Movies About Children And Childhood

There are plenty of coming-of-age movies about teenagers (often played by 20-year-olds), but live-action films about real children are more rare. I've been keeping a list of the ones I liked. Of course, some of these are more realistic than others:

Name Director Country Year
I Was Born, But... Yasujirô Ozu Japan 1932 IMDB
Good Morning Yasujirô Ozu Japan 1959 IMDB
Pather Panchali Satyajit Ray India 1955 IMDB
Alamar Pedro González-Rubio Mexico 2009 IMDB
Fan Chan* Vitcha Gojiew, Songyos Sugmakanan Thailand 2003 IMDB
Treeless Mountain So Yong Kim Korea 2008 IMDB
Which Way Home Rebecca Cammisa USA 2009 IMDB
Owl and the Sparrow Stephane Gauger Vietnam 2009 IMDB
Please Vote For Me (documentary) Weijun Chen China 2007 IMDB
The 400 Blows François Truffaut France 1959 IMDB
Au Revoir Les Enfants Louis Malle France 1987 IMDB
My Life As A Dog Lasse Hallström Sweden 1985 IMDB
Muddy River Kôhei Oguri Japan 1981 IMDB
The Chorus Christophe Barratier France 2004 IMDB
Nobody Knows Hirokazu Koreeda Japan 2004 IMDB
I Wish Hirokazu Koreeda Japan 2011 IMDB
Lessons From A Calf (documentary) Hirokazu Koreeda Japan 1991 IMDB
Boy Taika Waititi New Zealand 2010 IMDB
Hunt for the Wilderpeople Taika Waititi New Zealand 2016 IMDB
The Florida Project Sean Baker USA 2017 IMDB
The Night I Swam (Takara - La nuit où j'ai nagé) Kohei Igarashi, Damien Manivel Japan 2017 IMDB
The Spirit Of The Beehive Víctor Erice Spain 1973 IMDB
Summer 1993 Carla Simón Spain 2017 IMDB
The Fits Anna Rose Holmer USA 2015 IMDB
White Sun Deepak Rauniyar Nepal 2016 IMDB
Celia Ann Turner Australia 1989 IMDB
Sivas Kaan Müjdeci Turkey 2014 IMDB
A Summer At Grandpa's Hou Hsiao-hsien Taiwan 1984 IMDB
Petite Maman Céline Sciamma France 2021 IMDB
Where Is the Friend's House? Abbas Kiarostami Iran 1987 IMDB
The Traveler Abbas Kiarostami Iran 1974 IMDB

* "Fan Chan" was streaming under the poor translation of "My Girl" for a while but now it's gone.

The following long list on mubi.com includes a great many I haven't yet seen (and some I wouldn't put in my list since they are animated and/or too far on the side of fantasy):
MUBI: Recommended Films About Children

If there's a movie about children you especially recommend, let me know.



Previous Post