57 Best Teen Movies That You'll See Yourself In


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Over the past few decades, teen movies have had a special way of telling diverse and relatable stories. Whether you're trying to make it into your dream college or navigating all those awkward moments you have when you’re around your crush, the best teen movies pretty much cover all the topics teens today can relate to. More recently, teen flicks have also reflected the hardships young people face in the U.S. with a hopeful lens. Movies like Unpregnant show what it's like to seek safe legal abortions, while moving flicks like The Hate U Give spread a powerful message about using your voice to protest against causes like gun violence and police brutality.

While some films tackle such tough topics, other classics like Mean Girls and 10 Things I Hate About You can be a form of feel-good escapism or even inspiration for your own high school events. So, grab some popcorn and get ready to relate to all of these characters as you go down this list of the best teen movies out there.

Missing

Storm Reid stars in this standalone sequel to 2018's Searching. Uniquely filmed through phone and computer screens, this thriller is about a teen girl whose mom never returns from her overseas vacation with her new boyfriend. With time running out, she must do everything she can online to help find her mom.

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The Way Way Back

During the course of one summer vacation, a shy teen deals with his mother's emotionally abusive boyfriend while forming a unique friendship with the manager of a water park.

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The Half of It

A girl who needs money agrees to write a jock's love letter to his crush. However, she soon starts catching feelings for the same person she's trying to help set him up with.

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Summer of '84

Four best friends begin to suspect their quiet little town's police officer is secretly a child serial killer. They begin investigating and soon realize they're not prepared for what they'll find.

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Dumplin'

A plus-size teenager whose mother is a former beauty queen signs up for the Miss Teen Bluebonnet pageant as a protest, but her actions soon take on a life of their own in her tiny Texas town.

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Now and Then

This '90s teen movie goes back and forth in time, following four besties who come of age in the summer of 1970. Fast-forwarding 21 years, their adult counterparts reflect on the events during that pivotal summer.

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Stand By Me

Four friends set out on an adventure to see a dead body during Labor Day weekend in 1959. This classic coming-of-age '80s movie is based on a Stephen King novella.

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Work It

Sabrina Carpenter, Jordan Fisher, and Liza Koshy star in this flick about a type-A teen who's willing to do anything to get into her dream college — like starting a dance team even though she has two left feet.

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LOL

This Miley Cyrus movie is the ultimate comfort movie about mother-daughter relationships. Miley stars as Lola (a.k.a Lol), a teen who starts falling in love with her best friend after her boyfriend cheats on her. While she tries to figure out who she is and if she's really falling in love, she seemingly distances herself from her mom, but in the end, their bond proves it could never be broken.

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Blockers

After a group of friends creates a pact to lose their virginity at prom, their parents set off to try to stop them.

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Unpregnant

Barbie Ferreira and Haley Lu Richardson star as two former best friends who embark on a cross-country road trip to get a legal abortion. This female-directed flick not only educates about reproductive rights and legislation across states, but also has queer representation and showcases strong friendships between women.

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Whip It

While her mother wishes for her to continue to tradition and join a pageant, Bliss decides to follow her heart and dreams by joining a local roller derby team.

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Everything, Everything

This film will tug on your heartstrings in every possible way. Amandla Stenberg plays a girl named Maddy who's chronically ill. She has to stay home because the outside world could literally kill her. But when she meets and falls in love with her new neighbor, Olly, she's willing to risk it all to be with him.

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The Edge of Seventeen

High school is already rough but it only gets more awkward when your brother starts dating your bestie. That's exactly what Nadine deals with during her junior year of high school.

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Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

Every kid wants to be Spider-Man one day. In Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, Brooklyn teen Miles Morales gets that chance when he meets the one and only Peter Parker. Of course, it doesn't help that Miles' dad is a cop who's not Spider-Man's biggest fan.

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To All the Boys I've Loved Before

Lara Jean Covey has written secret, soul-baring letters to all her crushes since she was a kid, but never sent them. When her little sister, Kitty, accidentally finds the box and sends them, her life takes a crazy turn and she potentially finds romance with one of her crushes. If one Jenny Han rom-com isn't enough, make it a movie marathon with all three To All the Boys films.

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The Hate U Give

This movie follows the story of a girl named Starr. When Starr loses a close friend to gun violence, she realizes how important it is to stand up for what you believe in.

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The Craft

The new girl in town, Sarah, is having a tough time fitting at school. She and a group of three other girls find out they're witches and use their powers to do all the things they could never do before.

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Every Day

Falling in love is hard enough, but falling in love with a different person every day seems impossible. But that's exactly what happens to Rhiannon after she falls in love with a spirit named "A" who inhabits a different person's body every day.

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Lady Bird

"Lady Bird" wants to break away from her life on the west coast and travel east. She's deep in the middle of her teenage rebellion and trying to find herself by avoiding Catholic school and breaking away from her mom. But in the midst of all this, she learns more about herself than she planned.

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She's the Man

When Viola's twin brother says he's headed to London, she has to cover for her brother and pretend to be him at school. This leads to the ultimate love triangle.

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Freaky Friday

Lindsey Lohan stars alongside Jamie Lee Curtis in this classic movie. They play a mother-daughter duo that switches bodies and has to truly understand how the other one lives so that they can switch back.

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Camp Rock

This Disney Channel original follows a girl named Mitchie who heads to Camp Rock with dreams of becoming a singer. When famous singer Shane Gray hears Mitchie sing, he falls in love with her voice and sets out to put a face to the voice he loves.

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Napoleon Dynamite

This movie is all about Napoleon Dynamite trying to live his best life, but he struggles to find a girlfriend and he's bullied. But that all could change for the better when befriends the new guy in school, Pedro.

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Pariah

Alike is growing up in a household where she isn't accepted. She's a lesbian who's comfortable with her masculine appearance, but her mother isn't happy about it.

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Sleepover

Julie gets her three besties, Hannah, Farrah, and Yancy, together for one last sleepover before they begin 9th grade. They have a great time, but Julie's mom says they aren't allowed to leave the house. The only problem is that in order to win a top prize at their new school, they've got to win an all-night scavenger hunt, and they aren't going to let some rules stop them.

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Read it and Weep

We've all sent an email we probably shouldn't have and this is exactly what happens to Jamie when she accidentally publishes her stories about her fellow classmates to her entire school.

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The Cheetah Girls

Four high school best friends who dream of stardom get the big break they're looking for when they win their school's talent show and get noticed by a record label looking to sign them. But fame isn't what they thought it would be and it puts all of their friendships to the test.

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Truth or Dare

This movie starring Lucy Hale is all about a party gone wrong. After being tricked into going to a party with a bunch of her friends, Lucy's character Olivia has to run for her life if she's going to survive.

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Banana Split

Nick and April have been together for their last two years of high school until their big breakup pulls them apart. However, in the midst of her heartbreak, April decides to become friends with Nick's new GF, Clara, and you won't believe what happens next in this hilarious film.

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Booksmart

Beanie Feldstein and Kaitlyn Dever will make you laugh out loud in this funny and charming comedy that will make you wish you got to be there with them when they brought these characters to life. Amy and Molly realize just how much they missed out on in high school the night before their graduation and they set out to make the most of their final day as seniors before they say goodbye to their classmates.

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High School Musical

High School Musical set off the ultimate Disney franchise and made us all fall in love with Vanessa Hudgens and Zac Efron. Basketball star Troy Bolton is faced with a difficult decision between being himself or continuing to be the person everyone has always seen him as when the new girl in school tries to get him to audition for the school musical.

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Stuck in Love

Following a family of writers, Stuck in Love shows what happens when the Borgens family deal with their always-changing love lives as they set off on different paths in their careers.

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Your Name.

This visually stunning film follows two teenagers who suddenly start switching bodies. They soon fall in love and try to find each other even though they never met or even know each other's names.

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Love, Simon

Nick Robinson stole our hearts in this role as he played Simon, a teenager who is afraid to come out to his friends and family, but finds love from an unexpected place.

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The Perfect Date

The movie starring, Noah Centineo, Laura Marano, and Camila Mendes, is based on a novel by Steve Bloom called The Stand-In. It's about a guy named Brooks, who figures out a clever way to make money for college. Brooks creates an app, where he offers his services as a fake date, except his plan gets complicated when he starts developing real feelings for someone. The movie has it all– a hot guy, a dad with great advice and a girl who helps the hot guy come back down to reality. You can watch it on Netflix

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Five Feet Apart

Make sure you grab some tissues before you sit down and watch this movie. Five Feet Apart, starring Cole Sprouse and Haley Lu Richardson, is about two teens with cystic fibrosis who want to be together, but really can't. In order to avoid the risk of cross-infection, it's best the two, Stella and Will, stay physically away from each other. Stella and Will try to stick to the rules by keeping five feet apart at all times, but as the two start to develop deeper feelings for each other, sticking to the rules becomes a lot harder.

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Shazam!

Shazam!, starring Andi Mack's Asher Angel, is about a foster kid named Billy Batson, who suddenly inherits superpowers from a wizard named Shazam. By calling Shazam's name, Billy can transform into an adult superhero with powers like strength, speed and flight. Like in all superhero movies, in Shazam! Billy is tasked with defeating a superhero who wants to steal all his powers. The end of the movie hints that there will probably be a part two, so catch up on this one while you can.

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Sierra Burgess Is A Loser

The movie is about a girl named Sierra who doesn't meet the stereotypical standards of beauty. This leaves her prone to bullying from a mean girl named Veronica. Somehow, Sierra ends up catfishing a hot football player from a different school and unexpectedly takes on help from Veronica to keep her identity a secret.

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Eighth Grade

This movie will take you back to eighth grade and remind you of all the good and bad times you had at that age. Elsie Fisher stars as Kayla, a shy girl who feels the most connected to the world through social media. It's Kayla's final week in the eighth grade and she vows to make it as great as possible before she moves on to high school. This film feels so real, that it'll leave you thinking that someone followed you around in the eighth grade and made a movie out of it. Even teen movie queen Molly Ringwald called it one of the best films about teens. Eighth Grade will be released nationwide on August 3rd, but check out an exclusive clip below:

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The Kissing Booth

This Netflix original movie will give you ALL the feels. In it, high school student Elle finds herself face-to-face with her long-term crush (and her best friend's older brother) when she signs up to run a kissing booth at the spring carnival. The movie goes through all of the twists and turns of an IRL crush, like when you want them so bad but can't have them, and then you get them and it feels literally unreal.

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Mean Girls

"You GO Glen Coco!" "Stop trying to make *fetch* happen. It's not going to happen!" "On Wednesdays we wear pink!" "You can't sit with us!"

If you ranked teen movies by how many iconic lines of dialogue will live on forever, Mean Girls would definitely lead the pack. So many classics!

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10 Things I Hate About You

This flick may be based on the Shakespearean play The Taming of the Shrew, but you definitely won't feel like you're sitting in sophomore English class while watching it. You have to watch this classic if only to see the late Heath Ledger singing "You're Just to Good to Be True" accompanied by an entire marching band. Classic.

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Easy A

If you're looking for some way to make your required reading of The Scarlett Letter more bearable, watch this teen movie starring Emma Stone. You won't regret it.

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She's All That

The thing about '90s teen movies is that they pretty much all revolved around a popular guy making a stupid bet to woo an outcast girl and then regretting it when the tables turn and the girl ends up wooing them. She's All That is no exception. One of the scenes, now known as the Laney Boggs makeover, went down in history and is parodied extensively since the nerdy character's transformation from dork to most beautiful girl in school literally consisted of taking off her glasses and getting a trim. This movie even got remade in 2021 with He's All That starring Addison Rae and Tanner Buchanan.

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A Cinderella Story

This present-day reimagining of Cinderella starring Hilary Duff and Chad Michael Murray is the gift that keeps on giving. The first movie was a classic (that final scene where Sam and Austin kiss on the bleachers in the rain is EVERYTHING), but it also spawned three sequels starring Lucy Hale, Selena Gomez, and Sofia Carson.

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A Walk to Remember

A Walk to Remember is all about a high school student named Landon who finds himself falling in love with a school outcast named Jamie when he's forced to do community service with her. When Landon accepts that Jamie is his soul mate and drops his coolest-guy-at-school act, he gets the devastating news that Jamie has terminal cancer. It was basically 2002's The Fault in Our Stars, only with musical breaks.

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The Princess Diaries

Everyone dreams of finding out they're a princess. When an awkward high school sophomore named Mia Thermopolis finds out that she's the Princess of the fictional country of Genovia, her life completely changes. But being a princess is not easy, as you'll find out when you watch this Disney classic starring Anne Hathaway.

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Never Been Kissed

You're 16 and have never been kissed? Well, you're not alone. This flick is all about a 25-year-old journalist who's never been kissed. She goes undercover as a student at a high school for a story and begins to fall in love. The only problem is, it's with her English teacher who doesn't know her real age.

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13 Going on 30

This classic follows Jenna Rink, a 13-year-old outcast whose wish to grow up and escape the horrors of high school has come true. She wakes up in her 30-year-old body to find that she's a super cool editor at a major magazine in New York City. Although she loves her new and improved life at first, she quickly finds out that being grown up isn't that much easier than being 13. Just one warning: I'd like to tell you right now that no senior editor in existence is living in a swanky 5th avenue luxury apartment right by Union Square. Nope. Not a thing. This movie presents entirely unrealistic life expectations for 30-year-old journalists, but the rest of it is pretty awesome. Especially the "Thriller" dance break in the middle. Epic.

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17 Again

So, this movie is basically the opposite of 13 Going on 30. In it, a middle-aged man unsatisfied with how his life has turned out gets the chance to rewrite his life when he falls into a time vortex and finds himself back in his 17-year-old body. Obvs he thinks it's awesome at first until he realizes being seventeen is hard and he misses his family. Oh, did I mention 2000s-era Zac Efron is the star? Sold.

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The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants

Imagine you and your three besties found out that you had a pair of jeans that can magically fit all of you despite all your different sizes. That's what Tibby, Lena, Carmen, and Bridget find in their possession in this flick. Instead of selling them for a million dollars on the black market (like I would have done), they decided to pass the jeans around to one another to stay connected as their lives go in different directions. So cool.

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Grease

The summer of 1958, high schoolers Danny Zuko and Sandy meet and share a glorious summer together. But since Sandy has to go back to Australia at the end of her vacation, their love story is cut short. Only, shortly after Danny and Sandy part ways, Sandy's parents decide to move to America and she enrolls at the same high school as Danny where she quickly learns that her summer love is actually a member of the T-Birds gang and way to preoccupied with his bad boy to date a good girl like her. Will their love survive senior year?

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Paper Towns

This is a movie adaptation of a John Green book, which means that it's GOING to make you cry. That's just a given. This movie follows Quentin and his neighbor/lifetime-crush/most-popular-girl-in-school Margo, who after taking him on an all-night adventure through their hometown, suddenly disappears, leaving behind clues for Quentin to decipher and find her. The search leads Quentin on an adventure of discovery. But when he finds Margo, he doesn't find what he was looking for, and learns a major lesson about the pitfalls of putting the ones you love on pedestals.

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Pitch Perfect

The Barden Bellas are an elite all-girl a cappella group known for their sick covers of female pop songs. They WERE, at least. After flopping hard at last year's finals, they are forced to regroup. In walks Beca, an independent and edgy new student who's more interested in DJing than a cappella. But she's just what the Barden Bellas need to spice up their tired schtick and get back into the competition.

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The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Charlie is a socially awkward wallflower who has always experienced life from the sidelines. But when free-spirited Sam and her stepbrother Patrick become his friends, they help Charlie come out of his shell and he discovers the joys of friendship and first love. But when Charlie's friends go off to college, his past trauma and inner sadness begin to creep back in.

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The First Time

This Dylan O'Brien flick tells the story of Dave Hodgman, a high school senior who's got a major crush on popular girl Jane Harmon. Dave is planning on professing his love to Jane when a chance encounter with a mysterious girl from another high school, Aubrey Miller, changes everything. What starts off as a casual, snarky conversation leads to a real connection, and over the course of a weekend, Aubrey and Dave discover what it's really like to fall in love.

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