Best Street Kid Movies & TV Shows

Nick Romano lives in a poor tenement building on the south side of Chicago with his well-meaning but drug-addicted mother, Nellie. She encourages him to pursue his piano-playing talent in hopes that it will bring him a better life. Nellie's neighbors, like the alcoholic ex-lawyer who secretly loves her, help her in keeping Nick away from Louie, the resident drug dealer. But a chance meeting between Nick and Louie could change things forever.

A teenager reflects on his life after being accused of cheating on the Indian version of "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?".

County Durham England 1984 the miners strike has started and the police have started coming up from Bethnal Green starting a class war with the lower classes suffering caught in the middle of the conflict is 11-year old Billy Elliot who after leaving his boxing club for the day stubbles upon a ballet class and finds out that he's naturally talented. He practices with his teacher Mrs Wilkinson for an upcoming audition in Newcastle-upon Tyne the audition is for the royal Ballet school in London.

Inspired by a true story, “Beyond the Blackboard” is about a 24-year-old first-time teacher who makes a difference in the lives of the homeless children she teaches in a shelter’s makeshift classroom. Set in 1987 in Albuquerque, New Mexico, this movie tells the story a brand-new teacher and Mom who is given a tougher than expected teaching job and winds up teaching homeless children in a school that is housed in a room and called, literally, The School with No Name. She has some personal prejudicial hurdles to cross before she is able to be a true teacher for these children and of course there are hurdles like the lack of books and supplies.

Based on a true story. Liz Murray is a young girl who is taken care of by her loving, but drug-addicted parents. Liz becomes homeless at 15 and after a tragedy comes upon her, she begins her work to finish high school.

A group of bored teenagers rebel against authority in the community of New Granada.

A focus on life in a gang, Boulevard Nights portrays the dangers of street violence. Richard Yniguez plays a young Chicano who tries to get out of the gang, but he keeps finding himself drawn back into it.

Orphaned and alone except for an uncle, Hugo Cabret lives in the walls of a train station in 1930s Paris. Hugo's job is to oil and maintain the station's clocks, but to him, his more important task is to protect a broken automaton and notebook left to him by his late father. Accompanied by the goddaughter of an embittered toy merchant, Hugo embarks on a quest to solve the mystery of the automaton and find a place he can call home.

A gang of sharp witted street kids save Sherlock Holmes from an accusation of murder and to help foil an audacious robbery.

Musical adaptation of Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist, a classic tale of an orphan who runs away from the workhouse and joins up with a group of boys headed by the Artful Dodger and trained to be pickpockets by master thief Fagin.

After being sent to a detention centre, a teenage skinhead clashes with the social workers who want to conform him to the status quo.

A day in the life of a group of teens as they travel around New York City skating, drinking, smoking and deflowering virgins.

A young girl whose father is an ex-convict and whose mother is a junkie finds it difficult to conform and tries to find comfort in a quirky combination of Elvis and the punk scene.

From Spike Lee comes this vibrant semi-autobiographical portrait of a school-teacher, her stubborn jazz-musician husband and their five kids living in '70s Brooklyn.

A searing legal drama that centers on a highly credentialed child psychologist whose life is shattered when he's accused of sexually assaulting a young boy he's been treating.

A struggling young dancer joins forces with two breakdancers and together they become a street sensation.

In modern-day Saigon, three lonely strangers form a unique family as a ten-year old orphan plays matchmaker to a zookeeper and a beautiful flight attendant.

When a 13-year-old girl befriends a defiant antisocial child of the streets, the mismatched runaways set off to the Big Apple to find their own adventure.

In seaside Italy, a Holocaust survivor with a daycare business takes in a 12-year-old street kid who recently robbed her.

A well-bred young English lad living in lower Manhattan tries to gain acceptance from his not-so-well-bred peers at school.

NEDs (Non Educated Delinquents) is the story of a young man’s journey from prize-winning schoolboy to knife-carrying teenager. Struggling against the low expectations of those around him, John McGill changes from victim to avenger, scholar to NED, altar boy to glue sniffer. When he attempts to change back again, his new reality and recent past make conformity near impossible and violent self determination near inevitable.

A narcissistic runaway engages in a number of parasitic relationships amongst members of New York's waning punk scene.

Ali, Kwita, Omar and Boubker are street kids. The daily dose of glue sniffing represents their only escape from reality. Since they left Dib and his gang, they have been living on the portside of Casablanca. They live in constant fear of Dib's revenge. Ali wants to become a sailor - when he was living with his mother, a prostitute, he used to listen to a fairy tale about the sailor who discovered the miracle island with two suns. Instead of finding his island in the dream, Ali and his friends are confronted with Dib's gang. Matters are getting serious.

A 21-year-old reformed gangster's devotion to his family and his future is put to the test when he is released from prison and returns to his old stomping grounds in Watts, Los Angeles.

Matthew, a young schizophrenic, finds himself out on the street when a slumlord tears down his apartment building. Soon, he finds himself in even more dire straits, when he is threatened by Little Leroy, a thug who is one of the tough denizens of the Fort Washington Shelter for Men. He reaches out to Jerry, a streetwise combat veteran, who takes Matthew under his wing as a son. The relationship between these two men grows as they attempt to conquer the numbing isolation of homelessness.

Dito Montiel, a successful author, receives a call from his long-suffering mother, asking him to return home and visit his ailing father. Dito recalls his childhood growing up in a violent neighborhood in Queens, N.Y., with friends Antonio, Giuseppe, Nerf and Mike.

King is a young man, but he's already a veteran of life on the streets of Los Angeles. The de facto leader of a group of teenage runaways, King acts as a mentor to troubled kids such as gay hustler Little J and junkie Greg. When Heather, a beautiful girl from Chicago, starts hanging out with King and his crew, it changes the dynamic of the gang. However, it seems as though nothing will alter their dangerous lifestyle.

When their latest work is buffed by a rival crew, two determined graffiti writers embark on an elaborate plan to bomb the ultimate location: the New York Mets' Home Run Apple.

During the British Raj, the orphan of a British soldier poses as a Hindu and is torn between his loyalty to a Buddhist mystic and aiding the English secret service.

A couple goes to dangerous lengths to find a lung donor for their daughter.

Eight young people from Ohio who are dancers, come to New York, to compete in a major talent competition. But when they get there, they learn that they have to wait some time before they take part in it. So they try to do their best to survive in the Big Apple before competition, and get some lessons about the real World.

The true life story of the rise to power of Glasgow gangster Paul Ferris.

A group of friends come of age in the asphalt desert of the San Fernando Valley, as set to a blazing soundtrack and endless drinking, drugs and sex.

Adrift in the lush, nocturnal urban landscape of THE GRAFFITI ARTIST, Nick (Ruben Bansie-Snellman) is a post-modern urban hero asserting his anarchistic agenda on the endless maze of virgin exterior walls that comprise downtown Seattle and Portland. For this iconoclastic young visionary, the vast wall surfaces of deserted alleys and train yards are at once a daunting symbol of capitalist oppression and a texturally rich, seamless tableau ripe for exploitation to amplify his artistic dialectic of anger and rebellion.

Lily and Alison face a life-changing event after they leave their Salton Sea home and follow the boys they meet back to Los Angeles.

In the Texas bayous, a local homicide detective teams up with a cop from New York City to investigate a series of unsolved murders.

In this verité-style drama, Anthony, a newcomer to San Francisco, attempts to come to terms with his abusive ex-lover when he strikes up an unlikely friendship with a street hustler.

An aimless adolescent joins several itinerant misfits who live on the fringe of society and welcome at-risk youths into their fold.

In a world where ninjas dream of being rock stars and rock stars dream of being ninjas, a martial arts rock band goes up against a band of motorcycle ninjas who have tightened their grip on Florida's narcotics trade.

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?

Cocky young street kid worships his father, a sleazy political operative.

Complications arise when family and friends gather for a gay couple's backyard wedding.

T, as most of his friends, lives in a self-constructed 'house', built on top of an old building in the city. Their one passion is 'combat'. Combat is a dance/streetfight during which the contestants try to push each other out of the arena, while not allowed to actually touch each other. When drugdealers move into the neighbourhood and kill T's best friend he embarks on a mission to eradicate the drug-presence in the neigbourhood. His friends are reluctant to help though, knowing what happened to T's friend when he crossed them.

Pip, a street kid just turning 18, receives his grandfather's World War II-era memoirs and discovers parallels to his own life.

In 1972, young women looking for a fresh start in life endure isolated captivity in a true 98-day human experiment studying the effects of marijuana on females.

BIRD IN THE SKY is a gritty, poetic tale of a young man’s spiritual struggle on the streets of New York City. Rob has been given a second chance to right the wrongs of his street-wise past; he must perform a miracle to be saved. His fate lies in his love for a young woman, Kay, who is coping with the loss of her child.

In a Mexican border town plagued by neglect, corruption, and violence, a frustrated teacher tries a radical new method to break through his students’ apathy and unlock their curiosity, their potential… and maybe even their genius. Based on a true story.