
Palo Alto
A lack of parental guidance encourages teens in an affluent California town to rebel with substance abuse and casual sex.
Movies Like Palo Alto
Similar in style, tone, and themes — find your next watch.

Ken Park
2003★ 6.0
Teen skater Ken Park (nicknamed Krap Nek; his name spelled and pronounced backward) kills himself at a Visalia skate park; his death bookends the lives of four other young people who knew him: Shawn, the most conventional; Tate brims with psychotic rage; Claude is habitually harassed by his brutish father and coddled, rather uncomfortably, by his enormously pregnant mother; and Peaches looks after her devoutly religious father, but yearns for freedom. They're all rather tight, or so they claim.

How to Have Sex
2023★ 6.2
Three British teenage girls go on a rites-of-passage holiday—drinking, clubbing and hooking up, in what should be the best summer of their lives.

Palm Trees and Power Lines
2023★ 6.3
A disconnected teenage girl enters a relationship with a man twice her age. She sees him as the solution to all her problems, but his intentions are not what they seem.

Mammal
2016★ 6.3
After Margaret, a divorcée living in Dublin, loses her teenage son, she develops an unorthodox relationship with Joe, a homeless youth. Their tentative trust is threatened by his involvement with a violent gang and the escalation of her ex-husband's grieving rage.

The Babysitters
2008★ 6.0
Seventeen-year-old Shirley is a good student who works as a babysitter in order to make money for college. One night Michael, a father Shirley works for, confesses he's unhappy with married life. Shirley has a crush on Michael, and seizes this moment to kiss him. Michael is so happy he presents Shirley with a big tip, which gives her an idea. Shirley plans to make extra money by setting up her teenage friends with other unhappy fathers.

Beautiful Boy
2018★ 7.5
After he and his first wife separate, journalist David Sheff struggles to help their teenage son, who goes from experimenting with drugs to becoming devastatingly addicted to methamphetamine.

Pariah
2011★ 6.8
A Brooklyn teenager juggles conflicting identities and risks friendship, heartbreak, and family in a desperate search for sexual expression.

Gridiron Gang
2006★ 7.1
Under the leadership of their counselor, teenagers at a juvenile detention center gain self-esteem by playing football together. Based on a true story.

Thirteen
2003★ 6.7
When 13-year-old Tracy befriends Evie, the most popular girl in school, her life is turned upside down as Evie introduces her to a world of sex, drugs, and money. But it isn’t long before Tracy’s new lifestyle begins to take a heavy toll on her and her family.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower
2012★ 7.8
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 1991. High school freshman Charlie is a wallflower, always watching life from the sidelines, until two senior students, Sam and her stepbrother Patrick, become his mentors, helping him discover the joys of friendship, music and love.

From Straight A's to XXX
2017★ 5.8
When a change of circumstances leaves Miriam unable to pay her college tuition, she makes a surprising decision: to start performing in adult films, using the pseudonym Belle Knox. Miriam lies to her family and her friends at school, keeping her double life a secret. But soon rumours spread and Miriam becomes the subject of vicious online attacks and unwanted attention. Miriam fights back: she talks to the media, saying her new line of work empowers her as a feminist. But her confident stand has unintended consequences. Miriam is shunned by her conservative family and her colleagues in the adult film world. One impulsive decision has quickly spiralled out of control - and Miriam's problems are just beginning.

Magnolia
1999★ 7.7
On one random day in the San Fernando Valley, a dying father, a young wife, a male caretaker, a famous lost son, a police officer in love, a boy genius, an ex-boy genius, a game show host and an estranged daughter will each become part of a dazzling multiplicity of plots, but one story.

Short Term 12
2013★ 7.8
Grace, a compassionate young supervisor at a foster care facility, helps at-risk teens. But when a new charge dredges up memories of her own troubled past, Grace's tough exterior begins eroding.

Lolita
1997★ 7.1
Humbert Humbert is a middle-aged British novelist who is both appalled by and attracted to the vulgarity of American culture. When he comes to stay at the boarding house run by Charlotte Haze, he soon becomes obsessed with Lolita, the woman's teenaged daughter.

Gracie
2007★ 6.2
A teenager faces an uphill battle when she fights to give women the opportunity to play competitive soccer.

Starlet
2012★ 6.8
An unlikely friendship forms between 21 year-old Jane and the elderly Sadie after Jane discovers a hidden stash of money inside an object at Sadie's yard sale.

The Crush
1993★ 6.7
A precocious and obsessive teenager develops a crush on a naive writer with harrowing consequences.

The Short History of the Long Road
2019★ 7.0
Nola grew up living in a van with her father, Clint—two nomads against the world. When tragedy strikes, Nola must confront the reality of life on the road alone, learning to own her grief, her past, and her new destination.

The Miseducation of Cameron Post
2018★ 6.9
Pennsylvania, 1993. After getting caught with another girl, teenager Cameron Post is sent to a conversion therapy center run by the strict Dr. Lydia Marsh and her brother, Reverend Rick, whose treatment consists in repenting for feeling “same sex attraction.” Cameron befriends fellow sinners Jane and Adam, thus creating a new family to deal with the surrounding intolerance.

Kids
1995★ 6.9
A group of bored, disaffected New York City teenagers spend a day skating, smoking, drinking, partying, deflowering virgins, and getting into fights.