10 Worst Coming-of-Age Movies of All Time, Ranked

Growing up is difficult, and some might even argue that it should be difficult (it’s character-building and what have you, plus life is hard for adults, too). But movies about growing up probably shouldn’t be the wrong kind of difficult to watch. Some have intentionally cringe-inducing humor or get tragic in parts, sure, but if that was the intent, then such movies are probably doing what they need to.

As for those coming-of-age movies that are tedious, sloppy, the wrong kind of awkward, or flat-out offensive? Some of them are collected and ranked below, for your viewing/reading displeasure. You won’t find anything like Stand by Me, The Breakfast Club, The 400 Blows, or Boyhood below. This is an unsafe space. These movies aren’t good. You’ve been warned.

10

‘Cemetery Junction’ (2010)

Directed by Ricky Gervais, Stephen Merchant

Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant were the creative minds behind some great sitcoms in the 2000s; namely, the original The Office and Extras. But then they branched out into shaky territory by writing and directing a mostly forgotten coming-of-age dramedy called Cemetery Junction, which is shockingly clunky, boring, unfunny, and off emotionally (the latter in the sense that none of the intended romantic or dramatic moments ever really hit).

It’s just weird. It’s off. Something doesn’t feel right throughout this one, even though it might sound solid on paper (and that cast is an impressive one for sure). There are worse coming-of-age movies, and maybe if you squint, you could say Cemetery Junction has its heart in the right place… but good intentions can only go so far when the execution is so generic at best and mawkish at worst.

9

‘After Earth’ (2013)

Directed by M. Night Shyamalan

Sure, After Earth is more than just a coming-of-age movie, given it’s also attempting to be a sci-fi/action-flavored blockbuster, but however you want to define it, it fails. It’s about a teenage boy having to survive and make a perilous journey on his own through dangerous terrain, all because his overbearing father has been injured, ensuring the son’s the only one who can save them both.

It’s one of the weirder M. Night Shyamalan movies out there, as it doesn’t really feel like one of his films, for better or worse. Otherwise, it’s best remembered for being another movie that stars Will Smith and his son, Jaden Smith… but not The Pursuit of Happyness, which (at least some) people seem to like. After Earth is about living up to the expectations of a parent and being forced to grow up in trying circumstances, sure, but it doesn’t ring true emotionally, and the flashier set pieces aren’t very exciting, either.

8

‘The Place Promised in Our Early Days’ (2004)

Directed by Makoto Shinkai

To acknowledge one positive, The Place Promised in Our Early Days does at least look visually striking, being a taste of things to come as far as the filmography of Makoto Shinkai is concerned. His later movies make The Place Promised in Our Early Days look like a rough warm-up of sorts, though, because apart from the visuals, nothing else here really works or satisfies.

There’s an intriguing premise that blends themes of growing up with a story about falling in love in a world that’s still recovering from a large-scale war, but it’s so syrupy, repetitive, and clumsy when it actually tries to tell its story. Also, the music is so clichéd and monotonous that it will hurt your ears, basically to the point where the pain will migrate toward your eyes, somehow, and you’ll no longer care about those aforementioned striking images. It’s a simultaneously pretty and annoying bore of a film.

7

‘After’ (2019)

Directed by Jenny Gage

Hey look, it’s another movie with “After” in the title that’s kind of about growing up while also not being very good, but instead of After Earth, this one’s a lousy romance film called After. After you watch After, you might not want to watch any more movies. There will be a bad aftertaste in your mouth. After you’re gone (everything dies baby, that’s a fact), After will remain. The thought of this might keep you up at night; even after midnight, perhaps.

Speaking of dying, even an afterlife would have to be finite, or else eternity would eventually drive you mad, but After has no concerns about that; it’s infinite in its misery. After is capable of ruining an afternoon, if that’s when you choose to watch it, so don’t bother. After all, life is too short for After.

6

‘Music’ (2021)

Directed by Sia

If you want to see the musical genre at its worst, Music has got you covered, and it’s even something of a double threat, considering it’s also an all-time bad coming-of-age movie, too. The central character here is literally named Music, and she’s a teenage girl on the autism spectrum who’s facing challenges in her life when it comes to growing up and adapting to life without her recently deceased grandmother.

You might not be able to fill a book with all the things wrong/controversial about Music, but you could probably fill something that was novella-length, at the very least. It’s been forgotten by some, and lives on in infamy in the minds of others, being one of those rare movies where you’re very unlikely to find anyone willing to defend it to even a mild extent.

5

‘Dear Evan Hansen’ (2021)

Directed by Stephen Chbosky

The biggest hurdle Dear Evan Hansen fails to overcome, as a coming-of-age movie, is casting the whole thing effectively. Ben Platt is not believable as a teenager in this film by any means, but he’s not the only poorly cast actor here, given the likes of Amy Adams and Julianne Moore are also surprisingly dreadful throughout.

Like Music, Dear Evan Hansen was released in 2021 and was also an attempt at a musical… emphasis on “attempt,” because very little here worked or satisfied as either a musical or a coming-of-age movie. It’s a film that tackles a plethora of heavy topics and mishandles the whole lot of them, so while it’s oddly fascinating to see something topple over itself so spectacularly, it will inevitably frustrate – in one way or another – anyone who dares check it out.

4

‘He’s All That’ (2021)

Directed by Mark Waters

Oh no, another 2021 coming-of-age movie that was very bad, and potentially even worse than Music and Dear Evan Hansen. The film is He’s All That, and its story is aggressively early 2020s in a way that already feels like it might be dated, given it centers on an influencer changing an unpopular student into a popular one.

It unsurprisingly flips the genders and then proceeds to hit the same beats as She’s All That (1999), but makes everything worse and executes the premise in a way where nothing feels sincere or endearing. Online sources might inform you that He’s All That qualifies as a romantic comedy, but there’s nothing here that’s anywhere close to romantic or funny in any way, making this a disaster from front to back.

3

‘Swiped’ (2018)

Directed by Ann Deborah Fishman

Swiped has an all-time lousy poster, but it would be a comparatively wonderful world if that’s where this movie’s problems started and ended. Swiped is also one of the most intensely unlikable films in recent memory, being a romantic comedy that tries to work dating apps into an already generic plot, misunderstanding – or just flat-out missing – when it comes to everything it tries to do comedically, narratively, and dramatically.

It goes beyond being generic in a bad way, and feels genuinely incompetent on a technical front, falling apart as a movie before your very eyes… yet it was somehow released, and exists, and the idea of that is Lovecraftian in its horrific implications. Believe the anti-hype around Swiped; it may well live down to your subterranean expectations.

2

‘Waiting…’ (2005)

Directed by Rob McKittrick

There are some good coming-of-age movies that don’t revolve around high school, but Waiting is not one of them. It follows a group of (mostly) young people who work thankless jobs at a seemingly ordinary restaurant, following them as they make tacky jokes, clash with annoying customers, and generally act less mature than characters in most films actually featuring high school students would.

This might be fun if the comedy was funny, but Waiting almost seems like it’s trying to tank every joke it makes. It’s not that it’s offensive; more that it’s offensive in an unfunny way, so it’s just extra miserable. Clerks, this is not; it’s not even in the same ballpark. Speaking of movies that might make you think of Clerks while being nowhere near as good as Clerks…

1

‘Yoga Hosers’ (2016)

Directed by Kevin Smith

Yoga Hosers is Kevin Smith’s worst film, in contrast to Clerks, which might well be his best. It’s a film that’s kind of about teenage girls dealing with typical teenage problems, but then they’re also put in a situation that involves them having to battle strange fantastical forces. Like Waiting, it squanders a perfectly good Justin Long, too.

It’s the sort of movie that’s bad enough you might well start questioning whether you judged Cop Out too harshly. It’s impossible to imagine what Kevin Smith was trying to go for here, and why he thought any of this was anywhere close to good enough to release. You could be his biggest fan and even then, it would be hard to recommend Yoga Hosers to you. We live in hell, because we exist among Yoga Hosers.

NEXT: Movie Musicals That Are Awful From Start to Finish