Ten Thousand Saints

This definitely isn't a typical teen coming-of-age movie, though its protagonists do come of age. It's also not a romcom, though the characters do fall for each other and have sex. It's more of a family drama, though not a single character in the film seems to have much of an idea of what it really means to be a family. The teens are mostly raising themselves, and the parents have much more important things to do than actually be parents, especially Hawke as Jude's weed-growing dad, who gives his son free rein in New York and likes to smoke pot with the kid. It makes mid-1980s New York look pretty rough.

But give the film time to do its thing, and all these dysfunctional families/characters start to grow on you, even Hawke, who turns out to give the most sensible advice of anyone in the film. Butterfield and Steinfeld are outstanding (angsty, yes, but excellent, too) and Emile Hirsch, as a punk-rock member of their extended family who's trying to figure out who he really is, also gives a strong performance. TEN THOUSAND SAINTS takes some unexpected twists, but it's an interesting -- and sometimes fun -- ride nonetheless.