March has always felt like a threshold month to me. Not quite the beginning of the year anymore, not fully settled either. The urgency of January softens, the fog of February lifts, and suddenly you’re standing in clearer light—aware of what’s working, what isn’t, and who you might be becoming…
…March feels like a coming-of-age.
Coming-of-age stories are rarely about grand victories.
They’re about smaller shifts —
the moment you realize your parents are flawed,
the first time love makes you braver (or crueler),
the quiet recognition that the world is bigger than your bedroom walls.
But coming of age isn’t limited to adolescence. It’s not just first crushes and school corridors and the awkward poetry of being seventeen. It’s any moment when illusion falls away, and something steadier takes its place. It’s choosing responsibility over impulse. It’s understanding your parents differently. It’s realizing your dreams will require effort—or letting go of the ones that won’t survive reality. Sometimes it’s quiet. Sometimes it’s devastating. Often, it’s both.
This month’s theme gathers adaptations that capture those turning points—stories where characters step into a new version of themselves, always changed. Some are youthful. Some arrive much later in life. All of them understand that growing up is less about age and more about awareness.
Let’s begin.
- Alone With Her Dreams | 2019 | 95 min
Directed by: Paolo Licata
Genre: Drama
Alone With Her Dreams, adapted from Catena Fiorello’s novel, follows a young girl sent away from her parents to live with her strict grandmother in rural Sicily. As war and family absence reshape her childhood, the film lingers on solitude, resilience, and the quiet ache of growing up too quickly. Sunlit yet emotionally restrained, it treats abandonment not as rupture alone, but as the space where independence slowly—and painfully—takes root.
- Anne With an E | 2017-19 | 27 eps
Created by: Moira Walley-Beckett
Genre: Period Drama
Anne with an E, adapted from L.M. Montgomery’s novel Anne of Green Gables, reimagines the story of an imaginative orphan sent to live with two aging siblings in rural Prince Edward Island. Expanding on the source material, the series foregrounds trauma, belonging, and identity alongside Anne’s irrepressible optimism. Lush yet emotionally grounded, it treats coming-of-age not as whimsy alone, but as the determined claiming of space in a world that initially refuses you.
*There have been countless adaptations of Anne of Green Gables over the years, but this one remains my favourite. And if you’re in the mood for something animated, there’s also Anne Shirley—an anime version currently streaming on Crunchyroll.
- Beautiful Thing | 1996 | 92 min
Directed by: Hettie Macdonald
Genre: Coming-of-Age, Romcom
Beautiful Thing, adapted from Jonathan Harvey’s play, follows two teenage boys on a South London estate whose tentative friendship gradually becomes first love. Set over the course of a summer, the film treats queerness not as spectacle or tragedy, but as discovery—awkward, tender, and quietly transformative. Warm and grounded, Beautiful Thing frames coming-of-age as the moment when affection stops being something to hide and becomes something worth stepping into the light for.
- Boots | 2025 | 08 eps
Created by: Andy Parker
Genre: Coming-of-Age, Comedy, Drama
Boots, based on the memoir The Pink Marine, follows a group of teenagers as they navigate friendship, identity, and the uneasy shift into adulthood. Blending comedy with moments of emotional candour, the series treats growing up as a series of small missteps rather than grand revelations. Episodic and character-driven, Boots frames coming-of-age as something gradual, shaped less by milestones than by the quiet recognition of who you are becoming.
- Boy Swallows Universe | 2024 | 07 eps
Directed by: Bharat Nalluri
Genre: Coming-of-Age, Drama
Boy Swallows Universe, adapted from Trent Dalton’s novel, follows a young boy growing up in 1980s Brisbane amid crime, addiction, and fragile hope. Told from a child’s perspective that balances innocence with sharp observation, the series treats coming-of-age as a form of survival—shaped by loyalty, imagination, and the search for moral clarity in a compromised world.
- Breakfast on Pluto | 2005 | 128 min
Directed by: Neil Jordan
Genre: Coming-of-Age, Drama
Breakfast on Pluto, adapted from Patrick McCabe’s novel, follows Patrick “Kitten” Braden, a gender-nonconforming young person leaving a small Irish town in search of love, identity, and a mother long imagined. Set against the turbulence of 1970s Ireland, the film balances whimsy with hardship, treating self-fashioning as both defense and declaration.
- Closely Watched Trains | 1966 | 93 min
Directed by: Jiří Menzel
Genre: Coming-of-Age, Drama
Closely Watched Trains, adapted from Bohumil Hrabal’s novella, follows a shy young railway apprentice coming of age in a small Czech town during World War II. Blending absurdist humour with tragedy, the film frames adolescence as both awkwardly intimate and politically charged. Beneath its understated tone lies a meditation on innocence interrupted—where personal awakening unfolds alongside the slow encroachment of history.
- Dilan 1990 | 2018 | 109 min
Directed by: Fajar Bustomi
Genre: Coming-of-Age, Romance
Dilan 1990, adapted from Pidi Baiq’s bestselling novel, follows a shy high school girl drawn to the charm and unpredictability of a rebellious classmate in 1990 Bandung. Set against the small rituals of teenage life—motorbike rides, notes passed in class, lingering glances—the film treats first love as something earnest and immediate. Nostalgic without irony, Dilan 1990 frames coming-of-age as the brief, luminous period when affection feels both inevitable and entirely new.
- Empire of the Sun | 1987 | 153 min
Directed by: Steven Spielberg
Genre: Coming-of-Age, War, Drama
Empire of the Sun, adapted from J.G. Ballard’s novel, follows a young British boy separated from his parents during the Japanese occupation of Shanghai. As privilege gives way to survival, the film reframes coming-of-age as confrontation—with hunger, loyalty, fear, and the moral ambiguities of war. Expansive yet intimate, it treats childhood not as innocence preserved, but as something irrevocably altered by history.
- Ghost World | 2001 | 111 min
Directed by: Terry Zwigoff
Genre: Coming-of-Age, Buddy Comedy
Ghost World, adapted from Daniel Clowes’ graphic novel, follows two recent high school graduates drifting through suburban ennui as their friendship begins to fracture. Wry and sharply observed, the film treats coming-of-age as disillusionment—where irony no longer shields you from loneliness.
- Go | 2001 | 122 min
Directed by: Isao Yukisada
Genre: Coming-of-Age, Romance
Go, adapted from Kazuki Kaneshiro’s novel, follows a Korean-Japanese teenager navigating identity, prejudice, and first love in contemporary Tokyo. Blending humor with emotional candor, the film treats adolescence as a collision between inherited labels and self-definition. Energetic yet reflective, Go frames coming-of-age as the refusal to be reduced—choosing who you are in a society that insists on deciding for you.
- Hunt for the Wilderpeople | 2016 | 101 min
Directed by: Taika Waititi
Genre: Coming-of-Age, Comedy, Drama
Hunt for the Wilderpeople, adapted from Barry Crump’s novel Wild Pork and Watercress, follows a defiant foster child and his reluctant guardian as they disappear into the New Zealand bush. What begins as mischief slowly becomes an unlikely bond forged through survival, solitude, and shared stubbornness. Blending deadpan humor with genuine tenderness, the film frames coming-of-age as belonging—sometimes found in the wilderness, and sometimes in the person walking beside you.
- It’s Not Me, I Swear! | 2008 | 110 min
Directed by: Philippe Falardeau
Genre: Coming-of-Age, Comedy, Drama
It’s Not Me, I Swear!, adapted from Bruno Hébert’s novel, follows a restless ten-year-old as he copes with his mother’s departure through pranks, petty rebellion, and escalating mischief. Set against suburban quiet, the film treats childhood not as innocence, but as confusion—where grief surfaces sideways, disguised as defiance. Darkly funny yet tender, It’s Not Me, I Swear! frames coming-of-age as the slow recognition of feelings too large to name.
- Komi Can’t Communicate | 2021-22 | 24 eps
Directed by: Kazuki Kawagoe
Genre: Coming-of-Age, Animation
Komi Can’t Communicate, adapted from Tomohito Oda’s manga, follows a high school girl idolized for her beauty yet paralyzed by severe social anxiety. With the quiet help of an unassuming classmate, she sets out to make one hundred friends—treating connection as both goal and gradual practice. Light, affectionate, and emotionally perceptive, the series frames coming-of-age not as a transformation, but as the steady courage of trying to speak.
- Love & Pop | 1998 | 112 min
Directed by: Hideaki Anno
Genre: Coming-of-Age, Drama
Love & Pop, adapted from Ryū Murakami’s novel Topaz II, follows a group of teenage girls drifting through Tokyo’s late-1990s consumer culture, where desire, money, and attention blur into one another. Shot with restless, experimental camerawork, the film mirrors its protagonist’s fragmented search for validation and meaning. Uneasy and deliberately disorienting, Love & Pop treats coming-of-age not as innocence lost, but as the moment self-worth becomes entangled with what the world is willing to pay.
That’s Part One.
If even one entry here nudged you toward a book you hadn’t planned to read or a film you weren’t sure you were ready for, then this was worth putting together.
Part Two awaits in the next newsletter.
— Piggy x
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