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What films did you love in your late teens to mid twenties? What makes a good young adult film?
Is it simply as simple as having young protagonists? I don't think so. On the one hand, I love Remains of the Day but I wouldn't suggest it to younger family members. On the other hand, Schindler's List released when I was in college and I loved/suffered through that film.
When I was a kid, Big Trouble in Little China was my jam.
I remember another family we were once very close with. Every time they came over for dinner their sons, my sister and me would be in the living room watching this movie while the parents were in the dining room chatting.
Then I went through a phase of Manga movies. Ghost in the Shell, Blackjack, Vampire Hunter D all got watched regularly.
I'm kind of an outlier in terms of my movie watching habits. But I'll go through my favorite movies throughout my teen years to now.
10-13: Scott Pilgrim vs The World
Fast paced, quick action, nerdy/dorky humor, video game aesthetic. I was all about that back as a kid. I wanted to be Pilgrim. I wanted to dress like him, act like him, I just thought he was so cool.
14-17: Her
This is the time I was first getting into movies. I still wasn't watching a lot of classic cinema, but I was starting to watch a lot of smaller, art-house films. It's a visually gorgeous film with a score/soundtrack that I often had on repeat. Because I was coming into my own and getting acclimated with the human condition, I related to the main character a lot. His loneliness, his self-loathing, his self-destructive behavior.
18-20: Moonstruck
Finally, I start watching older films. I watch this one day when my foot was broken and I had literally nothing to do. This wasn't a moment where I related to the characters, I didn't really see myself in anyone. The film has a heightened reality to it, it feels whimsical and kind of fairy tale esque, so it was difficult for me to see anything that affected me deeply. But it was such a rewatchable film, with fantastic bombastic performances from Cher and Nicolas Cage. I loved the way that the camera moved, as subtle as it was, and I loved the score. It was just something I fell in love with as a movie.
I don't really have anything to say about my current favorite movie: What's Up Doc? that I already didn't say about Moonstruck, except that I've now watched even more movies and I've gotten myself familiar with Screwball comedies of the 30s and 40s and have grown a great appreciation for them.
What's Up Doc? is a forgotten gem. I remember loving it as a kid - my mom may have taken me with her to see it during its original run in the theater or at the drive-in, but I definitely remember watching it whenever it came on TV. People forget what a great comedic actress Streisand was, and the chemistry she and O'Neal had (their rematch several years later in The Main Event wasn't screwball-zany but they still had that spark as I recall).
Yeah Streisand really makes that film. I had already watch Funny Girl by the time I watched What's Up Doc so I was already in love with her but this really just reinforced that. Funnily enough I had also seen Love Story so when the "love means never having to say you're sorry" line came up I lost my mind.
In my teens, I loved 10 Things I Hate About You. It was the first teen comedy I saw about someone like myself - a bookish girl who's not concerned with fitting in, and not willing to change. I also liked Mean Girls, but for a completely different reason - I thought it was delightfully bonkers.
On the completely opposite vibe of things, I liked Equilibrium, probably because it's such a standard dystopian tale but with cool clothes and gunplay. And Donnie Darko, even though I didn't really get it.
Once I got to uni, I moved to a city with a big film festival, and got into arthouse cinema without even realising. I don't think I watched a lot of YA films after the age of 18 - I was ready to explore more complex and potentially darker topics.
500 Days of Summer was perhaps my favorite movie when it came out. I was almost 20 at the time and just connected with it like nothing else.
A few years after that I watched It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World for the first time, and since then it's been my favorite movie. It's just pure madcap mayhem for hours. I was watching a lot of older films at the time and despite not having a huge appreciation for many of the older comedy stars in that movie I really enjoyed it. I had already seen Rat Race as a kid (which was a remake of it with a more modern cast) but that just doesn't compare with the original. It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World certainly doesn't have a lot of youthful cast members.
I love It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World too! It’s hard to watch these days though, mainly because it’s incredibly long. Just when you feel it ought to be wrapping up soon, the INTERMISSION begin. Also, partly because of the movie’s improv nature and huge ensemble cast, there are a bunch of scenes with crosstalk and people just yelling at each other. Bit sensorially overwhelming for me. It’s hilarious though.
I have a decent stomach for long movies, but It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World just doesn't even count for me because it keeps the energy up through the whole movie and the runtime flies by. It absolutely is overwhelming to the senses, it's what I love about it!
I still remember the first time I saw Stand By Me with my twin brother and a buddy who was staying over at our place. Still one of my favorite movies. I'm not even sure why we picked that one and we weren't expecting much but when it ended we all said damn that was a great movie. I don't know what makes a movie a great young adult movie but that particular one always made me want to just go on exciting adventures with some friends.
My first thought to this question was Stand By Me. I don't know what it is about coming of age movies that hits my nostalgia bone but I think you put it very succinctly about wanting to go on adventures with friends
We've been discussing about how appropriate it is to show the 5yo Jurassic Park.
Speaking from experience, I was probably 5 or 6 when I first saw Jurassic Park and it scared the crap out of me, but I have a weird fondness for it because of that. I think of it as a horror film akin to Alien.
Cool. He got bored before the bad stuff happened, but your experience is about what I would expect from him.
We've never said or shown him anything about weapons, but he's picked that up from preschool.
When I was a kid my mother said she would never let me have toy guns. Then she saw me using a banana as a toy gun and realized it was pointless.
Seriously kids will find a way to turn whatever into a weapon. I used to cut branches off bushes and tie cord to it to fashion a crude bow
Smh. Humans... Too predictable. I definitely did that, too, but we were playing the first gulf war.
I'm fostering a lab puppy. The other siblings have been sent to other fosters, but there's just so many dogs around now.
He's just such a lab. He's actually a really high quality dog for so many reasons (we did keep the best one, though), but his behavior is so predictable.
I think a good teen/young adult movie is one that introduces new concepts, darker themes or explores the human condition a bit.
I’m 39 but my favorites and some favorites from my friend group back in my late teens/twenties:
Stuff that introduces harsher tones or absurdities and makes you think/feel.
I can't think of any movies I liked when I was younger and don't like now. There are movies that I liked because they were silly and they've only become more silly, unintentionally, as they have aged.
Thinking back, "young adult" is kind of a new metagenre for films. I can't think of any that were considered to be that before The Hunger Games or perhaps the latter Harry Potter movies.
I would have to say that as long as I can remember having a cast filled young leads was generally a sign that I wouldn't be interested in the movie. There are exceptions, of course, but not too many.
This is one of those things you'll probably have to just talk out with your family to see what they're looking for.
The Outsiders and the Breakfast Club and Easy rider are three that I can think of that were excellent films featuring young adults. The Princess Bride is a young person's story with broad cross generational appeal. But I hear you about low quality teen films.
YA is a new term, but it's not really a new genre. I remember them simply being referred to as "Teen" movies back when I was growing up. Breakfast Club, and the rest of the John Hughes/Molly Ringwald classics, along with Ferris Bueller's Day Off, are the first of those that I can remember, but I doubt even they were the first.
I can't believe that I didn't think about teen movies. It's what OP wanted with different wording.
But my answer is still basically the same. I don't like the majority of teen movies, even some of the Hughes ones (a lot of people dislike the fact that I didn't like The Breakfast Club).
I don't think we can talk anymore or I might violate Tildes Code of Conduct!! :P But in all seriousness, different strokes for different folks. It's okay if you didn't like it, but I personally loved it. It was the first movie I ever saw that really captured what it felt like to be an outsider in school (which I was), and it gave me hope that things could get better.
I'll make sure to watch my back when I'm out in public. 😉
Thanks for chiming in! Not a film, (at least I didn't see the film until much later) but the character Fiver in Watership Down showed me that overcoming being bullied and being a nerd who contributes to the team was possible and valued.
I still haven't watched Watership Down due to repeatedly hearing about how traumatic and insanely sad it is. Is that reputation overblown? Or is it well deserved, and should overly-sensitive old me still avoid watching it?
It's tough to make that call for someone else. Watership Down the book hits my sweet spot as a thoughtful well crafted epic adventure where the characters face real risks and show heroism and smarts doing so. People on reddit have told me that the book is too intense and sad for them. I liked the film but it is intense. Visual medium hits harder imho. How are you with Grave of the Fireflies?
Grave of the Fireflies completely broke me down into a blubbering mess, and it took several days for me to recover. Jojo Rabbit did that to me too.
Don't get me wrong, I loved both of those films. But I can never, ever watch them again. So the fact that you're putting Watership Down in the same company leads me to believe I have probably done the right thing in avoiding it thus far. I will probably watch Watership Down eventually, but I have to make sure I'm in the exact right frame of mind to watch emotionally devastating movies like that, or I risk having a full-blown breakdown/mental health crisis.
People only talk about it like that because they watched it at, like, five. That happened loads back in the day because parents just thought it would be a fun cutesy kids movie or something.
IMO, the book was better, so I'd recommend that first.
From my comment above:
After reading that do you still think I will have no trouble watching it? I actually do handle reading emotionally devastating books better than watching devastating movies though, so your suggesting about starting with the book is probably a good one. I will add it to my reading list.
Well that changes things. I thought that Jojo Rabbit was fairly happy, no?
You should totally experience Watership Down (in some form) anyway. At least you'll get to join the club if it makes you sad :/
It was incredibly funny, and a great movie, but I don't know if I would call it happy. Have you seen it? I ask because I don't want to spoil anything for you if you haven't. But regardless, I think it's still pretty safe to say one part in particular absolutely wrecked me, and I think most people who have watched it will know exactly what I mean when I say "her shoes".
If you mean the bit where
SPOILER!!
the mum diesthen yeah, that was pretty sad, but the rest of it was a comedy.
Hughes movies (as a writer and director) were deeply problematic in some respects (Sixteen Candles anyone?), and white upper-middle-class male teen fantasies at their best. I liked Breakfast Club well enough but didn't speak to me the way it did many of my high school friends - their obsession with it eventually bored me to tears. My favorite was probably Ferris Bueller simply because it seemed to me to be mostly a joyful ridiculous fantasy; She's Having a Baby I liked to a lesser extent b/c Hughes at last appeared to be evolving a bit into "adult" themes and b/c it has a kicking soundtrack.
Some people's tastes change over time. Or if you're older and grew up pre-streaming -- or even pre-video store for the real oldies -- you may have had more limited access to movies, or parents who limited your access in terms of what you could watch.
One example I can think of is The Little Rascals (from the 90s) - I loved that movie as a young kid, didn't watch it for a long time, then watched some of it again and it is... rough.
It sort of came out of the book realm, and a lot of those movies were based upon books. Adult fiction is a pretty wide-ranging category but a lot of other categories were 'created' to focus marketing and branding for certain kinds of books. Young adult books have been around for a while, decades now, but "Teen" books became a thing in the 2000s -- books that are made for tweens/young teenagers, that feature more romance and violence but bridge from kids/young adult books with settings/themes that kids grow into with them -- schools, fantasy/fantastical themes, mysteries, and they're all heavily serialized because they're meant to pump out series of books, usually in a short timespan. The "Teen" category started to pop up in the 2000s and went just absolutely crazy because those books tend to sell a lot not just to teenagers (moreso girls), but they also tend to be popular with adult women.
There is indeed a new metagenre there in films, but it really came from the book realm because so many of these books slot into the teen category. Harry Potter sort of led the way there although those are kids' books, not teen books, but kids grew up with them and were looking for other things to read (and then Twilight popped off like crazy once Harry Potter was over).
In my late teens it was sci-fi/fantasy or nothing. The Star Wars prequels, Lord of the Rings, and the Matrix all came out around that time.
In my early 20s, I still loved that stuff but also found a soft spot for movies like Ghost World and Garden State - anything where the protagonist was desperately trying to find themselves (bonus if it had a good soundtrack I could get the CD of).
I'm in my mid 20s still but I think the list of movies I go back to watch at least once a year are cemented from my teenage years.
Casino Royale
Dredd (the Karl Urban one)
Scott Pilgrim Vs The World
Cornetto trilogy
Star Wars original trilogy
I came of age during the era of campy coming-of-age indie films, so probably one of those.
They’re all pretty whimsical movies, which I think is important if we’re appealing to teenage sensibilities. I haven’t watched most of these since the 2000s so I can’t be sure, but in my memory at least a lot of them also capture the quintessential essence of the era which helps cement their legacy as the audience ages.
It's cliche, but I watched Neon Genesis Evangelion as a 17 y/o. I thought the show was pretty solid, but oh man, then I watched End of Evangelion; the whole third impact sequence rewired my head. Aside from IMO just dealing with the show's themes very succinctly and the first half having one of the greatest action sequences in animation, it felt like the movie decoupled signal and feeling in my head for everything after. Was a giant realization that art doesn't require narrative or cohesion to make you feel something, even if it doesn't have concrete "meaning" - and that it's valid, the same signals may not trigger the same feeling in others, it's OK if you struggle to communicate, as long as you struggle to communicate, etc etc... Definitely one of those things I think hits harder if you watch it at just the right age or mindset.
Reality Bites, mostly because I had a massive crush on a guy who resembled Ethan Hawke’s character. A part of me wonders how I’d feel about it if I watched it again now, but another part of me feels like it would be too much like looking through my school yearbook and some things should just stay in the past.
In my late teens, I attended a Film & Philosophy class that certainly transformed my understanding of films for the better. We watched a lot of old classics and contemporary gems such as Memento, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Citizen Kane, Casablanca, The Dark Knight, Rear Window, Psycho, 12 Angry Men and many more. However, taking the lessons from that class helped me find the movies that would eventually influence and shape my early 20s. Those films are Amelie, Mr. Nobody, Her, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
To answer your question, I think films with an angle of romance mixed with psychological mystery and/or existentialism are notably relevant for your early 20s. Its a period of uncertainty and discovery - coming to terms with the "real world" while trying to figure out who and what you love.
Thank you for your thoughtful response. Are you familiar with The African Queen, Run Lola Run, Goodbye Lenin? I love all of those films.
I'm familiar with The African Queen but have not seen it yet (it's been on my film watchlist for a while). I had to look up the other two, but they definitely look interesting, especially Run Lola Run. I'll add them both to my list as well. Thanks!
Pleasantville was formative for me. Seeing young adults come to terms with the hypocrisy of the adults of generations them, highlighted through the “tv/time-jump” gimmick of the story really hit home at 17 for me. Tobey maguire comes back to the real world and has to take care of his mom, and that helped me make the transition to adulthood as I played similar roles in the years soon after