French films about coming of age

List of the best French coming-of-age films according to viewers: Blue Is the Warmest Color, Sexual Chronicles of a French Family, A Real Young Girl, Breathe, Devil in the Flesh, Little Nicholas, Blame It on Fidel!, The Nun, Girlhood, Mektoub, My Love: Canto Uno.

In the top there are new films of 2021, a plot description and trailers for films that have already been released.

Country
Markimdb: 7.7
Genremelodrama, drama
CountryFrance, Belgium, Spain
Duration02:59

Adèle's life is changed when she meets Emma, a young woman with blue hair, who will allow her to discover desire, to assert herself as a woman and as an adult. In front of others, Adele grows, seeks herself, loses herself, finds herself.

Markimdb: 5.3
Genrecomedy, melodrama
CountryFrance
Duration01:25

Three generations of a French family open up about their sexual experiences and desires after young Romain is caught masturbating in his biology class.

Markimdb: 5.3
Genremelodrama, drama
CountryFrance

Bored and restless, Alice spends much of her time lusting after Jim, a local sawmill worker. When not lusting after him, Alice fills the hours with such pursuits as writing her name on a mirror with vaginal secretions and wandering the fields with her underwear around her ankles. And, in true teenaged tradition, she spends a lot of time writing in her diary.

Markimdb: 7.1
Genredrama
CountryFrance
Duration01:31

Charlie, a 17-year-old girl tortured by doubt, is thrilled when she becomes friends with Sarah, but when Sarah tires of Charlie and looks for a new friend, their relationship takes an ominous turn.

Markimdb: 5.7
Genremelodrama, drama
CountryItaly, France

An Italian high school student becomes infatuated with a woman he sees outside his class window. Her fiancée is in jail for being involved in a radical movement, and she spends much time in court providing moral support. At first she resists the student's advances, but eventually begins an affair with him. Their situation is condemned by her family and his father, who is the woman's psychologist.

Markimdb: 7.1
Genrecomedy, family
CountryFrance, Belgium
Duration01:31

Nicolas has a happy existence, parents who love him, a great group of friends with whom he has great fun, and all he wants is that nothing changes. However, one day, he overhears a conversation that leads him to believe that his life might change forever, his mother is pregnant! He panics and envisions the worst.

Markimdb: 7.5
Genredrama, history
CountryItaly, France

A 9-year-old girl weathers big changes in her household as her parents become radical political activists in 1970-71 Paris.

Markimdb: 7.4
Genredrama
CountryFrance

In eighteenth-century France, a girl is forced against her will to take vows as a nun. Three mothers superior treat her in radically different ways, ranging from maternal concern, to sadistic persecution, to lesbian desire.

Markimdb: 6.9
Genredrama
CountryFrance
Duration01:53

Oppressed by her family setting, dead-end school prospects and the boys law in the neighborhood, Marieme starts a new life after meeting a group of three free-spirited girls. She changes her name, her dress code, and quits school to be accepted in the gang, hoping that this will be a way to freedom.

Markimdb: 6.5
Genrecomedy, melodrama, drama
CountryFrance, Italy
Duration01:30

Amin, an aspiring screenwriter living in Paris, returns home for the summer, to a fishing village in the South of France. It is a time of reconnecting with his family and his childhood friends. Together with his cousin Tony and his best friend Ophélie, he spends his time between the Tunisian restaurant run by his parents, the local bars and the beaches frequented by girls on holiday. Enchanted by the many female characters who surround him, Amin remains in awe of these summer sirens while his dionysiac cousin throws himself into their carnal delights with euphoria. Armed with his camera and guided by the bright simmer light of the Mediterranean coast, Amin pursues his philosophical quest while gathering inspiration for his screenplays. When it comes to love, only Mektoub (‘destiny' in Arabic) can decide.

Markimdb: 3.4
Genredrama
CountryFrance

Amy, an 11-year-old girl, joins a group of dancers named “the cuties” at school, and rapidly grows aware of her burgeoning femininity—upsetting her mother and her values in the process.

Markimdb: 4.6
Genremelodrama, drama
CountryFrance, USA

Maurice, a reticent young homeless man, somehow manages to get by in Brooklyn; he spends his nights in parked cars until he finds himself at Bizarre, an underground club renowned for its burlesque shows. Maurice is fascinated by the club’s playful revues celebrating self-determined sexuality and creative otherness, and the two female club owners both adore him. He soon becomes a part of their self-selected family, and begins to bond with introverted Luka. But Maurice turns his back on Luka’s growing affection. Running away from his true emotions he drifts aimlessly through the city. He tries to find his feet at a boxing club, where he meets Charlie. Unable to withstand the pressure of his repressed feelings, Maurice unleashes a mounting foment of emotions, pervaded by tenderness and menace.

Markimdb: 5.6
Genrecomedy, drama
CountryFrance

Naïma has just turned 16. This summer, she will have to decide what she wants from life if she doesn’t want to miss out. Then her cousin Sofia arrives, with an amazing body and a dangerously seductive lifestyle. Naïma desires only to follow her own path, so long as it leads upwards… Despite the warnings of her best friend Dodo, she and Sofia will live through unforgettable encounters during a long summer that will mark them forever

Markimdb: 6.6
Genredrama
CountryAustria, Germany, France
Duration01:32

Hope, the third film in the PARADISE TRILOGY, tells the story of the 13-year-old Melanie. While her mother (Teresa) travels to Kenya, Melanie spends her holiday in the Austrian countryside at a strict diet camp for overweight teenagers. Under the supervision of a tattooed trainer and a creepy doctor, the teenagers attempt to do sports during the day and secretly get drunk in the evening. Between physical education and nutrition counseling, pillow fights and her first cigarette, Melanie falls in love with the doctor who is 40 years her senior.

Markimdb: 6.7
Genremelodrama, drama
CountryFrance
Duration01:25

Set during a sultry summer in a French suburb, Marie is desperate to join the local pool's synchronized swimming team, but is her interest solely for the sake of sport or for a chance to get close to Floriane, the bad girl of the team? Sciamma, and the two leads, capture the uncertainty of teenage sexuality with a sympathetic eye in this delicate drama of the angst of coming-of-age.

Markimdb: 6.7
Genredrama, adventure, family
CountryNetherlands, Belgium, United Kingdom, Spain, France
Duration01:35

Nono, a Dutch kid lacking two days being thirteen, runs away from problems at home and, disguised as a girl, takes up with the world's cleverest thief, who unbeknownst to Nono, may hold the bizarre key to his true identity.

Markimdb: 7.5
Genrefantasy, drama, biography
CountryChile, United Kingdom, France, Japan
Duration02:13

“Having broken away from my illusory self, I was desperately seeking a path and a meaning to life.” This phrase perfectly sums up Alejandro Jodorowsky’s biographical project: reconstituting the incredible adventure of his life. Alejandro Jodorowsky was born in 1929 in Tocopilla, a coastal town on edge of the Chilean desert, where this film was shot. It was there where he discovered the fundamentals of reality, as he underwent an unhappy and alienated childhood as part of an uprooted family.

Markimdb: 6.6
Genredrama
CountryNorway, France, Denmark, USA
Duration02:29

Three years after his wife, acclaimed photographer Isabelle Reed, dies in a car crash, Gene keeps everyday life going with his shy teenage son, Conrad. A planned exhibition of Isabelle’s photographs prompts Gene's older son, Jonah, to return to the house he grew up in - and for the first time in a very long time, the father and the two brothers are living under the same roof.

Markimdb: 8
Genrecomedy, drama, music
CountryUSA, France, Canada

As a CODA (Child of Deaf Adults), Ruby is the only hearing person in her deaf family. When the family's fishing business is threatened, Ruby finds herself torn between pursuing her love of music and her fear of abandoning her parents.

Markimdb: 6.6
Genrecomedy, melodrama, adventure
CountryFrance
Duration01:38

Arnaud, facing an uncertain future and a dearth of choices in a small French coastal town, meets and falls for the apocalyptic-minded Madeleine, who joins an army boot camp to learn military and survival skills to prepare for the upcoming environmental collapse. Intrigued and excited by Madeleine’s wild ideas, Arnaud signs up for the boot camp himself. They soon realize that the boot camp is harder than they’d imagined, but the experience nonetheless cements them together as the couple continues to explore their young love.

Markimdb: 6.7
Genredrama
CountryFrance

The story of a destiny. Suzanne's and her family's. The ties that bind them, keep them together, and the love she pursues... to the point of leaving everything behind.

Markimdb: 6.4
Genrecomedy
CountryFrance
Duration01:54

It is 1979 and Albertine, 10, and all her family members have gathered in Brittany to celebrate the birthday of her grandmother. Everyone thinks that the Skylab space station from NASA will fall on their heads this summer. The meeting turns into a crazy weekend full of revelations, love and song.

Markimdb: 5.2
Genrecomedy, melodrama
CountryFrance
Duration01:34

Over this long hot summer, Claude and Isabelle get their marriage back on track, while Bibou and Simon, spend a memorable summer discovering the world of grown-ups.

Markimdb: 6.4
Genredrama
CountryFrance
Duration02:02

During the 1970s a student named Gilles gets entangled in contemporary political turmoils although he would rather just be a creative artist. While torn between his solidarity to his friends and his personal ambitions he falls in love with Christine.

Markimdb: 5.5
Genrethriller, drama
CountryFrance, Belgium
Duration01:40

An innocent young man becomes enamored with a mysterious girl. He is lured into "Black Hole" - a dark, obscure video game world of avatars with deadly serious intentions in the real world.

Markimdb: 7.3
Genrecomedy, drama, music
CountryFrance, Belgium
Duration01:46

The whole Bélier family is deaf, except for sixteen year old Paula who is the important translator in her parents' day to day life especially when it comes to matters concerning the family farm. When her music teacher discovers she has a fantastic singing voice and she gets an opportunity to enter a big Radio France contest the whole family's future is set up for big changes.

Markimdb: 7.3
Genredrama
CountryFrance
Duration01:50

As the Algerian War draws to a close, a teenager with a girlfriend starts feeling homosexual urges for two of his classmates: a country boy, and a French-Algerian intellectual.

Markimdb: 6.9
Genredrama, crime
CountryUnited Kingdom, France, Italy
Duration01:59

NEDs (Non Educated Delinquents) is the story of a young man’s journey from prize-winning schoolboy to knife-carrying teenager. Struggling against the low expectations of those around him, John McGill changes from victim to avenger, scholar to NED, altar boy to glue sniffer. When he attempts to change back again, his new reality and recent past make conformity near impossible and violent self determination near inevitable.

Markimdb: 6.7
Genrecomedy, drama
CountryFrance
Duration01:37

In the wake of her mother's tragic death, French teenager Junie (Léa Seydoux) transfers to a different high school. Though Junie lives mostly inside her own head, her beauty and stoicism win her the attention of the entire male student population. Junie begins dating the gentle Otto Cleves (Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet), but finds herself intensely drawn to her youthful Italian language teacher, Nemours (Louis Garrel). When Nemours begins to reciprocate, serious complications ensue.

Markimdb: 6.4
Genredrama
CountryFrance

Lyon, France in 1970s, Sibylle, Corinne, and Georgette are sisters who share everything, as they live with their Italian mother. Sibylle is the only blonde in the family, except for their father who abandoned them, and she feels isolated. She dreams of meeting her French father one day.

Markimdb: 7
Genredrama, crime
CountryFrance, Luxembourg
Duration01:37

A drama set at a Swiss ski resort and centered on a boy who supports his sister by stealing from wealthy guests.

Markimdb: 7.2
Genredrama, adventure, family, cartoon
CountryFrance, Denmark, Belgium, USA
Duration01:09

1892, Saint Petersburg. Sasha, a young Russian aristocrat, has always been fascinated by her grandfather's life as an adventurer. A renowned explorer, he designed a magnificent arctic ship, but he hasn't returned from his last expedition to the North Pole. To save her family's honor, Sasha runs away. Headed towards the Great North, she follows her grandfather's trail in search of his famous ship.

Markimdb: 7.4
Genrethriller, drama
CountryFrance, Egypt

In 2013, in Cairo, a tragic fate brings together several detainees from different political and social backgrounds inside a police truck, during the turmoil that followed the ousting of president Morsi.

Markimdb: 6.2
Genrecomedy, melodrama, drama, family
CountryFrance
Duration01:49

The second film from the Le Boum series about a young French teenage girl who after moving to a new city falls in love with a boy and is thinking of having sex with him because her girlfriends have already done it.

Markimdb: 7.8
Genrecomedy, drama, history
CountryUnited Kingdom, France, USA
Duration02:00

Based on a true story, the film is set in the summer of 1984 – when Margaret Thatcher is in power and the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) is on strike. At the Gay Pride March in London, a group of gay and lesbian activists decides to raise money to support the families of the striking miners. But there is a problem - the union seems embarrassed to receive their support. However the activists are not deterred. They decide to ignore the union and go direct to the miners. They identify a mining village of Onllwyn, in the Dulais Valley in Wales, and later set off in a mini bus to make their donation in person. And so begins the extraordinary story of two seemingly alien communities who form a surprising and ultimately triumphant partnership.

Markimdb: 6.6
Genrecomedy, drama, family
CountryFrance
Duration01:44

Lea, Adrian, and their little brother Theo, born deaf, go on holiday in Provence with their grandfather, Paul "Oliveron" they never met because of a family quarrel. It is not the holidays they dreamed, especially their father announced yesterday that he was leaving the house. In less than 24 hours, it is the clash of generations between teenagers and a grandfather they believe psycho. A wrong. Because the turbulent past will resurface and Paul Seventies will land deep in the Alpilles. During this summer tormented both generations will be processed one by the other.

Markimdb: 5.9
Genredrama
CountryFrance
Duration01:36

In Normandy, Louise lives happily in the horse world. Suddenly, fate strikes. Louise left alone with his father and a family friend to Ferronnière the stud where she has always lived. Business is bad, they are on the verge of bankruptcy ... Fortunately there Marquise, a young mare Louise high. Against all odds, the girl and Marquise will fight against the fate that seems hell-bent ...

Markimdb: 7.2
Genredrama
CountrySingapore, Japan, Taiwan, France
Duration01:39

Set in the mid 1990s in Singapore, ILOILO chronicles the relationship between a family and their maid from Ilo Ilo, a province in the Philippines.

Markimdb: 7
Genrehorror, drama
CountryFrance, Belgium, Italy, USA

In Justine’s family everyone is a vet and a vegetarian. At 16, she’s a gifted teen ready to take on her first year in vet school, where her older sister also studies. There, she gets no time to settle: hazing starts right away. Justine is forced to eat raw meat for the first time in her life. Unexpected consequences emerge as her true self begins to form.

Markimdb: 6.5
Genredrama
CountryFrance, Belgium

A young man who lives with his mother and has never known his father, heads off to look for him. He finds a cynical and Machiavellian man who works as a publisher in Paris. After he attempts to kill him, he finds filial love thanks to his uncle.

Markimdb: 6.4
Genrethriller, drama, detective
CountryUSA, France
Duration01:31

    Kat Connors is 17 years old when her perfect homemaker mother, Eve, disappears. Having lived for so long in an emotionally repressed household, she barely registers her mother's absence and certainly doesn't blame her doormat of a father, Brock, for the loss. But as time passes, Kat begins to come to grips with how deeply Eve's disappearance has affected her. Returning home on a break from college, she finds herself confronted with the truth about her mother's departure, and her own denial about the events surrounding it...

    Markimdb: 7.7
    Genredrama
    CountryFrance

    A young girl living in the French countryside suffers constant indignities at the hand of alcoholism and her fellow man.

    Markimdb: 6
    Genredrama
    CountryFrance
    Duration01:26

    Inspired by events that took place in Massachusetts, Delphine and Muriel Coulin's provocative debut focuses on a group of bored teenage girls who all make an irrevocable pact. When Camille (Louise Grinberg) accidentally becomes pregnant, she encourages her friends and fellow high school classmates to follow suit. It's only a matter of time, before 17 girls in the high school are pregnant and the town is thrown into a world of chaos. Set in the writer/directors' small, seaside hometown of Lorient in Brittany, 17 Girls is a reflection on adolescence, body image, friendship and the perplexing realities of growing up.

    Markimdb: 7
    Genredrama
    CountryFrance
    Duration01:32

    An outer suburb of Paris, 1972. Gilles and Christine, both sixteen, are classmates and lovers who have become frustrated with the aloofness of their families and the general monotony of their lives. When the pair are caught shoplifting, Christine's father ships her off to a home for emotionally disturbed children, temporarily putting space between her and Gilles. Luckily for them, though, she escapes and the couple contemplate running away together.

    Markimdb: 5.9
    Genredrama
    CountryFrance, USA, Iran

    A wealthy Iranian family struggles to contain a teenager's growing sexual rebellion and her brother's newfound conservatism.

    Markimdb: 6.6
    Genredrama
    CountryUSA, France

    A kindhearted seventeen-year-old in the American Southwest turns to prostitution to fulfill her dream of a new life in San Francisco.

    Markimdb: 6.6
    Genredrama, adventure
    CountryBelgium, France, Luxembourg

    Brothers Danny and Zak, 15 and 13 & 3/4 are spending the summer in their deceased grandfather's house, waiting in vain for their mother, who is otherwise busy, and running low on cash. To make some money they decide to rent out the house to a local drug dealer, but things don't go exactly as planned...

    Markimdb: 6.5
    Genremelodrama, drama, military
    CountryFrance

    André Demester secretly and painfully loves Barbe, his childhood friend, accepting from her the little that she gives him. He leaves home to be a soldier in a war in a far off land. Barbarity, camaraderie and fear turn him into a warrior. As the seasons go by, Barbe, alone and wasting away, waits for the soldiers to return. Will Demester’s boundless love for Barbe save him?

    Markimdb: 6.7
    Genremelodrama, drama
    CountryFrance
    Duration01:31

    Ava, 13, is spending the summer on the Atlantic coast when she learns that she will lose her sight sooner than expected. Her mother decides to act as if everything were normal so as to spend their best summer ever. Ava confronts the problem in her own way. She steals a big black dog that belongs to a young man on the run...

    Markimdb: 7.4
    Genrecomedy, melodrama, adventure
    CountryFrance, USA
    Duration01:48

    A young American girl and a young French boy meet in Paris and fall in love, with the assistance of an old man and his stories.




    MoviesList