20 best movies like Swing Kids (1993)

Teenager Homer Macauley stays at home in small-town Ithaca to support his family while his older brother Marcus prepares to go to war.

It's almost graduation day for high school seniors Troy, Gabriella, Sharpay, Chad, Ryan and Taylor ― and the thought of heading off in separate directions after leaving East High has these Wildcats thinking they need to do something they'll remember forever. Together with the rest of the Wildcats, they stage a spring musical reflecting their hopes and fears about the future and their unforgettable experiences growing up together. But with graduation approaching and college plans in question, what will become of the dreams, romances, and friendships of East High's senior Wildcats?

Follows four friends in their quest to form a punk band. As workers protests sweep across the country, Janek and Staszek, the sons of a navy man, the rebellious Kazik, and the affluent Diabel gel as a band, but their disparate lives are touched by social turmoil and outside perceptions.

When teenager Ren and his family move from big-city Chicago to a small town in the West, he's in for a real case of culture shock after discovering he's living in a place where music and dancing are illegal.

Two boys find a fugitive hiding out on an island in the Mississippi River and form a pact to help him reunite with his lover and escape.

After the death of Raya Green's(Rutina Wesley) sister, she gets out from her classes at school, and sees a stomp crew practicing. She meets Bishop(Dwain Murphy) which is the dance crew leader. She then meets Michelle and does a stomp battle with her. They become enemies then friends later on. Her uptight mom pushes her to pass the test to get into Medical school, but she thinks she failed....

In a seemingly perfect community, without war, pain, suffering, differences or choice, a young boy is chosen to learn from an elderly man about the true pain and pleasure of the "real" world.

Coming of age story about two inner city youths, who are left to fend for themselves over the summer after their mothers are taken away by the authorities.

Stet, a troubled and angry 11-year-old orphan from a small Texas town, ends up at a Boy Choir school back East after the death of his single mom. Completely out of his element, he finds himself in a battle of wills with a demanding Choir Master who recognizes a unique talent in this young boy as he pushes him to discover his creative heart and soul in music.

It is 1984. Frank (Layke Anderson) is a determined English teenager who runs away from high school to find an alternative gay lifestyle in Amsterdam. He finds a home and a job at the "House of Boys", a bar-cum-brothel run by a strict Madame (Udo Kier) who has an eye for what his punters crave. Frank works his way up from barman to on-stage dancer and falls in love with some of his housemates Jake (Ben Northover). The first intimations of what is described as 'the gay cancer', casts a long shadow over Frank's tight-knit group of friends. Yet despite the troubles that cloud the hopes and dreams of young Frank, his perseverance, along with support from a willing doctor (Stephen Fry), will carry him through. House of Boys is a glamorous, colourful coming-of-age story that lifts the lid on an exciting world of sex and music, where deep passions suddenly turn into a struggle for courage.

Eka and Natia leave their childhood behind and ignore societal customs to escape from their turbulent family lives.

Stockholm, the fifties. Though academically bright, violent pupil Erik Ponti is expelled from his state school with the headmaster’s words “there’s only one word for people like you – evil… what you need is a good thrashing, and more”. In fact already Erik frequently receives a ‘good’ thrashing at the hands of his sadistic stepfather – so he is packed off by his mother to boardingschool

Bucharest 1989 - the last year of Ceausecu's dictatorship. Eva lives with her parents and her 7 year old brother, Lalalilu. One day at school, Eva and her boyfriend accidentally break a bust of Ceausescu. They are forced to confess their crime before a disciplinary committee and Eva is expelled from school and transferred to a reformatory establishment. There she meets Andrei, and decides to escape Romania with him. Lalalilu becomes convinced that Ceausescu is the main reason for Eva's decision to leave. So with his friends from school he devises a plan to kill the dictator.

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

The Popes are a family who haven't been able to use their real identity for years. In the late sixties, the parents set a weapons lab afire in an effort to hinder the government's Vietnam war campaign. Ever since then, the Popes have been on the run with the authorities never far behind.

Teenage musicians travel to England's Spike Island in the hope of attending an outdoor performance by their favorite band, the Stone Roses.

Anti-Semitism, race relations, coming of age, and fathers and sons: in Baltimore from fall, 1954, to fall, 1955.

A young woman is catapulted into pop stardom, with her already-famous DJ boyfriend calling the shots.

Mark Hunter is an intelligent but shy teenager who has just moved to suburban Arizona from New York. Unbeknownst to his parents and peers, at 10pm each school night Mark takes to the shortwave radio in his basement and transforms into pirate DJ "Hard Harry". Mark's show, at once thoughtful and profane, becomes an underground hit with students at his high school, inspiring the wrath of his principal and the Federal Communications Commission [FCC].

Four young people navigate the suburban wonderland of metro-Detroit looking for love and adventure on the last weekend of summer.

In 1942, Friedrich Weimer's boxing skills get him an appointment to a National Political Academy (NaPolA) – high schools that produce Nazi elite. Over his father's objections, Friedrich enrolls. During his year in seventh column,Friedrich encounters hazing, cruelty, death, and the Nazi code. His friendship with Albrecht, the ascetic son of the area's governor, is central to this education.

The daughter of jazz pianist Joe Albany witnesses her beloved father's struggle -- and failure -- to kick his heroin habit.

A pregnant Colombian teenager becomes a drug mule to make some desperately needed money for her family.

Richard Dadier is a teacher at North Manual High School, an inner-city school where many of the pupils frequently engage in anti-social behavior. Dadier makes various attempts to engage the students' interest in education, challenging both the school staff and the pupils. He is subjected to violence as well as duplicitous schemes.

Genie, a Chinese-American teenager, develops feelings for a charming African-American DJ, but her grandmother forbids their romance forcing Genie to choose between family and love.

The story of a virtuoso piano player who lives his entire life aboard an ocean liner. Born and raised on the ship, 1900 (Tim Roth) learned about the outside world through interactions with passengers, never setting foot on land, even for the love of his life. Years later, the ship may be destroyed, and a former band member fears that 1900 may still be aboard, willing to go down with the ship.

A story about a young girl who leaves her hometown to pursue her dream of becoming a famous punk artist.

The streets of the Bronx are owned by '60s youth gangs where the joy and pain of adolescence is lived. Philip Kaufman tells his take on the novel by Richard Price about the history of the Italian-American gang ‘The Wanderers.’

As four friends prepare for life after high school, different challenges bring about turning points in each of their lives. The dramas unfold and resolve at their local rollerskating rink, Cascade.

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.

In 1957, a son and mother flee the East and an abusive boyfriend to find a new life, and end up in Seattle, where the mother meets a polite garage mechanic. The boy continually gets into trouble by hanging out with the wrong crowd. The mom marries the mechanic, but they soon find out that he's an abusive and unreasoning alcoholic, and they struggle to maintain hope in an impossible situation as the boy grows up with plans to escape the small town by any means possible. Based on a true story by Tobias Wolff.

In a story fueled by rhythm and blues, a young boy's life is shaped by love and the stories of a cast of characters in the boarding house where he lives in 1960s Lackawanna, New York.

David Sinclair seems to have everything going for him: he's smart, musically talented, and very successful. To top off his senior year in high school, his band is trying to get a recording session. Therefore, David's suicide leaves everyone, especially his best friend and band-mate, Chris, with a lot of questions.

Joan Jett and Cherie Currie, two rebellious teenagers from Southern California, become the frontwomen for the Runaways -- the now-legendary group that paved the way for future generations of female rockers. Under the Svengalilike influence of impresario Kim Fowley, the band becomes a huge success.

A new music teacher in a 1955 West Texas home for wayward boys brings new vision and hope for many of the interned boys.

A privileged rich debutante and a cynical struggling entertainer share a turbulent, but strong childhood friendship over the years.

A sweeping multigenerational story set against the backdrop of the raw, roaring New York City of the late 1980s; adoption, teen pregnancy, drugs, hardcore punk rock, the unbridled optimism and reckless stupidity of the young—and old—are all major elements in this heart-aching tale of the son of diehard hippies and his strange odyssey through the extremes of late 20th century youth culture.

This tells the story of a strong friendship between a young boy with Morquio's syndrome and an older boy who is always bullied because of his size. Adapted from the novel, Freak the Mighty, the film explores a building of trust and friendship. Kevin, an intelligent guy helps out Maxwell to improve his reading skills. In return, Kevin wants Maxwell to take him out places since he is not allowed out unauthorized. Being the social outcasts of the town, Kevin and Maxwell come to realize that they are similar to each other and accept that they are "freaks" and nothing will stop them.

Hannah Stern, an American-born Jewish adolescent, is uninterested in the culture, faith and customs of her relatives; however, Hannah begins to revaluate her heritage when she has a supernatural experience that transports her back to a Nazi death camp in 1941. There, she meets a young girl named Rivkah, a fellow captive in the camp. As Rivkah and Hannah struggle to survive in the face of daily atrocities, they form an unbreakable bond.

When the beloved cellist of a world-renowned string quartet is diagnosed with a life threatening illness, the group’s future suddenly hangs in the balance as suppressed emotions, competing egos and uncontrollable passions threaten to derail years of friendship and collaboration. As they are about to play their 25th anniversary concert — quite possibly their last — only their intimate bond and the power of music can preserve their legacy.