McFarland, USA (2015), This Boy's Life (1993), The Outsiders (1983), My Girl (1991), Napoleon Dynamite (2004), That Thing You Do! (1996), Love Finds Andy Hardy (1938), Gas Food Lodging (1992) ... Let's take a look at the ranked list of the best Small Town America movies.
Storyline: A struggling coach and teacher who has had to move around for different incidents in his career finally comes to one of the poorest cities in America: McFarland, California. There he discovers buried potential in several high school boys and slowly turns them into championship runners and brings them closer than even he could ever imagine.
Plot Keywords: sports, inspirational, true story, teamwork, poverty, education, family ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: In 1957, a son and mother flee the East and an abusive boyfriend to find a new life, and end up in Seattle, where the mother meets a polite garage mechanic. The boy continually gets into trouble by hanging out with the wrong crowd. The mom marries the mechanic, but they soon find out that he's an abusive and unreasoning alcoholic, and they struggle to maintain hope in an impossible situation as the boy grows up with plans to escape the small town by any means possible. Based on a true story by Tobias Wolff.
Plot Keywords: coming of age, family, abuse, stepfather, rebellion, mother-son relationship, 1950s ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Tulsa, Oklahoma, 1965. Fourteen-year-old Ponyboy Curtis is the youngest of three orphaned brothers who live on the north side of town, the "wrong side" of the tracks. Sensitive Ponyboy used to have a good relationship with his oldest brother Darrel, but since Darrel became the household caregiver, he is always on Ponyboy's case. Caught in the middle is third brother Sodapop, who dropped out of school to work full time. They all belong to The Greasers, a gang of boys from the north side also from working class families, often broken. Ponyboy's main concern is that any problem they may encounter, especially in their Greaser activities, will lead to the authorities splitting up their family. He also believes Darrel would have outgrown them and become something in his life if it wasn't for his loyalty to the gang, and the need to take care of the family. The rest of the world sees the Greasers as all the same, the face being Dallas Winston, the most volatile one who has just been released...
Plot Keywords: youth, rebellion, gangs, class conflict, brotherhood, violence, coming of age ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: 1972. Vada Sultenfuss (played by Anna Chlumsky) is an intelligent, bubbly, hypochondriacal 11-year old girl. Her father, Harry (Dan Aykroyd), is a mortician and a widower. Her best friend is Thomas J Sennett (Macaulay Culkin). Then her father hires a new receptionist, Shelly (Jamie Lee Curtis), and life will never be the same again.
Plot Keywords: coming of age, family, friendship, childhood, tragedy, death, first love ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Preston, Idaho's most curious resident, Napoleon Dynamite, lives with his grandma and his 32-year-old brother (who cruises chat rooms for ladies) and works to help his best friend, Pedro, snatch the Student Body President title from mean teen Summer Wheatley.
Plot Keywords: comedy, teen, indie film, high school, quirky, humor, coming of age ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Recounts a fable of a pop rock band formed a year after the Beatles took America by storm in early 1964. Jazz aficionado Guy Patterson, unhappily toiling in the family appliance store, is recruited into the band the Oneders (later renamed the Wonders) after regular drummer Chad breaks his arm. After Guy injects a four/four rock beat into lead singer Jimmy's ballad, the song's undeniable pop power flings the Wonders into a brief whirlwind of success, telling the tale of many American bands who attempted to grab the brass ring of rock and roll in the wake of the British Invasion.
Plot Keywords: music, band, 1960s, fame, comedy, romance, youth ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Andy's girlfriend Polly is planning to spend Christmas at her grandmother's, which puts a kink in his plans to take her to the country club Christmas party. He agrees (for a fee) to pretend to be the boyfriend of his buddy Beezy's girl Cynthia to discourage other suitors (Beezy is also leaving for the holidays), but Andy soon finds her too infatuated with him. Meanwhile, Andy's next door neighbor Betsy begins to fall in love with Andy even though she's younger than him. Everything comes to a head at the country club party.—Ed Sutton <esutton@mindspring.com>
Plot Keywords: romance, comedy, youth, family, coming of age, school, dating ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: In the boring desert of New Mexico, a single mother raises her two teenage daughters, Shade and Trudi, whose deepest desire is to leave the dead calm town. Shade is the type to escape in her extravagant fantasies while Trudi is so rebelious it could drive her away.—Steve Richer <sricher@sympatico.ca>
Plot Keywords: drama, independent film, female director, coming of age, mother-daughter relationship, family, 1990s ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Seriocomic story based on the memoir by Beverly Donofrio, the movie follows a young woman who finds her life radically altered by an event from her teen years. Born in 1950, Beverly grew up bright and ambitious in a working-class neighborhood in Connecticut; her father was a tough but good-hearted cop who listened to his daughter's problems, and her mother was a nervous woman eager to imagine the worst. From an early age, Beverly displays a keen intelligence and an interest in literature, and dreams of going to college in New York and becoming a writer. However, she also develops an early interest in boys, and at 15 finds herself madly in love with a boy from her high school. However, an attempt to get his attention leads to an embarassing incident at a party, and Ray, a sweet but thick-headed 18-year-old, steps forward to defend her. Beverly and Ray end up making out, and after one thing leads to another, Beverly discovers she's pregnant. Telling Ray is only marginally less difficult...
Plot Keywords: drama, comedy, biography, coming of age, family, teen, motherhood ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Judge Cass Timberlane marries a girl from the wrong side of the tracks, Virginia Marshland. A baby is stillborn and she turns more and more to attorney friend of of Cass', Bradd Criley. While quarreling, the Judge tells Virginia to stay with Bradd, but when she becomes sick he brings her home.—Ed Stephan <stephan@cc.wwu.edu>
Plot Keywords: romance, drama, marriage, social class, lawyer, novel adaptation, 1940s ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: A mysterious creature from another planet, resembling a giant blob of jelly, lands on earth. The people of a nearby small town refuse to listen to some teenagers who have witnessed the blob's destructive power. In the meantime, the blob just keeps on getting bigger.
Plot Keywords: sci-fi, horror, b-movie, alien creature, color film, independent production, steve mcqueen ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Finn is a young graduate student, finishing a master's thesis, and preparing for marriage to her fiance Sam. But thoughts of the end of the free life, and a potential summer fling, intrude. She goes home to her grandmother, where, over the making of her wedding gift by a group of quilting-bee friends, laughter, bickering, love, and advice lead her toward a more open-eyed examination of her course.—Bruce Cameron <dumarest@midcoast.com>
Plot Keywords: drama, romance, women, family, friendship, coming of age, marriage ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Tucson, Arizona, circa 1910: Emily Hefferan wants a divorce. In flashback, she recalls twenty years of marriage to Jim Hefferan, who sinks every cent of each new windfall in harebrained investments. Emily only keeps a roof over the family by taking in boarders...more and more of them. But Jim's latest deal goes just a little too far.—Rod Crawford <puffinus@u.washington.edu>
Plot Keywords: family, comedy, drama, marriage, nostalgia, slice of life, relationships ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: Coming Through the Rye, set in 1969, is a touching coming of age story of sensitive, 16 yr. old Jamie Schwartz, who is not the most popular kid at his all boys' boarding school. Disconnected from students and teachers, he believes he is destined to play Holden Caulfield, the main character of The Catcher in the Rye, and has adapted the book as a play. After a series of increasingly hostile altercations with the boys at school Jamie runs away to search for JD Salinger. On his way he picks up Deedee Gorlin, a quirky townie. Their odyssey to find Salinger becomes a journey of sexual awakening, the discovery of love and of the meaning of one's life.
Plot Keywords: coming of age, literary adaptation, rebellion, self-discovery, writer, 1960s, loneliness ...
Movie Details Click Here !Storyline: This is the story of a small town choir out to win a national competition despite overwhelming odds. A story of faith and determination by the choir leaders (Queen Latifah and Dolly Parton) and the young talent who give their all to win God's praise and beat the competition for the grand prize.—Farrell Paura Productions
Plot Keywords: musical, comedy, family, religious, choir, faith, community ...
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