12 Best Movies Like 2003’s Thirteen

The 2003 indie drama “Thirteen” was widely acclaimed upon release while elevating the careers of filmmaker Catherine Hardwicke (who was paid just $13 for the job) and actors Evan Rachel Wood and Nikki Reed. “Thirteen” was lauded for its searing, contemporary depiction of the lives of impressionable American teenagers. For those looking for movies tackling similar subject matter and themes, there is no shortage of teen coming-of-age dramas. From triumphs to tragedies, plenty of movies have explored the everyday life of American teenagers, both preceding “Thirteen” and released in the 2003 film’s wake.

From dramedies to tonally uncompromising dramas, those pivotal teenage years are ripe for cinematic exploration. Even the comedies on this coming-of-age list don’t shy away from the heavier parts of the teenage experience, including illegal drug use, mental health concerns, and teen pregnancy. Simply put, growing up can be a grueling ordeal, and these movies find the heartbreak and humor in less than ideal coming-of-age scenarios. Here are the 12 best movies like Catherine Hardwicke’s 2013 film “Thirteen.”

Filmmaker Sofia Coppola came out the gate swinging with her 1999 feature directorial debut “The Virgin Suicides.” True to its title, the movie is a dark portrait of a group of sisters headed by overprotective parents withdrawn from the rest of the neighborhood. During the summer of 1975, the family’s youngest daughter, Celicia (Hanna R. Hall), kills herself, making her parents even more restrictive of their surviving daughters. This leads to the girls reacting in their own rebellious ways, particularly the family’s oldest daughter, Lux (Kirsten Dunst).

Unfolding like a modern fairytale, there is a sense of surrealism that permeates throughout “The Virgin Suicides” and its cautionary tale of overbearing parents. That dream-like quality gradually turns into a lurid nightmare as the story grows more foreboding and sinister. Coppola hews faithfully to 1993 novel source material by Jeffrey Eugenides, while giving the story a more ethereal feel. Coppola went on to have her own extensive directorial career though with nothing near as dark as “The Virgin Suicides” to date.

The same year that Natalie Portman made her “Star Wars” debut as Queen Amidala, she also starred in the 1999 dramedy “Anywhere but Here.” Portman plays Ann, a teenager who relocates from small-town Wisconsin to Los Angeles with her mother Adele (Susan Sarandon). As Adele struggles to make ends meet, she hopes that Ann will successfully land a job as an actor. However, Ann is more interested in making friends in the new town and attending Brown University instead, putting the mother and daughter at odds.

What carries and elevates “Anywhere but Here” from being another throwaway drama are Sarandon and Portman’s performances. Portman, in particular, gives a more understated and insightful performance as Ann, a young woman much wiser and restrained than her mother. At the same time, Ann is a character who has her own reckless hopes and dreams, but approaches them much differently than Adele. A showcase for its leads, “Anywhere but Here” promised strong things from Portman, a promise she has consistently delivered upon.

Winona Ryder had started her on-screen career with a number of coming-of-age roles in the late ’80s and early ’90s. Years later, she took on a much darker and mature coming-of-age role for 1999’s “Girl, Interrupted.” Based on the memoir of Susanna Kaysen, Ryder plays Kaysen, who is admitted to a New England psychiatric hospital against her will in 1967 after enduring a nervous breakdown. As Kaysen receives treatment, she meets Lisa Rowe (Angelina Jolie), a sociopathic patient with a penchant for escaping confinement and stirring up trouble.

Top-to-bottom, “Girl, Interrupted” has a stacked ensemble cast, with Ryder and Jolie joined by Clea Duvall, Elisabeth Moss, Vanessa Redgrave, and more. While Ryder more than holds her own as Kaysen, Jolie is absolutely magnetic in her performance as Rowe. Whenever Jolie is on-screen, she’s a force of nature, intensely unpredictable and commanding all the attention in her scenes. Jolie would earn a well-deserved Academy Award for her work in the film while “Girl, Interrupted” ended Ryder’s run of coming-of-age roles on a solid and cathartic note.

Based on the ’90s comic book of the same name by Daniel Clowes, 2001’s “Ghost World” focuses on that last gasp before bonafide adulthood, the summer after high school graduation. Best friends Enid (Thora Birch) and Rebecca (Scarlett Johansson) face no serious future prospects as they search for jobs and a place to live. While attending a remedial art class to earn her diploma, Enid befriends Seymour (Steve Buscemi), a lonely middle-aged man looking for companionship. Enid’s budding relationship with Seymour strains her dynamic with Rebecca as the two young women gradually grow apart.

Completely angst-ridden in its pondering tour of young adult alienation, “Ghost World” is as restrained and understated as its protagonist. Birch gives a career-best performance as Enid, a tragic figure, drifting towards life’s next crucial crossroads. Similarly, Buscemi is precise and delicate in his handling of Seymour, a character who could easily be a creep transformed into a sympathetic misfit. Beautiful in its depiction of social malaise, “Ghost World” is an overlooked masterful comic book adaptation, and it’s one of Scarlett Johansson’s best movies too.

Kirsten Dunst and Jay Hernandez play a high school couple from opposite sides of the track in 2001’s “Crazy/Beautiful.” Hernandez plays Carlos, a teenager from East Los Angeles who travels to a high school in the Pacific Palisades to fulfill his dream of attending the U.S. Naval Academy. Carlos begins dating Nicole (Dunst), a classmate and the rebellious daughter of a local congressman. As the couple grows more serious, their different backgrounds put a strain on their relationship, with both sets of parents feeling they are a bad match for each other.

Though “Crazy/Beautiful” might not have the most original story, the lead performances from Hernandez and Dunst light up what could’ve been formulaic material. Dunst and Hernandez have a natural chemistry, with both giving earnest performances as their characters give into young love with reckless abandon. Dunst, in particular, shines as Nicole, whose hard-partying ways conceal a damaged and vulnerable heart. “Crazy/Beautiful” doesn’t reinvent the coming-of-age wheel but also doesn’t try to, instead focusing on crafting a solid L.A. love story.

Though the topic of teen pregnancy might not seem like a source of comedy, 2007’s “Juno” manages to find laughs in its mature subject matter. Minnesota high schooler Juno MacGuff (Elliot Page) becomes pregnant after sleeping with her friend Paulie Bleeker (Michael Cera). Deciding to give up the incoming baby for adoption, Juno meets with the prospective adoptive parents Vanessa Loring (Jennifer Garner) and her husband Mark (Jason Bateman). As Juno’s pregnancy progresses, she struggles with her feelings for Paulie over whether they should simply remain friends instead of becoming a couple.

Page delivers the performance of a lifetime as Juno, alternating between hilarious to completely vulnerable in an instant. Director Jason Reitman stacks the deck around Page with the larger ensemble cast, especially with the inclusion of Allison Janney and J.K. Simmons playing Juno’s parents. Every actor plays their respective part to the hilt, easily delivering screenwriter Diablo Cody’s smartly written dialog, with Page making the role of Juno all their own. With everyone in the cast and crew firing on all cylinders, “Juno” pulls off the tricky feat of somehow being a feel-good movie about teen pregnancy.

British journalist Lynn Barber’s 2009 memoir “An Education” was loosely adapted into a feature film the same year, starring Carey Mulligan as protagonist Jenny Mellor. Jenny dreams of attending the University of Oxford after completing her schooling in 1961 London when she meets an older man named David (Peter Sarsgaard). Despite the age difference, Jenny’s parents approve of the coupling, impressed by David’s apparent social connections and background. However, as Jenny prepares to marry David and discard her collegiate dreams, the dark truth about him surfaces.

“An Education” starts out as a storybook romance, complete with a lush musical soundtrack and picturesque detours to Paris as Jenny and David’s whirlwind courtship escalates. This swerves into a darkly deceptive turn of events, especially given how much Jenny gives up to make her relationship with David work. Mulligan plays both sides of this scenario well, avoiding outright melodrama as she keeps sight of Jenny’s wounded heart. A career breakthrough for Mulligan, “An Education” plays like a duplicitously postmodern take on a Prince Charming archetype while maintaining hope for its naive protagonist.

Sapphire’s acclaimed 1996 novel “Push,” was adapted into the 2009 “Precious,” starring Gabourey Sidibe as its teenage title character. Set in 1987 Harlem, Precious lives with her abusive mother Mary (Mo’Nique) in poverty, raising her daughter and pregnant with her second child from being raped by her absent father. While Mary insists Precious live on welfare through her children, she attends an alternative school where she learns how to read and write. Things between Precious and Mary come to a head after Precious gives birth to her second child, with Precious ready to build a better future for herself and her children.

“Precious” is not an easy watch, thoroughly grim but offering audiences a glimmer of hope for a better tomorrow by the end. Every actor in this all-star ensemble plays their respective parts to the hilt, especially Sidibe and Mo’Nique. “Precious” doesn’t pull any of its punches, but it would feel like a disservice to the story if it did, setting the harrowing stakes before adding a sense of empowerment. One of those movies that you only watch once, “Precious” sticks with viewers in its unflinching portrait of extreme poverty and familial abuse.

Author Stephen Chbosky got the rare opportunity to adapt his own novel, adapting his 1991 book “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” for the silver screen in 2012. Set in the Pittsburgh suburbs in the early ’90s, Charlie (Logan Lerman) begins high school after a stint in a mental institution for severe depression. Charlie befriends siblings Patrick (Ezra Miller) and Sam (Emma Watson), joining their group of social misfits. As the close-knit ensemble progresses through the school year, the circumstances behind Charlie’s troubled past are gradually revealed.

“The Perks of Being a Wallflower” is a period piece that doesn’t feel like one, with the story and its themes as relevant now as they were in 1991. Lerman and Miller are never better than their respective roles in this movie, Lerman as the withdrawn Charlie and Miller as unfailingly outgoing Patrick. An essential movie about the high school experience, “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” weaves in its heavier elements at a deliberate pace, making the heartbreak feel more earned. But despite the tragedy that the characters endure, their friendship makes life all the more worth living, rallying together to overcome life’s biggest challenges.

Parental loss and the subsequently confusing family dynamics hang heavily over the 2016 dramedy “The Edge of Seventeen.” Several years after losing her father suddenly, high schooler Nadine Franklin (Hailee Steinfeld) still has a rocky relationship with her mother Mona (Kyra Sedgwick) and older brother Darian (Blake Jenner). This is exacerbated when Darian begins dating Nadine’s best friend Krista (Haley Lu Richardson), making Nadine feel betrayed and isolated. Nadine tries to make new friends, including with her exasperated teacher (Woody Harrelson), as she tries to win the affections of an older classmate (Alexander Calvert).

“The Edge of Seventeen” really offers Steinfeld a fantastic showcase to show both her comedic and dramatic talents in equal measure. Like all teenagers, Nadine is a particularly complex and complicated character, and Steinfeld deftly keeps her likable and relatable. Steinfeld’s more lighthearted scenes with Harrelson offer a buoyant contrast to her rawer scenes opposite Sedgwick and Jenner and their tense familial relationship. Like its protagonist, “The Edge of Seventeen” is, at turns, acerbic, biting, funny, and heartbreaking, but always sincere.

While Walt Disney World may be the happiest place on Earth, those living around it might not always feel that corporately manufactured magic. That juxtaposition informs the 2017 drama “The Florida Project,” which focuses on single mother Halley (Bria Vinaite) and her six-year-old daughter Moonee (Brooklynn Kimberly Prince). Living together in a budget motel near Disney World in Kissimmee, Florida (making it one of the best movies set in the state), Halley struggles to make ends meet after losing her job as a stripper. The pair’s life grows more complicated as they meet a similarly financially-strapped family led by another single mother, Ashley (Mela Murder).

A frank look at the life of the underprivileged living in the shadow of prefabricated joy, “The Florida Project” brings heart to a neglected community. Halley and Ashley aren’t perfect parents, but we understand why they each make the choices they make to survive and care for their kids as best they know how. Told primarily from Moonee’s perspective, this makes the more raw sequences a bit more palpable, refracted through the lens of early childhood innocence. Though not an uplifting story, “The Florida Project” offers a glimpse of empathy and understanding for a population society has largely written off as a lost cause.

Whether it’s Barbies learning how to become human or period piece sisters growing up, filmmaker Greta Gerwig excels at coming-of-age stories. Gerwig’s 2017 dramedy “Lady Bird” more explicitly places this sensibility in an early 2000s high school setting. Sacramento high school senior Christine McPherson (Saoirse Ronan) who hopes to attend an East Coast university, straining her relationship with her mother (Laurie Metcalf). Nicknamed Lady Bird, Christine goes through the final trials and tribulations of high school while waiting on her college acceptance decision.

Gerwig found a fantastic collaborative partner in Ronan, perfectly delivering upon Gerwig’s writing and direction as her semi-autobiographical protagonist. Christine’s tumultuous relationship with her mother is the emotional centerpiece of the story, with Ronan and Metcalf capturing that fiery dynamic well. And as fraught as Christine’s experiences get, Gerwig still finds the incidental humor throughout the movie, keeping things from being deadly serious all the time. Gerwig’s masterpiece, “Lady Bird” is a coming-of-age triumph and Ronan’s greatest on-screen performance to date.