Piturro’s Picks

Charles Schwaebe

Coming-of-Age Film Recommendations

Coming-of-Age films are a modern cultural staple. However, they aren’t always as obvious as the name implies. Most people think about teenagers, but the genre has broader boundaries than one might expect. I sat down with Dr. Vincent Piturro, a professor of Film and Media studies here at MSU Denver, to discuss coming-of-age films and to share some of his favorites.

“I like to talk about genre as less of a description of something and more the actual films that are in the genre. A genre is not described by words. It’s described by the films in the genre.”

-Dr. Vincent Piturro

Rebel Without a Cause

Release Date: 1955 Director: Nicholas Ray Piturro’s Input: [James Dean] only made a couple of movies before he died. So, he’s sort-of remembered as that character, in that late teen age, and that really kind of started to mark a changing of generations as well. Rebel Without a Cause, for example, is very much about this counterculture developing in the late 50s, going into the 60s. Very much sociopolitical.

The 400 Blows

Release Date: 1959

Director: François Truffaut

Piturro’s Input: It’s a French film. It’s a great film.

Very famous, very powerful, and a wonderful coming-of-age film. European films usually tend to be quite different from American films, especially from that era, so it’s a really interesting one. You get a different take, I think, on the coming-of-age film.

The Breakfast Club

Release Date: 1985 Director: John Hughes Piturro’s Input: The coming-of-age film had a golden age in the 80s. The Breakfast Club is probably the most famous of those 80s films.

Stand by Me

Release Date: 1986 Director: Rob Reiner Piturro’s Input: My favorite coming-of-age film. It’s one of those that you come home, you watch the same movie every night, or have drinks with your friends. This is one that takes place over just the course of a couple of days.

Donnie Darko

Release Date: 2001 Director: Richard Kelly Piturro’s Input: A film that wasn’t made in the 80s, but it looks back on the 80s. It’s one of my favorite films, and I’ve taught it in [my science fiction film course] quite a bit. I think it’s a really good coming-of-age film.

Again, it’s a film that when you’re first watching, you might think, is this really a coming-of-age? Now, it’s not

The Breakfast Club or Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. It’s not fun. It’s not funny. It’s kind of dour and world-ending, you know. But when you really think about it, it does fit into that group. It is also set in the same time period too, the 80s, which I think is really fascinating.

Spirited Away

Release Date: 2002

Director: Hayao Miyazaki

Piturro’s Input: Anime films have always been very good at telling those [coming-of-age] stories, especially the

Studio Ghibli films. Spirited Away doesn’t allow you that sort of satisfaction [that Disney films provide]. It leaves you feeling kind of, you know, edgy. Almost angry when you watch the Studio

Ghibli films, and that sort of just defines what being a teenager is all about, right?

Juno

Release Date: 2007 Director: Jason Reitman Piturro’s Input: It’s a great film—very controversial. I think when it came out just because of the abortion issue and all the sorts of things that were hot topics at the time.

Byzantium

Release Date: 2013 Director: Neil Jordan Piturro’s Input: Hear me out, it’s called Byzantium. And it’s a vampire film, and it’s set sort-of modern day. It stars Gemma Arterton as an adult vampire. Her daughter struggles with this idea of being a teenage vampire because imagine being stuck in your teenage years for eternity—a fate worse than death, right? I’d find the nearest wooden bullet and take myself out. She was turned into a vampire when she was a teenager by her mother. Also, she’s angry with her mother that she never got to live a normal life (what teenager isn’t mad about that?). There’s a really strong feminist edge to the movie.

Girl Walks Home Alone at Night Release Date: 2014 Director: Ana Lily Amirpour Piturro’s Input: A really cool small indie film that’s made in Los Angeles, but it’s set supposedly in Iran. It’s in Farsi with subtitles. Again, it’s about a young woman in her later teenage years, maybe early 20’s, who is also struggling with being a young vampire. If you think about it, the vampire setup kind of makes perfect sense for a coming-of-age film because you’re stuck in whatever age you are. You never change.

Moonlight

Release Date: 2016 Director: Barry Jenkins Piturro’s Input: A more recent film that I teach every semester now is Moonlight which won the Academy Award a few years ago. It takes place over decades from the time the main character was a young boy to his late teens, and eventually to a grown man. [He grows] into himself as a gay man and gay Black man. You don’t see very much of that on-screen. So, it really really touched and connected with a lot of people that didn’t have access to that kind of stuff. Pretty cool.

Call Me by Your Name

Release Date: 2017 Director: Luca Guadagnino Piturro’s Input: Call Me by Your Name is from a couple of years ago. Really great film. Another one about a young man coming to terms with being gay. A really great conversation between father and son in that movie, which is something you never ever see on film—fathers and sons having a real conversation. Not about a football game or whatever it might be, but this is like a real conversation with an intellectual man and a very smart kid.

Lady Bird

Release Date: 2018 Director: Greta Gerwig Piturro’s Input: I highly recommend everybody see it.