10 of the Best Sex-Positive Coming-of-Age Movies
There’s no genre quite so comforting as the coming-of-age film. It has become a rite of passage for every generation to have their own defining cinematic coming-of-age moment, whether it’s the image of Judd Nelson with his fist in the air in The Breakfast Club (1985), or Saoirse Ronan throwing herself out of a moving vehicle in Lady Bird (2017). While previous films in the genre have explored romance to varying degrees of success, there has been a notable shift in recent iterations that seem more preoccupied with the explicit intricacies of sexual identity than ever before. We arguably live in a world that is more interested than ever in the fluidity of sexuality, and this interest is reflected quite clearly in the films of today—like this year’s My Old Ass, to name just one example. From candid explorations of sex to gay awakenings and lesbians on the run, here are 10 of the best recent sex-positive coming-of-age movies.
1. Am I OK?
Year: 2024
Directors: Tig Notaro, Stephanie Allynne
Stars: Dakota Johnson, Sonoya Mizuno, Jermaine Fowler, Kiersey Clemons, Molly Gordon, Whitmer Thomas, Odessa A’zion, Sean Hayes, Tig Notaro
Genre: Comedy
Rating: R
Even if you haven’t watched Am I OK?, you’ve almost certainly seen the poster on Max. The close-up image of Dakota Johnson mid-cry is an immediate eye-catcher, and does a pretty decent job of summing up the vibe of the film. Am I OK? follows Lucy (Dakota Johnson), a receptionist at a spa who struggles with the news that her best friend Jane (Sonoya Mizuno) will be relocating to London while also grappling with the newfound realization that she may be a lesbian. While coming-of-age films are almost always centered around teens, it feels refreshing to hear an adult admit that even they aren’t sure of their identity yet—or, as Lucy so eloquently puts it, “I don’t even know what I am.” At 32, Lucy fears that she’s missed her chance at a gay awakening, but Jane assures her that there is no fixed timeline for such a thing. We spend much of the film with Lucy as she attempts to discover who she is, stumbling her way through awkward dates and attempting to make up for the years she spent not having sex. As Lucy explores a potential relationship with a coworker (who she isn’t entirely sure is a lesbian herself) she must also reckon with an impending future without her best friend. Lucy and Jane butt heads over each other’s lifestyle choices, leading to a painful friendship breakup and a wake up call for Lucy to find her own life outside of her best friend. She quits her job to pursue her real dream of being an artist full time and comes to terms with her sexuality, becoming more comfortable with stepping out of her comfort zone. She embraces the titles of artist and lesbian, and when she reunites with Jane, Lucy has found a comfortable rhythm to her life. Gone is the sobbing mess we saw at the start of the film, completing a somewhat by-the-book narrative arc. Am I OK? is as much an exploration of friendship as it is one woman’s journey to sexual enlightenment and it makes a strong argument for why it’s okay to move at your own pace.—Nadira Begum
2. Blockers
Year: 2018
Directors: Kay Cannon
Stars: John Cena, Leslie Mann, Ike Barinholtz, Kathryn Newton, Geraldine Viswanathan, Gideon Adlon, Graham Phillips, Miles Robbins, Jimmy Bellinger, Colton Dunn, Sarayu Blue, Gary Cole, Gina Gershon, June Diane Raphael, Hannibal Buress
Genre: Comedy
Rating: R
John Cena, wrestler and employee of the Daddy’s Home franchise, is in the Jingle All the Way era of his career, and, as Buzzfeed columnists would say, We’re here for it. All of us. There’s hardly a more reasonable way to respond to Blockers, in which Cena plays fastidious, incomprehensibly beefy dad Mitchell, who is unable to deal with the revelation that his daughter, high-schooler Kayla (Geraldine Viswanathan), plans to lose her virginity at her senior prom. Blockers is a second-generation teen romp openly owing its lineage to Superbad and American Pie while trying something new: not as consumed by its vulgarity, treating its teens who actually look like teens as the over-jaded post-Millennials they supposedly are, and having most of the film’s nudity provided by men, i.e., Gary Cole going full frontal, unashamed of his nice dick. In other words, no one wants to cheer for the toxic privilege of rich, white, horny, suburban high-school boys anymore, but we do want to cheer for best friendship and young people starting to figure their shit out and parents who learn how to give them the space and respect to do that. And if John Cena is the paternalistic He-Man—the Jim’s Dad of the Dwayne the Rock Johnson Generation, if you will—to guide the youth through their cinematic, sex-positive formative years, then let Blockers test his mettle. If the film’s direction is workmanlike and the writers’ plotting flimsy, then the better to focus on the cast. They’re a joy to watch together, everyone unironically playing unironic characters packed to the gills with backstories that go nowhere, revealing little painful, relatable details amidst all the electrocutions and butt-chugging and occasional car explosion and full close-up violent testicle squeezing. If this is what a popular sex comedy can be in 2018, something forward-thinking and empathetic and crowd-pleasing, then let the box office show it. And may John Cena be with you. —Dom Sinacola
3. Booksmart
Year: 2019
Director: Olivia Wilde
Stars: Kaitlyn Dever, Beanie Feldstein, Jessica Williams, Jason Sudeikis, Lisa Kudrow, Will Forte
Rating: R
Runtime: 105 minutes
Booksmart, the directorial debut of Olivia Wilde, is another journey down the halls of a wealthy high school days before graduation, but it’s different enough to be endearing. Written by an all-female writing team—Susanna Fogel, Emily Halpern, Sarah Haskins and Katie Silberman—it centers on life-long besties Amy (Kaitlyn Dever) and Molly (Beanie Feldstein) as they attempt to party one time before the end of high school. Wilde and company draw from a whimsical, rainbow palate to explore friendship at diverging roads. Feldstein and Dever shine as an odd couple. Molly wants to be the youngest person ever elected to the Supreme Court, while Amy seeks to discover what possibilities life may open up for her. Easily feeding off of one another’s energy, as Amy and Molly travel around town, jumping gatherings, trying to reach the ultimate cool kids’ party, they cross paths with a diverse array of students also attempting to hide their painfully obvious insecurities. As the night progresses, those masks begin to slip, and the person each of these students is striving to become begins to emerge. The pendulum of teen girl movies swings typically from Clueless—girl-powered, cutesy, high-fashion first-love-centered—to Thirteen, the wild, angry, depressed and running from all genuine emotion kind of movie. Most of these films lay in the space of heteronormative, white, upper or middle class, and able-bodied representation. Even in films centered on otherness, like Bend It Like Beckham, the white best friend is given equal space in the advertising of the film, and the original queer angle was written out in favor of a love triangle. Visit nearly any segment of the internet visited by Millennial, Gen X, and Gen Z women, and the cry for better representation is loud and clear. There’s a fresh-faced newness of raw talent in Booksmart that begs to be a touchstone for the next generation of filmmakers. Like Wes Anderson’s Rushmore or Sofia Coppola’s Virgin Suicides, Booksmart is an experience cinema enthusiasts will revisit again and again. —Joelle Monique
4. Bonus Track
Year: 2023
Directors: Julia Jackman
Stars: Joe Anders, Samuel Small
Genre: Comedy
Rating: NR
Picture the scene: it’s England, 2006. People still use landlines and cassettes, Spotify doesn’t exist, and somewhere in a sleepy town, 16-year-old George Bobbin (Joe Anders) dreams of becoming a pop star. This is the setting of Bonus Track, a musical(ish) rom-com based on an original story by Josh O’Connor and Mike Gilbert and directed by Julia Jackman. The film opens with George imagining himself as a guest on a popular radio program before he takes the stage as the adored pop star he has always dreamed of becoming. His bubble bursts when someone in real life calls him a homophobic slur, immediately bringing him back down to earth. In reality, George is a lonely, bumbling teenager failing all his classes in his final year of high school. When his music teacher declares that “Music is math… but with noise,” George bristles. For George, a queer kid in a stuffy English town, music is the means through which he can escape. It’s a source of joy and endless possibility, but George’s musical talents are overlooked by almost everyone around him. That is until he meets Max (Samuel Small), the son of famous singers who are embroiled in a very bitter, very public divorce. It is their teenage romance that sets this film apart from other British rom-coms. Bonus Track has all the hallmarks of a classic British teen rom-com. There are teenagers getting drunk on cheap vodka and throwing up in the park, kooky middle-class parents on the verge of divorce, and the oppressive brown linoleum of a dull school hall. Even the use of music to narrate this young romance feels quite peppy. The film is split into sections that are categorized by “tracks,” each section adopting the name of its thematic song; George’s introduction to Max is track two (“Superstar” by Christine Milton), their budding relationship provides the baseline for track four (“Take Me Out” by Franz Ferdinand), and so on and so forth. It’s a nifty way of pacing a film that just about hits the 100-minute mark, and punctuates it with the familiar sound of mid-2000s radio hits. Though Bonus Track may seem tame in comparison to its American counterparts, the very concept of a queer teen rom-com is practically nonexistent in British cinema, making this film a rare gem. Buoyed by the sensitive and charming lead performances, Bonus Track is a queer rom-com made for a new generation of British teens.—Nadira Begum
5. Bottoms
Release Date: August 25, 2023
Director: Emma Seligman
Stars: Rachel Sennott, Ayo Edebiri, Marshawn Lynch, Havana Rose Liu, Kaia Gerber, Nicholas Galitzine, Ruby Cruz, Dagmara Domińczyk
Rating: R
Runtime: 92 minutes
Every now and then, a comedy rolls around that is delightfully unafraid of utter ridiculousness—of pushing buttons and boundaries until it’s blue in the face. Directed by Emma Seligman (Shiva Baby) in her sophomore feature, Bottoms is such a comedy. The film follows P.J. (Rachel Sennott) and Josie (Ayo Edebiri), two wildly unpopular gay high schoolers who found a female fight club to impress their cheerleader crushes: Brittany (Kaia Gerber) and Isabel (Havana Rose Liu), respectively. This is a premise that naturally lends itself to a healthy dosage of humor, but Seligman doesn’t dare rely too heavily on her high-concept conceit. With the help of Sennott, who co-wrote the script, Seligman squeezes every ounce of humor out of each of the film’s thoughtfully-crafted scenarios—for better or worse. More often than not, this yields either shockingly bloody and hilarious visual gags, such as an impeccably-timed explosion or punch to the face, or masterfully-delivered punchlines about I-can’t-believe-she-went-there topics like bombs or abortions. In the rare moments that Bottoms takes a turn into sincerity, the dialogue is subtle yet acutely affecting, and indicates that its writers have a heartfelt understanding of what their characters are going through. If they had just sacrificed a couple of visual gags and attached their film a little more tightly to reality, Bottoms would be both poignant and laugh-out-loud funny. In her defense, it does make sense why Seligman wasn’t interested in giving up any of the film’s punchlines. She did, after all, hit the jackpot with one of the funniest ensemble casts of the past decade. The chemistry between the two leads is exquisite, which shouldn’t come as a surprise; the two previously spearheaded the uproarious Comedy Central web series Ayo and Rachel Are Single. When Seligman’s short film Shiva Baby premiered at South by Southwest back in 2018, audiences widely recognized the budding director as someone with a unique talent for whipping up a tight, sharp comedy in a small space. Now that her budget and scope are bigger, she has once again proven that she has an outstanding command over the genre.—Aurora Amidon
6. Do Revenge
Year: 2013
Director: Jennifer Kaytin Robinson
Starring: Camila Mendes, Maya Hawke, Rish Shah, Sophie Turner, Austin Abrams
Genre: Teen Comedy
Rating: TV-MA
Do Revenge stars Camila Mendes as it-girl Drea, outcast from her peers after a private video is leaked to the entire school by her faux-feminist ex-boyfriend. Enter Maya Hawke’s Eleanor, a newcomer at their prestigious private school, who was made a social pariah by a girl who claimed she tried to hold her down and kiss her, turning her into a walking predatory lesbian stereotype. The two hatch a plan to take down those that hurt them and, as the title might suggest, do each other’s revenge. This film, most importantly, is a pastel-painted, glittery good time. The dialogue and comedy are anything but dry (unlike Hawke’s unfortunate wig) and harken back to classic ’90s films like Clueless, but with a Gen Z edge. Following in the footsteps of Bodies Bodies Bodies or Crush, Do Revenge lampoons Gen Z’s unique Internet-age experience, while still remaining sincere enough to not feel like a complete parody. With stunning fashion, a lizard hilariously named “Oscar Winner Olivia Coleman” and a swoon-worthy cameo from one of the pillars of the ’90s teen scene, Do Revenge’s most absurd elements are the funniest, and its sardonic humor lends itself to its twisted irony—all underscored by its killer soundtrack. This film has been billed as Hitchcockian, and it delivers on the implied twists and turns, even if some are a tad predictable. Revenge might be a dish best served cold, but Do Revenge revels in the fiery heat of teenage girlhood, ultimately delivering an angry, messy and cathartic good time. —Anna Govert
7. Drive-Away Dolls
Year: 2024
Director: Ethan Coen
Stars: Margaret Qualley, Geraldine Vaswanathan, Beanie Feldstein, Colman Domingo, Pedro Pascal, Bill Camp, Matt Damon
Rating: R
Genre: Comedy
Ethan Coen’s solo fictional directorial debut Drive-Away Dolls is an end-to-end comedy, a road film about two twenty-something lesbians unwittingly ensnared in someone else’s caper, dodging a couple of criminals while growing as people. Margaret Qualley is Jamie, a free spirit of uncertain employment who we meet while she’s stepping out on her partner, police officer Sukie (Beanie Feldstein). Geraldine Viswanathan is her upright and uptight friend Marian, who works an ambiguous office job where she’s tired of her coworkers as well as the big city (Philadelphia in 1999). After Sukie catches Jamie cheating, gives her a black eye at a bar, and kicks her out of their shared apartment, Jamie tags along on Marian’s road trip to visit her aunt in Tallahassee using Curlie’s (Bill Camp) driveaway service. Their journey of self-discovery is eventually impacted by two goons (Joey Slotnick as Arliss and C.J. Wilson as Flint) working for The Chief (Colman Domingo), who are on their trail to recover some sensitive objects hidden in the car. Drive-Away Dolls is funny all the time. There is a goofiness of circumstance, fools and jesters brought together because of their employment and other people’s decisions. It’s never stiff or stuffy, but often very smart. The dialogue is terrific (written by Coen and his wife/frequent editor Tricia Cooke) at distinguishing the personalities of each character, big and small, making them feel like real (sometimes real odd) people rather than just archetypes (and every archetype presented is fleshed out for maximum value). On top of that, Drive-Away Dolls is a sometimes tender, sometimes thrilling, tightly-paced comedy that, despite clocking in at under 90 minutes, feels downright luxuriant at times. With Drive-Away Dolls, Tricia Cooke and Ethan Coen channel their influences and experiences into a tight, satisfying, humorous road movie. A knowing and humorous tone never loses its flair, with an artistic touch and commitment that makes you buy into the jokes in the first place. It is a refreshing comical experience threading together the absurd and the authentic.–Kevin Fox Jr.
8. Plan B
Year: 2021
Director: Natalie Morales
Stars: Kuhoo Verma, Victoria Moroles
Rating: NR
Genre: Comedy
The meeting of past and present is on full display in Plan B which puts a new spin on one of the tried and true plots of the genre—the road trip. Sunny (Kuhoo Verma) is a responsible student trying to do everything right. Her best friend Lupe (Victoria Moroles) seems to walk more on the wild side, but it’s really just bravado hiding some inner insecurity. When Sunny’s mom Rosie (Jolly Abraham) goes out of town for a real estate convention, Lupe convinces Sunny to throw a party to get the attention of Hunter (Michael Provost). “Who plays hockey in a cardigan? He’s like an athletic librarian,” Sunny sighs. But after one too many shots of some very questionable alcoholic punch (pickle juice is involved), Sunny has sex for the first time with the super religious and super geeky Kyle (Mason Cook from the late, great TV series Speechless). The next morning, to her horror, Sunny discovers the condom and its contents have been inside her all night long. The quest for the Plan B pill begins. All films require a willing suspension of disbelief and Plan B does need its viewers to not ask too many questions. Suffice to say a lot of Sunny and Lupe’s problems could have been solved by a simple Google search on their phones. But once you set aside any lingering doubts, the movie is a delight. That’s in large part due to first-time director Natalie Morales. Morales, known for her roles on Parks & Recreation, The Middleman and Dead to Me, clearly understands these characters and the emotional angst of high school. Perhaps because Morales is an actress herself, she’s even more conscious of ensuring that the female leads are treated with the respect they deserve.—Amy Amatangelo
9. Poor Things
Year: 2023
Director: Yorgos Lanthimos
Stars: Emma Stone, Mark Ruffalo, Willem Dafoe, Ramy Youssef, Jerrod Carmichael
Rating: R
Runtime: 141 minutes
Yorgos Lanthimos’ off-kilter, pastel-drenched Poor Things opens with static shots of silken embroidery. It is hard to ascertain the images themselves, threaded so neatly in a near-identical gray. But the slippery, elusive texture is integral to the film, which weaves together something thick and rich with detail. What follows is narrow in its focus and big and engulfing in its scale: The story of a young woman who must overcome the experiments enacted against her while embracing her changing body and irrepressible urges. As such, this adaptation of Alasdair Gray’s book of the same name is difficult to summarize, loosely following Bella Baxter (Emma Stone) as she grows to embrace adulthood despite the overbearing tutelage of her de facto father God (Willem Dafoe). Once introduced to the dashing and cocky Duncan Wedderburn (Mark Ruffalo), Bella recognizes the pitfalls of her sheltered life and endeavors to travel around the world, experiencing life anew before marrying her father’s sweet and bumbling assistant Max McCandles (Ramy Youssef). Lying in the genre gulf between science fiction and straightforward drama, Poor Things also finds time to unleash Stone’s ability as a physical comedian, building a sticky, entrancing bodily language that lives somewhere between twitchy, childlike enthusiasm and mystical knowingness. She wanders through their eclectic family home with an unsteady gait, crashing into delicately hung porcelain displays and cackling rather than cowering at the destruction which follows. It is a deliciously amoral journey, the kind that has already secured Lanthimos ample praise over the course of his career. But this is perhaps the filmmaker’s most garish and confident endeavor, using Bella’s naive perspective to design a world so heightened that it exists somewhere between a nightmare and a dream. Somewhat surprisingly, Poor Things feels like it is in conversation with Greta Gerwig’s Barbie, right down to Stone’s robotic, doll-like physique. Where Barbie feels shallow and tentative in its understanding of what it means to physically grow up, Poor Things is bold and radically (at times uncomfortably) honest. It will satisfy fans of Lanthimos’ previous work and perhaps win over new viewers who are desperate to engage in the kind of coming-of-age stories that propel the genre forward. —Anna McKibbin
10. Yes, God, Yes
Year: 2020
Director: Karen Maine
Starring: Natalia Dyer, Timothy Simons, Francesca Reale, Wolfgang Novogratz
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Rating: NR
A Christian’s hypocrisy is accurately measured by their piety: The louder they caterwaul about other people’s sins, the more likely they are to have a closet packed with their own perversions. Karen Maine gets it. Her debut feature, Yes, God, Yes, adapted from her debut short of the same name, is glazed around a big, moist cake of sexual sanctimony. Fart-sniffing Christian holier-than-thou gossipmongers fall on the perceived weakling of their flock, young Alice (Natalia Dyer), accused of tossing salad even though she doesn’t even know what the blue hell that means. Alice actually is innocent, unlike her peers. Her only wrongdoing isn’t wrong at all: She stumbles onto an AOL chat room, catches a glimpse of some hardcore porn sans context, and then decides to start discovering her own body just before she’s sent off on a retreat run by Father Murphy (Timothy Simons), a man with a necessarily wide smile, stretched so far that his face is primed to split but in danger of collapsing should he stop. Yes, God, Yes stitches Alice’s coming of age to a culture where talking about coming is verboten; Maine looks for humor in her experiential screenplay and finds it, but it’s a bleak kind of humor punctuated by hopelessness. If the authority figures in a society break the rules they set out for everyone else to follow, then navigating that society as a reasonable person is impossible. But Dyer’s spirited work as Alice gives the film a plucky heart. Maybe she can’t affect actual change here, but she can, at least, do right by herself. Dyer’s star has risen in the last half decade or so, and Yes, God, Yes further validates her gifts as an actress. Maine lets the camera linger on Dyer’s face when she’s confronted with obscenity, and Dyer lets her eyes and mouth and cheeks perform hilarious, expressive gymnastics. At the same time, she conveys fear—the fear of realizing that the adults of Alice’s life are all bullshit artists, the fear of having no one to confide in about her natural curiosities and urges—with wounded brilliance. She’s the perfect actress to realize Maine’s deft critique of religious sexual duplicity. –Andy Crump