East of Eden (1955)
[10] James Dean received the first posthumous acting nomination from the Academy Awards for his riveting performance as the troubled Cal in East of Eden, his first major film role. (He died in a car accident just a few months…
Rebel Without a Cause (1955)
[10] James Dean gives one of the most iconic performances in movie history as Jim Stark, an angst-ridden teenager who quarrels with his parents almost as much as he tangles with high school bullies. I normally hate tough guy movies,…
Kes (1969)
[5] I put off watching Kes for many years because, as a 'bird person', I knew the title falcon died at the end of the movie. I finally gathered the courage to see the film, and I'm surprised to report…
Corvette Summer (1978)
[4] Mark Hamill (Star Wars) and Annie Potts (Ghostbusters) star in this tepid comedy-romance about a car-obsessed Los Angeles high school senior (Hamill) who travels to Las Vegas to reclaim his auto club's stolen, restored Corvette. He's aided by a…
Secondhand Lions (2003)
[7] Haley Joel Osment (The Sixth Sense, A.I.) plays Walter, a boy whose mother abandons him with his two reclusive old uncles, Garth and Hub (Michael Caine and Robert Duvall), who end up providing him with a more meaningful upbringing…
September 30, 1955 (1977)
[7] Richard Thomas (The Waltons) stars as a college student who takes the death of emerging superstar James Dean very hard. He and his friends steal liquor, hold a séance, and pull pranks on the parked cars on 'lover's lane'…
The Florida Project (2017)
[8] Tangerine co-writer/director Sean Baker applies his 'quasi-cinéma vérité' style to this examination of Moonee, an unsupervised six-year old child (Brooklynn Prince) running free-range in an impoverished motel community positioned immediately outside Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida. Along with…
Threesome (1994)
[9] One girl. Two guys. Three possibilities... Josh Charles (Dead Poets Society), Lara Flynn Boyle (Twin Peaks), and Stephen Baldwin star in this college dramedy about three dormitory suitemates who wander into a sexual threesome of sorts and survive to…
Dead Poets Society (1989)
[9] Robin Williams headlines this period drama from Australian auteur Peter Weir (Witness, Picnic at Hanging Rock) centered around teen boys coming of age at a late 1950s New England prep school. Williams plays Professor Keating, their inspirational English teacher,…
Saved! (2004)
[6] Jena Malone (Donnie Darko) stars as a high-schooler at an all-Christian school who thinks she's doing the Lord's will when she has premarital sex with her gay boyfriend, hoping it will 'straighten' him out. But when she becomes pregnant,…