Best movies like A Brighter Summer Day

Similar in 86%

Hurricane Streets (1997)

Plot Summary:

Marcus is a kid on Manhattan's mean streets. He's turning 15, his father is dead, his mother is in prison for smuggling undocumented aliens. His grandmother is raising him. He has four close buddies who have a basement clubhouse; they shoplift and sell the wares to kids. One is moving toward selling drugs. Marcus wants to take a breather from the city and visit family in New Mexico. He also meets Melena, 14, a sweet kid who dreams of going to Alaska; her father is not just protective but angry and uncommunicative. The gang pressures Marcus to move up to burglary and car theft. He just wants to breathe open air. Can anything go right?.

Similar in 90%

Tough Enough (2006)

Plot Summary:

From the youth directed novel of the same name by Greogor Tressnow comes a film by Detlev Buck that is a realistic portrait of life in the section of Berlin called Neukölln. It’s about power and weakness, delinquents and victims, and the difficulties a 15-year-old faces in a poor and criminal environment.

Similar in 82%

Better Luck Tomorrow (2002)

Plot Summary:

A group of over-achieving Asian-American high school seniors enjoy a power trip when they dip into extra-curricular criminal activities.

Similar in 76%

Lila Says (2004)

Plot Summary:

Based on a controversial French novel, Lila Says tells the story of a quiet young poet named Chimo who develops a crush on the pretty, blond Lila, a girl who recently moved into his Arab ghetto with her aunt. When the leader of a rival gang also falls for Lila, the ensuing love triangle initiates a journey of sexual discovery -- and sets off a chain of devastating events.

Similar in 80%

Disco Pigs (2001)

Plot Summary:

Pig and Runt born on the same day, in the same hospital, moments apart. Twins, all but by bloodline. Inseparable from birth, they are almost telepathic. They are one, needing no one else, inhabiting a delicate, insular and dangerous world where they make their own rules and have their own language. But days before their 17th birthday the balance of their world begins to shift. Pig's sexual awakening and jealousy begins to threaten their private universe.

Similar in 89%

The Year My Voice Broke (1987)

Plot Summary:

Coming-of age feature, set in a New South Wales country town in the 1960s, about a 15 year-old boy. It follows his loves and how he copes with life's problems such as death and departure.

Similar in 83%

Flirting (1991)

Plot Summary:

The year is 1965 and Danny Embling, is an awkward, underdeveloped teen suffering from occasional bouts of stuttering, attends an all-male boarding school in New South Wales, Australia. it has been some time since Danny has had any romantic relationship with a girl. He slowly becomes interested in Thandiwe Adjewa, a Ugandan-Kenyan-British girl attending the all-girls school across the lake.

Similar in 87%

Rumble Fish (1983)

Plot Summary:

Rusty James, an absent-minded street thug struggles to live up to his legendary older brother's reputation, and longs for the days when gang warfare was going on.

Similar in 82%

Hot Summer Nights (2017)

Plot Summary:

A teen winds up in over his head while dealing drugs with a rebellious partner and chasing the young man's enigmatic sister during the summer of 1991 that he spends in Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

Similar in 83%

Days of Being Wild (1990)

Plot Summary:

The movie is set in Hong Kong and the Philippines in 1960. Yuddy, or 'York' in English, is a playboy in Hong Kong and is well-known for stealing girls' hearts and breaking them. His first victim is Li Zhen who suffered emotional and mental depression as a result of Yuddy's wayward attitude. Li Zhen eventually seeks much-needed solace from a sympathetic policeman named Tide.

Similar in 86%

Three Times (2005)

Plot Summary:

There are three stories of women and men: in "A Time for Love" set in 1966, a soldier searches for a young woman he met one afternoon playing pool; "A Time for Freedom," set in a bordello in 1911, revolves around a singer's longing to escape her surroundings; in "A Time for Youth" set in 2005 Taipei, a triangle in which a singer has an affair with a photographer while her partner suffers is dramatized. In the first two stories, letters are crucial to the outcome; in the third, it's cell-phone calls, text messages, and a computer file. Over the years between the tales, as sexual intimacy becomes more likely and words more free, communication recedes.

Similar in 80%

Man in Love (2021)

Plot Summary:

A-Cheng collects debts for a gangster and doesn't skimp on violence, but he can also be merciful to those who deserve it. He has a crush on Hao-ting, the daughter of one of the debtors, but he only knows the underworld and so embarks on a clumsy and primitive courtship that includes reducing the girl's debts in exchange for pity dates. But when Hao-ting catches a glimpse of the good in him, the clouds of melodrama thicken and A-Cheng is forced to come to terms with the real nature of his work.

Similar in 88%

The Wanderers (1979)

Plot Summary:

The streets of the Bronx are owned by 60’s youth gangs where the joy and pain of adolescence is lived. Philip Kaufman tells his take on the novel by Richard Price about the history of the Italian-American gang ‘The Wanderers.’.

Similar in 84%

Yi Yi: A One and a Two... (2000)

Plot Summary:

Each member of a family in Taipei asks hard questions about life's meaning as they live through everyday quandaries.

Similar in 82%

Kidulthood (2006)

Plot Summary:

A day in the life of a group of troubled 15-year-olds growing up in west London.

Similar in 81%

Tart (2001)

Plot Summary:

A student will do anything to become part of the "in-crowd" at the exclusive school she attends in New York.

Similar in 85%

Blue Gate Crossing (2002)

Plot Summary:

An is-she-or-isn't-she gay comedy focused on a Taiwanese teen, the boy she might like, and the girl she may love.

Similar in 81%

14+ (2015)

Plot Summary:

Alex glides his mouse tenderly over online images of Vika. He has been smitten ever since he saw her with her friends and cannot get her out of his head. Now he has found Vika’s profile online and has learned a lot about her. Vika has no idea about any of this. She is beyond Alex’s reach because her school and block of flats are enemy territory for him. Alex nonetheless sneaks into a disco at her school and plucks up the courage to ask her to dance. Incensed by the intruder, the other boys give Alex a beating.

Similar in 83%

Eternal Summer (2006)

Plot Summary:

Three high school students experience the perks and pitfalls of love in director Leste Chen’s sensitive tale of friendship and yearning.

Similar in 87%

The Mudge Boy (2003)

Plot Summary:

Duncan Mudge, mid-teens, lives apart from his rural world populated by his distant father and rough local kids. His main companionship is a chicken left after his mother's death until the neighbor's son befriends him.

Similar in 81%

The Spectacular Now (2013)

Plot Summary:

A hard-partying high school senior's philosophy on life changes when he meets the not-so-typical "nice girl.".

Similar in 83%

Keith (2008)

Plot Summary:

Natalie (Elisabeth Harnois) is high school royalty, but her queen bee status falls apart when she falls for the new guy at school. Although Keith (Jesse McCartney) ignores her at first, they soon become friends -- even though Natalie suspects that Keith has something to hide. As the free-spirited Keith shows Natalie how to embrace what life offers, they grow closer -- until a secret tests the bounds of their relationship.