Best movies like That's What I Am
I'm a teacher. I'm a singer. I'm a writer.
A unique, carefully handpicked, selection of the best movies like That's What I Am Starring Chase Ellison, Ed Harris, Molly Parker, Mia Rose Frampton, and more. If you liked That's What I Am then you may also like: Sixteen Candles, Welcome Home, Bobby, Wild Tigers I Have Known, Winter Stories, The Wise Kids 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.
A coming-of-age story that follows 12-year-old Andy Nichol, a bright student who, like most kids his age, will do anything to avoid conflict for fear of suffering overwhelming ridicule and punishment from his junior high school peers.
That's What I Am
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Welcome Home, Bobby
When a Chicago teen is arrested for drug possession, the ensuing investigation reveals that he has had sexual contact with an older man. Discovering his sexual encounter, other students start shunning him and call for his expulsion from school. His father as his conservative blue-collar dad also rejects him, while his mother does try to offer support.
Wild Tigers I Have Known
A lyrical telling of the coming of age of a 13-year-old boy who learns to cope with his new found sexuality and his unrequited love for the cool kid in school.
Winter Stories
An adult Martin Roy reminisces about his life in the 1966/67 school year. At fifteen years old and in his last year of junior high school, he breathed, ate and slept hockey. He collected hockey cards, played street hockey with his friends, tried skating and ice hockey for the first time in his life, but was most fascinated with his local national league team, the Montréal Canadiens, and its star player, Henri Richard. He dreamed of growing up and working for the Canadiens franchise. But a more immediate goal was to get tickets to one of their games, using M. Richard and his banker father, Hervé, as possible conduits to that goal.
The Wise Kids
A vivid, dynamic Southern coming-of-age drama, takes place in the transitional space between high school and college, when life seems to be all questions and no answers, and the future is scarily wide open. Set in and around a Charleston, SC Baptist church, weaving through this ensemble piece are three main characters - Brea, an introspective pastor's daughter experiencing debilitating doubt, the hyperactive Laura, Brea's best friend and a devout believer, and Tim, the open-hearted son of a single father, confronting his homosexuality for the first time. Tensions and buried feelings abound, as colleges are chosen and adults behave badly, as Brea, Laura and Tim attempt to hang onto what they have, all the while yearning to break free.
Never Been Kissed
Josie Geller, a baby-faced junior copywriter at the Chicago Sun-Times, must pose as a student at her former high school to research contemporary teenage culture. With the help of her brother, Rob, Josie infiltrates the inner circle of the most popular clique on campus. But she hits a major snag in her investigation -- not to mention her own failed love life -- when she falls for her dreamy English teacher, Sam Coulson.
Race the Sun
A bunch of high school misfits in Hawaii, introduced by their new teacher, attend a science fair in which they draw up inspiration to build their own solar car and win a trip to compete in the 1990 World Solar Challenge in Australia.
Kids in America
Inspired by real events, this ribald comedy pits an unlikely gang of students against their principal after she bars safe-sex activities on campus. Protesting Principal Weller's muzzling of free speech, the teens stage a bold and hilarious rebellion.
Angus
Angus is a large, pathetic 14-year-old whose thoughts are most often filled with the image of only one girl, Melissa Lefevre. Angus is shy and thinks that he has no chance of ever 'getting' her. Being especially uncool, he is incredibly surprised (along with the rest of the school) that he is chosen to dance with her at the Winter Ball. The only one not surprised is the cool kid who set him up to fail, but Angus' best friend is going to help him win the heart of Melissa by developing a new look for him
Assassination of a High School President
After the theft of copies of SAT exams from a principal's office, teenage reporter Bobby Funke sets out to unmask the thief. Bobby prints an article fingering Class President Paul Moore as the thief, shredding the youth's reputation. But as Bobby gets to know Paul's girlfriend, Francesca, he comes to realize he was wrong about Paul, so he sets out to unmask the true culprit.
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.
Charlie Bartlett
Awkward teenager Charlie Bartlett has trouble fitting in at a new high school. Charlie needs some friends fast, and decides that the best way to find them is to appoint himself the resident psychiatrist. He becomes one of the most popular guys in school by doling out advice and, occasionally, medication, to the student body.
Prayers for Bobby
Bobby Griffith was his mother's favorite son, the perfect all-American boy growing up under deeply religious influences in Walnut Creek, California. Bobby was also gay. Struggling with a conflict no one knew of, much less understood, Bobby finally came out to his family.
Cooley High
In the mid-1960s, a group of high school friends who live on the Near North Side of Chicago enjoy life to the fullest...parties, hanging out, meeting new friends. Then life changes for two of the guys when they are falsely arrested in connection with stealing a Cadillac. We follow their lives through to the dramatic end of high school.
The Curiosity of Chance
It’s the ‘80s once again, new wave angst and genderbending fashion are all the rage, but new kid at school, Chance Marquis, is trying to find new ways to stand out. Being an odd and somewhat awkward teenager makes him the target of the school bully. To deal with this dilemma, Chance turns to the opposite ends of the high school spectrum for help. On one side is the flamboyant drag queen and at the other, the varsity jock, Levi Sparks with whom Chance develops a unique friendship.
Get Real
Steven spends his school days longing for all-star athlete John. But John has a gorgeous girlfriend, and Steven is still in the closet about being gay. The only one who knows the teenager's secret is his friend Linda. After a curious run-in with John in a public restroom, Steven starts to wonder if the jock is straight after all. When they start a romance, it threatens to expose the truth about both of them.
The Perks of Being a Wallflower
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.
Drive Me Crazy
Nicole and Chase live next door to each other but are worlds apart. However, they plot a scheme to date each other in order to attract the interest and jealousy of their respective romantic prey. But in the mist of planning a gala centennial celebration, Nicole and Chase find that the one they always wanted was closer than they ever thought.
Easy A
Olive, an average high school student, sees her below-the-radar existence turn around overnight once she decides to use the school's gossip grapevine to advance her social standing. Now her classmates are turning against her and the school board is becoming concerned, including her favorite teacher and the distracted guidance counselor. With the support of her hilariously idiosyncratic parents and a little help from a long-time crush, Olive attempts to take on her notorious new identity and crush the rumor mill once and for all.
Edge of Seventeen
1984, Sandusky, Ohio. A naive 17-year-old navigates heartbreak and self-expression as he explores his sexuality.
FIT
Takes a look at gay and straight love among the new millennials. Everything from secret crushes to homophobic attitudes are revealed by the rambunctious students taking Drama and Dance from Loris. None of the teens are what they seem at first glance, with gay hearts lurking behind tough exteriors and straight kids expressing themselves in many ways.
Geography Club
A coming-of-age movie that tells a story unfolding in every high school around the country -- a story of kids hiding their true identities in plain sight, even as they feverishly pursue their hearts' desires.
Dear Lemon Lima
Vanessa gets a dose of reality when Philip, her one true love, ends their relationship, again. The quirky teen enrolls in his school to win him back, but ends up making matters worse. Downgraded to social outcast, Vanessa struggles to reclaim Phillip's affection. Luckily, when Vanessa is declared a captain for the school's Snowstorm Survivor competition, she assembles a team of like-minded misfits to prove they deserve to compete and hopefully win her love's heart again.
She's All That
High school hotshot Zach Siler is the envy of his peers. But his popularity declines sharply when his cheerleader girlfriend, Taylor, leaves him for sleazy reality-television star Brock Hudson. Desperate to revive his fading reputation, Siler agrees to a seemingly impossible challenge. He has six weeks to gain the trust of nerdy outcast Laney Boggs -- and help her to become the school's next prom queen.
There Goes My Baby
It's the summer of 1965, and the members of the graduating class of upscale Westwood High are eager to reinvent themselves. Valedictorian Mary Beth wants to attend a liberal university. Surfer bum Stick plans to enlist to fight in Vietnam. Calvin lives in the poor Watts section of Los Angeles, which is slowly erupting in violence. As the summer nights grow long, they'll all be forced to make decisions that will affect the rest of their lives.
Permanent Record
David Sinclair seems to have everything going for him: he's smart, musically talented, and very successful. To top off his senior year in high school, his band is trying to get a recording session. Therefore, David's suicide leaves everyone, especially his best friend and bandmate, Chris, with a lot of questions.
Some Freaks
A charming romance develops between a boy with one eye and an overweight girl, though when she loses weight after going to college, their relationship is tested in devastating ways they never dreamed would happen.
Whole New Thing
Socially isolated by his parents, an androgynous teen enrolls in high school and develops a crush on his male teacher.
The Nature of Nicholas
The Nature of Nicholas is a surreal story of twelve-year-old Nicholas as he struggles with an attraction to his best friend.
How I Got Into College
The simple story of two young Michigan high school students, Jessica, Class President, Local Smart Girl, and object of Marlon's affections attempt to get into a small Pennsylvania college. Jessica fights off her parent's expectation of going to their alma mater of the University of Michigan, while Marlon fights his grades and SAT scores.
Daria in 'Is It Fall Yet?'
Daria is a 16-year-old girl who is a little too smart and funny to fit in with the crowd. It’s summertime and the livin' is hard. Daria finds herself forced into volunteering at the OK To Cry Corral, a summer camp for the overly sensitive and those who'd like to be.
Tru Loved
Recently relocated from San Francisco to conservative suburbia by her lesbian mothers, Tru struggles like all teens to fit in and find love, but her quest is complicated by sexual politics, closed minds, and closeted friends as she seeks to establish her school's first Gay-Straight Alliance.
To the Stars
Under small-town scrutiny, a withdrawn farmer’s daughter forges an intimate friendship with a worldly but reckless new girl in 1960s Oklahoma.
Almost Normal
A gay man approaching a mid-life crisis is tired of being different because he is gay. He wants to be normal. Suddenly he is yanked back in time to when he was in high school. But this time, the world is gay and to be straight is considered deviant behavior. Then something else happens. He meets a girl. And suddenly normal becomes ...well almost normal.
Blue Citrus Hearts
A first love could quite possibly be the last for Sam, a Memphis teenager coming to terms with the romantic feelings he harbors for his best friend, Julian. Will the love he feels for this boy guide him through his struggles with his abusive father, ignorant girlfriend, and suicidal thoughts -- or will the conflict that his love for Julian stirs throughout his life prove to be more than one boy can handle?
High School U.S.A.
Set in a senior high school class, J.J. pursues the girlfriend of a rival from a higher clique which culminates in a race at the end of the movie between the two rivals in this light comedy.
The Truth About Jane
Jane, a high school teenager, tries to deal with the discovery that she is a lesbian after developing an intense friendship with another girl who makes her discover her true sexuality, which is only the start of Jane's troubles when Jane's unaccepting mother, Janice, struggles with her surprising revelation of brought forth by her only daughter.
Booky's Crush
The Thomsons - parents Thomas and Francie, and children Willa, Arthur, Beatrice (nicknamed Booky) and Jakey - are a loving working class family living in the Depression era in Toronto. Arthur is showing aptitude in drawing, and although his parents want to support his skill, Thomas in particular wants him to take up a vocation that is a little more stable. Willa, the part time librarian, is attracted to Russell, the medical student she meets at the library. And 11-year old Booky is happy that she has been asked to tutor the new older sixth grade student, Georgie Dunlop, in spelling, since she has a crush on him, her first ever. She just can't wait for him to ask her to the school dance. But she begins to have mixed feelings about Georgie based on a gift he gives to her. Digging a little deeper, Booky begins to understand both the good and bad of Georgie.
Boys Life 2
Compilation of four short films, "Must Be the Music", "Nunzio's Second Cousin", "Alkali, Iowa", and "The Dadshuttle", of gay interest.
Valentine Road
On February 12, 2008, in Oxnard, California, eighth-grade student Brandon McInerney shot his classmate Larry King twice in the back of the head during first period. When Larry died two days later, his murder shocked the nation. Was this a hate crime, one perpetrated by a budding neo-Nazi whose masculinity was threatened by an effeminate gay kid who may have had a crush on him? Or was there even more to it?
Campus Confidential
School... there is the popular crowd. Teachers favor some students over others. Because of this, Violet decides to start a school paper, which exposes many embarrassing secrets of popular kids who think they run the campus.
Sixteen Candles
A teenage girl deals with her parents forgetting her birthday and a crush on her high school's heartthrob.