhat confident Dave meets a cool and artistic girl named Aubrey. She helps him with his romantic feelings for Jane. They talk about Dave's feelings, and he believes he should tell Jane how he feels. They soon get interrupted by the cops showing up, but decide to walk home together. As the weekend begins, the new friends start to hang out, as well as discuss their relationship... And their virginity. Dave becomes more and more interested in Aubrey, and she reciprocates. Even though she is involved with Roni (her soon to be ex), she has trouble denying her true feelings for Dave. There is one problem, however, Dave is going off to college in another city. Aubrey still has one year left of high school. Will they be able to handle a long distance relationship? Is their love strong enough? Or will Dave chose Jane, the girl of his dreams instead.

Nicole (Melissa Joan Hart) and Chase (Adrian Grenier) are neighbors but are from two very different worlds. Despite their differences their love lives have a common theme. Their most recent plans for love have fallen through putting them both in a desperate state to fix them. Both Nicole and Chase conspire to pretend to find a romantic interest in each other, with the hopes of attracting the "ones who got away" from them. Leading up to the big school dance, Chase and Nicole find that their scam worked out better than they had planned.

Although cheerful, friendly, intelligent, well-dressed, authentic and wealthy, Charlie Bartlett has problems. With his father gone and his mother loopy and clueless, he's been expelled from every private school for his victimless crimes. Now he's in a public school getting punched out daily by the school thug. He ever longs to be popular - the go-to guy - and the true crux of his troubles is that he invariably finds the means to this end, whatever that might be. At Western Summit High, he makes peace with his tormentor by going into business with him - listening to kids' problems and selling them prescription drugs. Charlie's a hit, but attraction to Susan (daughter of the school's laissez-faire principal), new security cameras on campus, a student's overdose, and Charlie's open world view all converge to get him in serious trouble. Can this self-made physician possibly heal himself and just be a kid?

After a little white lie about losing her virginity gets out, a clean cut high school girl sees her life paralleling Hester Prynne's in "The Scarlet Letter," which she is currently studying in school - until she decides to use the rumor mill to advance her social and financial standing.

Craig is a high-school junior in the gifted program, infatuated with his best friend's girl. When he realizes he's suicidal, he checks himself into the psychiatric ward of a hospital, thinking they'll do an observation, help him, and send him home in time for school the next day. Once in, however, he must stay for a week; the juvenile ward is being renovated, so he's in with adults as well as a few youths. Bobby, a man with a young daughter, shows him around; Craig notices Noelle, about his age. He tries to keep his friends from finding out where he is. He draws, goes to therapy, sings, helps Bobby rehearse an interview. Is this the stuff of insight?

Adapted from William Shakespeare's play "The Taming of the Shrew," 10 Things I Hate About You starts off with Cameron, new student at Padua High, sitting in the office of the quirky guidance counselor Ms. Perky. He is then shown around the school by Michael, who will become his best friend. During his tour is when Cameron first sees Bianca Stratford, a beautiful sophomore with one problem: she isn't allowed to date. And neither is her "shrew" sister, Katarina, a senior who loves indie rock and feminist prose and hates conformity. But Kat and Bianca's father alters his house rule: now, Bianca can date... as long as Kat has a date, too. Now, in order for Cameron to date Bianca, he has to find someone to date Kat. So Michael helps him enlist the help of pretty-boy/jerk/model Joey Donner, tricking him into thinking that *he* will get to take Bianca out if he pays someone to take out Kat. His choice: Patrick Verona, a bad-boy with a mysterious reputation--some say he ate a live duck once, others that he lit a state trooper on fire, and even more claim that he had a brief porn career. Will Patrick win Kat's heart? Will Cameron win Bianca's? Or will everything hit the fan...?

A tale told over four seasons, starting in autumn when Juno, a 16-year-old high-school junior in Minnesota, discovers she's pregnant after one event in a chair with her best friend, Bleeker. In the waiting room of an abortion clinic, the quirky and whip-sharp Juno decides to give birth and to place the child with an adoptive couple. She finds one in the PennySaver personals, contacts them, tells her dad and step-mother, and carries on with school. The chosen parents, upscale yuppies (one of whom is cool and laid back, the other meticulous and uptight), meet Juno, sign papers, and the year unfolds. Will Juno's plan work, can she improvise, and what about Bleeker?