Stand By Me is the best without a doubt.

The Goonies
The Sandlot
The Breakfast Club

A second tier thought - "You're a Big Boy Now".

“A Boy and His Dog”

Fast Times at Ridgemont High

American Graffiti

Fast Times at Ridgemont High

The Last Picture Show

Stand By Me

Clueless, I know, I know

Second Hand Lions

The Harry Potter movies.

Old Yeller

flashguy

Empire of the Sun (with a very young Christian Bale)

The Black Stallion

The Outsiders

Tony.

Mud
Lady Bird
Ferris Bueller's Day Off
Stand By Me
Kid's

As a '70s kid, there are two films from that time period that perfectly capture the ambience of my youth. The first is Michael Ritchie's The Bad News Bears from 1976. I remember thinking that the kids from The Sandlot seemed too "1990s family-movieish" to be realistic. Foul-mouthed Tanner from Bad News Bears was way more like the kids I grew up with.

The second film took me forever to figure out what it was. I saw it on HBO at a friend's house in the 70s, and I never knew what the title was. It wasn't until I was looking through the back catalog of Phantasm director Don Coscarelli on IMDb in the mid-'00s did I stumble on the film from my childhood: Kenny & Company, also from 1976!

Kenny & Company deals with two school pals' daily adventures the week before Halloween and is the best time capsule of my youth I've ever come across. I told Don Coscarelli so when he appeared at a movie showing I went to, and I had him sign my DVD cover. He said he hadn't ever signed any memorabilia from that film before.

Great post. Thank you! Most of the obvious ones that I can think of were mentioned.

The first two I thought of were the first two on para’s list. I don’t know jack about the other three he listed

quote:

Originally posted by TMats:
The first two I thought of were the first two on para’s list. I don’t know jack about the other three he listed

I grew up watching The Black Stallion. It was a fantastic movie and probably the first I thought of when I saw the thread title. A great performance by Mickey Rooney and Terri Garr. You can watch it for free here:

https://tubitv.com/movies/312412/the-black-stallion

Tony.

you could say Platoon was a 'coming of age' story on an individual level -- Chris -- and society's level as we sort of moved on from the decisive victory of the generation of WW2 military heroes to the moral ambiguity of Vietnam

violent yes but he undeniably was a different young man by the end of the movie -- innocence lost / eyes opened

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0IfbNVCoCE

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My favorites:

Superbad
The Breakfast Club
Dazed and Confused
Badlands
Scent of a Woman
Dead Poet Society

And then, while the films based on it aren't great, the book Where the Red Fern Grows is probably my favorite coming of age story.