Best movies like Rebel Without a Cause
The bad boy from a good family.
A unique, carefully handpicked, selection of the best movies like Rebel Without a Cause Starring James Dean, Natalie Wood, Sal Mineo, Jim Backus, and more. If you liked Rebel Without a Cause then you may also like: The Outsiders, Over the Edge, The Restless Years, Roadracers, Rumble Fish and many more popular movies featured on this list. You can further filter the list even more or get a random selection from the list of similar movies, to make your selection even easier.
After moving to a new town, troublemaking teen Jim Stark is supposed to have a clean slate, although being the new kid in town brings its own problems. While searching for some stability, Stark forms a bond with a disturbed classmate, Plato, and falls for local girl Judy. However, Judy is the girlfriend of neighborhood tough, Buzz. When Buzz violently confronts Jim and challenges him to a drag race, the new kid's real troubles begin.
Rebel Without a Cause
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Over the Edge
A group of bored teenagers rebel against authority in the community of New Granada.
The Restless Years
A pretty, sheltered teenager falls for a boy from the wrong side of town.
Roadracers
Cynical look at a 1950s rebellious Rocker who has to confront his future, thugs with knives, and the crooked town sheriff.
Rumble Fish
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.
Angels with Dirty Faces
Childhood chums Rocky Sullivan and Jerry Connelly grow up on opposite sides of the fence: Rocky matures into a prominent gangster, while Jerry becomes a priest, tending to the needs of his old tenement neighborhood.
A Better Place
A high school outcast new to town becomes friends with a violent loner still haunted by the death of his parents.
Blackbird
This is a film about a troubled teen, Sean Randall, who is falsely accused of planning a Columbine shooting scenario. It all begins when an unlikely bond forms between Sean (Connor Jessup) and a preppy teenage girl named Deanna Roy (Alexia Fast). Deanna's boyfriend is deeply threatened by Sean and Deanna's friendship, resulting in a violent confrontation. Seeking to protect himself, Sean issues a death threat online - and is swiftly arrested. When the police raid Sean's home, they find rifles, shotguns, knives and ammunition - all property of Sean's father Ricky (Michael Buie), an avid hunter. They also find a supposed "hit list" with twenty names of people who have tormented Sean. The authorities and the media proclaim another Columbine has been narrowly averted, and soon Sean faces a terrifying imprisonment in a youth detention facility. Sean's only hope is to overcome his dark image, and prove his innocence to Deanna and to his community.
Blood Father
An ex-con reunites with his estranged wayward 16-year old daughter to protect her from drug dealers who are trying to kill her.
The Breakfast Club
Five high school students from different walks of life endure a Saturday detention under a power-hungry principal. The disparate group includes rebel John, princess Claire, outcast Allison, brainy Brian and Andrew, the jock. Each has a chance to tell his or her story, making the others see them a little differently -- and when the day ends, they question whether school will ever be the same.
This Boy's Life
When a son and mother move to Seattle in hopes for a better life, the mother meets a seemingly polite man. Things go south when the man turns out to be abusive, endangering their lives. As the mother struggles to maintain hope in an impossible situation, the son has plans to escape.
High School Confidential!
A tough kid comes to a new high school and begins muscling his way into the drug scene. This is a typical morality play of the era, filled with a naive view of drugs, nihilistic beat poetry, and some incredible '50s slang.
The Wild Ride
A rebellious punk of the beat generation spends his days as an amateur dirt track driver in between partying and troublemaking.
Crazy/Beautiful
At Pacific Palisades High, a poor Latino falls hard for a troubled girl from the affluent neighborhood.
The Forsaken
A young man is in a race against time as he searches for a cure after becoming infected with a virus that will eventually turn him into a blood-sucking vampire.
The Lost Boys
A mother and her two teenage sons move to a seemingly nice and quiet small coastal California town yet soon find out that it's overrun by bike gangs and vampires. A couple of teenage friends take it upon themselves to hunt down the vampires that they suspect of a few mysterious murders and restore peace and calm to their town.
Hot Rods to Hell
While on a business trip, Tom Phillips is in a car accident caused by a reckless driver. Tom survives the accident with a severe chronic back injury which results in him not being able to continue with his current business. The Phillips' buy a motel in the California desert and Tom with his wife Peg and their two children, Tina and Jamie make the long road trip to their new home. As they approach their destination they are terrorized by reckless teenage hot-rodders looking for kicks.
Return to Macon County
In 1958, two teenagers take their pride and joy, a hopped-up Chevy, and start a cross-country journey to enter it in the National Championship drag races in California. Along the way they hook up with a pretty but dingy waitress who quits her job and hops in their car--and turns out to be more trouble than they thought--drag-race a gang of town punks who lose to to them and then accuse them of cheating, and come up against a local cop who is obsessed with putting these two "juvenile delinquents" in jail.
Cop Killers
Two hippies on their way to a cocaine deal get stopped by the police at a roadblock, resulting in a shootout where they kill the cops. They then go on a crime spree of robbery and murder.
Thirteen
Tracy is a normal 13-year-old trying to make it in school. After befriending the most popular girl at school, Evie, Tracy's world is turned upside down when Evie introduces her to a world of sex, drugs and cash. But it isn't long before Tracy's new world and attitude finally takes a toll on her, her family, and old friends.
The Heavenly Kid
After dying in a car crash, Bobby Fantana is forced to pay for his misdeeds by becoming someone's guardian angel. He reluctantly agrees to watch over awkward high schooler Lenny Barnes, teaching him how to be cool and confident. As Bobby teaches Lenny, the two form a close bond.
A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints
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.
That Was Then... This Is Now
A delinquent teenager's only link to society is the attachment he feels towards an older brother-figure. When the older boy starts spending time with a new girlfriend, the teenager begins to feel even more alienated, and gets involved with drugs and the police.
Baby It's You
In a 1966 New Jersey high school, Jill and new student Sheik from the other side of the tracks make their way in a first love romance.
Model Minority
Kayla, an underprivileged Japanese American 16 year old, endangers her promising future as an aspiring artist when she becomes involved with a drug dealer.
Manic
Follows the fate of Lyle, a violent adolescent who, in lieu of prison, is placed in a juvenile mental institution where he encounters a group of equally troubled teens. This motley crew - abused, sexually confused, violent, and yet hanging on by their grit and anger - becomes Lyle's last lifeline as he fights to find meaning in a world that seems to defy understanding.
The Pom Pom Girls
A football player at Rosedale High School is amorous of one of the cheerleaders, who is going with another guy. Another player can't decide which of two cheerleaders he wants to be with. Meanwhile, the Big Game with Hardin High School is approaching, and a prank war is in full swing.
Teenage Dirtbag
A popular high school girl is harassed by a delinquent boy until they are placed in creative writing class together. Through written words, they create a bond, but tragically a bond that cannot withstand her social pressures or his brutal home life.
This Rebel Breed
"Black Rebels" (also known as "The Rebel Breed") is about juvenile delinquents--in particular, kids who resort to racially motivated crimes. To combat this problem, the cops send two recent police academy graduates to a local high school to pose as students. However, the guys playing 'students' were 27 and 23 years of age! In fact, none of these teens looked close to being teenager. And, to make it worse, one of these pseudo-teens looks silly, as he's supposed to play a guy who is a biracial Latino--but this effect was achieved by painting his skin--it's quite obvious. And, oddly, some times he is a lot more black-looking than others!!
Heaven Sent
Eddie, a fourteen-year-old juvenile delinquent of sorts, collides with a car during a petty theft and dies in the hospital. Due to some confusion in heaven, however, he is given three days to clean up his life with the help of a beginner angel - and save his mom.
Augusta, Gone
Martha is a businesswoman and divorced mother of two children - Augusta and Jack. However, when docile Augusta becomes a teenager, feelings of anger and self-hate cause her personality to undergo a scary transformation, and Martha realizes that this is not just typical teen angst. Augusta begins doing drugs, drinking, and ends up on the streets. Her concerned mother and father reach out to an educational consultant, who advises them to send Augusta to a strict wilderness camp for troubled teens. However, even the institution's experienced and tough administrators find Augusta a difficulty to keep under control. Martha comes to realize that there is no answer to her daughter's behavior.
Hot Car Girl
In this violent drama, a young juvenile delinquent gets into more trouble when he gets involved with a gang that steals auto parts and resells them on the black market to pay for their beer parties. It looks as if he might actually turn his life around after he meets a good-hearted woman, when he decides to run a final game of chicken against a juvenile delinquent girl who gets killed in the ensuing crash. The terrified boy then takes his girlfriend and splits. He is later shot-down by the police. Later the authorities learn that the boy was set upon his crooked path by policemen who beat him when he was younger.
The Outsiders
When two poor Greasers, Johnny and Ponyboy, are assaulted by a vicious gang, the Socs, and Johnny kills one of the attackers, tension begins to mount between the two rival gangs, setting off a turbulent chain of events.