CutiesMovies like Cuties
- Key Features:
- Coming-of-age, Cultural conflict, Femininity, Dance, Social pressure, Identity crisis, Family relationships, Sexuality, Childhood, Tradition vs modernity, Nudity-moderate
- Tone:
- serious, dramatic, gritty
- Target Audience:
- Viewers interested in social issues, Fans of coming-of-age stories, People who enjoy thought-provoking dramas, Those seeking films about cultural identity
- Emotional Arc:
- Innocence → Confusion → Self-discovery
Cuties

Amy, an 11-year-old girl, joins a group of dancers named “the cuties” at school, and rapidly grows aware of her burgeoning femininity—upsetting her mother and her values in the process.
Cuties
Ten-year-old Laure isn't like most girls. She prefers football to dolls and sweaters to dresses. When Laure and her family move to a new neighbourhood, local girl Lisa mistakes Laure for a boy. Indulging in this exciting new identity, Laure becomes Mickaël, and so begins a summer of long sunny afternoons, playground games and first kisses. Yet with the school term fast approaching, and with suspicions arising amongst friends and family, Laure must face up to an uncertain future.

Oppressed by her family setting, dead-end school prospects and the boys law in the neighborhood, Marieme starts a new life after meeting a group of three free-spirited girls. She changes her name, her dress code, and quits school to be accepted in the gang, hoping that this will be a way to freedom.

While training at the gym, 11-year-old tomboy Toni becomes entranced with a dance troupe. As she struggles to fit in, she finds herself caught up in danger as the group begins to suffer from fainting spells and other violent fits.

Reluctantly, a sulky adolescent returns to her parents' house for yet another boring summer vacation, dabbling in desire and the art of desirability, eventually mixing reality with vision, caged fantasies with the fierce female sexuality.

When a woman shelters a group of girls from suffering female genital mutilation, she starts a conflict that tears her village apart.

Set during a sultry summer in a French suburb, Marie is desperate to join the local pool's synchronized swimming team, but is her interest solely for the sake of sport or for a chance to get close to Floriane, the bad girl of the team? Sciamma, and the two leads, capture the uncertainty of teenage sexuality with a sympathetic eye in this delicate drama of the angst of coming-of-age.

Ten-year-old Johnny stands out from his family and his tough neighborhood in Eastern France. He's sensitive, intelligent and interested in all kinds of things way beyond his years. With curiosity, he observes the ups and downs of his young single mother's turbulent love life. Things change when a new teacher, fresh from the big city, takes over Johnny's class. Mr. Adamski believes in Johnny and wants to open a new world to him. The sophisticated young teacher also intrigues the boy.

Twelve-year-old Noura dangles uncertainly in that difficult netherworld between childhood and adulthood. His growing libido has gotten him banned from the women's baths, where his mother took him when he was younger, but he's not yet old enough to participate in grown-up discussions with the men of his Tunisian village. Noura's only real friend is a troublemaker named Salih -- the village political outcast.

The lives and turbulent adventures of a bunch of fourteen-year-old teenagers, through the eyes of three young girls - Sarah, Jade and Louise - with one last year to go before high school.

Camille, a naïve schoolgirl, meets an intriguing influence in Joelle, a slightly older and much more experienced spirit. Camille follows her new friend through the discovery of sex and the darker side of life. As the film progresses, Camille discovers AIDS and the fear that she may have picked up the disease in her early encounters.

Lou, a creative and dreamy 12-year-old girl, lives alone with her mother in an orange building with tons of little balconies that give access to the roof. Mina has been her best friend since kindergarten, and Lou has been in love with Tristan, one of her neighbors, since elementary school. Her mother has relinquished her own personal happiness of late so as to devote herself to her daughter, but their little bubble bursts when Mom meets a man and Lou at last dares speak to Tristan.

Paris, 1977. Eleven year old Stella knows poker better than grammar when she starts the year at a prestigious new school. There, she discovers the possibilities of a whole new world outside her parents' bar.

When a dance troupe is lured to an empty school, a bowl of drug-laced sangria causes their jubilant rehearsal to descend into a dark and explosive nightmare as they try to survive the night—and find who's responsible—before it's too late.

A thirteen-year-old French girl deals with moving to a new city and school in Paris, while at the same time her parents are getting a divorce.

A young French teenage girl after moving to a new city falls in love with a boy and is thinking of having sex with him because her girlfriends have already done it.

A promising teenage dancer enrolls at a prestigious ballet school while grappling with her gender dysphoria.

In a ghetto where religion and drug trafficking rub shoulders, Dounia has a lust for power and success. Supported by Maimouna, her best friend, she decides to follow in the footsteps of Rebecca, a respected dealer. But her encounter with Djigui, a young, disturbingly sensual dancer, throws her off course.

An awkward adolescent boy and his angst-ridden friends try their best to fit in amongst a cast of varied characters.

They’re all nuts. Her parents, who want to send her off to boarding school. Her new teacher, who expects her to read impossibly old books. Her fellow band members, who make her sing ridiculous lyrics and dress her up in a frilly white dress for their first show. Everyone seems to know what she should do and how she should act. And it’s not like 13-year-old Aurore has any fundamental problem with changing herself either. Who would want to be like this: unhappy, ugly and emotionally withdrawn? But the others don’t seem all that much happier to her either. She definitely doesn’t ever want to be as old, rundown and lonely as her mother. And so she prefers to stay the way she is, to observe and make her biting comments on whatever comes her way.

Paloma is a serious and highly articulate but deeply bored 11-year-old who has decided to kill herself on her 12th birthday. Fascinated by art and philosophy, she questions and documents her life and immediate circle, drawing trenchant and often hilarious observations on the world around her. But as her appointment with death approaches, Paloma finally meets some kindred spirits in her building's grumpy janitor and an enigmatic, elegant neighbor, both of whom inspire Paloma to question her rather pessimistic outlook on life.

Biarritz. Sixteen-year-old George, the high school hottie, falls in love with Alex. To get his attention, she initiates a group game with Alex, Nikita, Laetitia and Gabriel. They will discover, test, and push the limits of their sexuality.

Fifteen-year-old Suzanne seeks refuge from a disintegrating family in a series of impulsive, promiscuous affairs. Her fulsome sexuality further ratchets up the suppressed passions of her narcissistic brother, insecure mother and brooding, authoritarian father.

At thirteen-years-old, with an unusually high IQ and a knack for observing things about other people, Lou Bertignac is not only the youngest in her class at school; she is also the most unusual. Painfully shy, she has few friends, save for Lucas, whose company helps her get through each day. At home, Lou's life is also difficult: Her mother hasn't left the house in years and her father spends his days crying in the bathroom. Lou's world is dark and sad... That is, until she meets No.

When Camille accidentally becomes pregnant, she encourages her friends and fellow high school classmates to follow suit. It's only a matter of time, before seventeen girls in the high school are pregnant and the town is thrown into a world of chaos.

18-year-old Layla, a Dutch girl with Moroccan roots, joins a group of radical Muslims. She encounters a world that nurtures her ideas initally, but finally confronts her with an impossible choice.

Charlotte Castang is a working-class 13-year-old girl, who lives in a drab, run-down neighbourhood, and is ready to become an adult. Her mother died giving birth to her, and she lives with her crass brother and a father whose attention is elsewhere. Her only friend is Lulu, a sick 10-year-old she regards as a pest. Charlotte is antisocial, bored and dreams of a better life. Her life improves when she meets Clara Bauman, a pianist prodigy.

A story about 11 girls living in Paris. Each of them has its own problems: career, love life, children. Every girl has their complexes and virtues. They always look elegant, hiding their inner feelings. Will they reach all the goals and overcome all their difficulties?

A teenage girl gets diagnosed with a reproductive condition that upends her plans to have sex and propels her into exploring unusual methods to have a sex life, challenging her relationships with everyone in her life, but most importantly, herself.

Naïma has just turned 16. This summer, she will have to decide what she wants from life if she doesn’t want to miss out. Then her cousin Sofia arrives, with an amazing body and a dangerously seductive lifestyle. Naïma desires only to follow her own path, so long as it leads upwards… Despite the warnings of her best friend Dodo, she and Sofia will live through unforgettable encounters during a long summer that will mark them forever.

In early 1990s Spain, eleven-year-old Celia lives with her mother and studies at a convent school in Zaragoza. When Brisa, a confident new classmate from Barcelona, arrives, Celia is drawn into a world that challenges the strict religious teachings and sheltered life she has known. Their friendship pushes her to confront hidden truths at home and the uncertainties of adolescence, leading her to explore questions of identity, independence, and belonging.

Thirteen-year-old Mei is experiencing the awkwardness of being a teenager with a twist – when she gets too excited, she transforms into a giant red panda.

Primo is an ordinary middle-class youngster studying for his baccalaureate, who gets side-tracked when he falls in love with a rich girl. They soon learn they have to deal with her condescending friends who look down upon this upstart.

Sophie is far from being the model little girl one would like her to be, unlike her friends Camille and Madeleine. She always insists on having her own way, often getting into trouble, to the despair of one and all. But her mother is unbending and otherwise inclined. She will not let her get away with anything, and poor Sophie will often have to live with the consequences of her bad behaviour and learn her lesson.

Émilie meets Camille who is attracted to Nora, who crosses paths with Amber. Three girls and a boy – They're friends, sometimes lovers and often both.

After a chaotic night of rioting in a marginal suburb of Paris, three young friends, Vinz, Hubert and Saïd, wander around unoccupied waiting for news about the state of health of a mutual friend who has been seriously injured when confronting the police.

A pimple-faced 13-year-old tomboy starts morphing in bizarre ways after catching stomach flu.

A coming of age story centering on the exploits of a young girl during summer vacation.

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

Two 15-year-old girls from different sides of the tracks compete to see who will be first to lose their virginity while at camp.

Three generations of a French family open up about their sexual experiences and desires after young Romain is caught masturbating in his biology class.

Lola is a striking teenaged girl who is on the cusp of adulthood and longs to rush into the adult world of independence, freedom and sexual exploits, but is tenaciously held back by her mother.

Ludovic is waiting for a miracle. With six-year-old certainty, she believes she was meant to be a little girl -- and that the mistake will soon be corrected. But where she expects the miraculous, Ludo finds only rejection, isolation and guilt -- as the intense reactions of family, friends, and neighbors strip away every innocent lace and bauble. As suburban prejudices close around them, family loves and loyalties are tested in the ever-escalating dramatic turns of Alain Berliner's critically acclaimed first feature. Winner of the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film and a favorite at festivals around the world, this unique film experience delivers magic of the rarest sort through a story of difference, rejection, and childlike faith in miracles.

Emma and Anaïs are best friends and yet everything in their life seems to set them apart, their social backgrounds but also their personalities. From the age of thirteen to eighteen, Adolescentes follows the two teenagers during these years where radical transformations and first times punctuate daily life. Through their personal stories, the film offers a rare portrait of France and its recent history.

Anaïs is twelve and bears the weight of the world on her shoulders. She watches her older sister, Elena, whom she both loves and hates. Elena is fifteen and devilishly beautiful. Neither more futile, nor more stupid than her younger sister, she cannot understand that she is merely an object of desire. And, as such, she can only be taken. Or had. Indeed, this is the subject: a girl's loss of virginity. And, that summer, it opens a door to tragedy.

Fatima, an Algerian-born woman who now lives in France with her two teenage daughters, with whom she is barely able to communicate.

18-year-old Lina arrives in Paris for her studies. She comes to look for what she has never found in Lebanon, her country of origin: a certain form of freedom. The survival instinct as the only baggage, she sails from one Paris to another to the rhythm of her romantic encounters.

After a sexist joke goes viral, Cédric loses his job and embarks on a therapeutic journey to free himself from sexism and misogyny. He and his girlfriend hire a mysterious and liberated babysitter to help shake things up.

A 30-year-old woman, Victoire, the youngest member of the famous Bonhomme family and the tribe's well-behaved child, finally decides to emancipate herself by discovering alcohol, sex and... her voice. Thanks to Elvis and Banjo, a bar singer, she manages to take flight by singing about love with modesty and sex without taboos, and takes her mother with her, much to the dismay of her father and brother.

The story centres on a group of teenagers street cast in their neighbourhood and selected to play in a feature film during the summer. The film tells the story of this film shoot and of the connections that will be formed during it.

A young Parisian must make major decisions about pregnancy, a job and her boyfriend.

When Nora witnesses Abel being bullied by other kids, she rushes to protect him by warning their father. But Abel forces her to remain silent. Caught in a conflict of loyalty, Nora will ultimately try to find her place, torn between children's and adult's worlds.

Tim, a shy 16-year-old athlete with a natural gift for running, is dealing with the loss of his mother, as well as his sexuality. After a personal video is posted to social media, Tim's private life is about to explode into the public eye.

1980s-set first feature follows a gang of ethnic minority youngsters called The Rascals, who take on an ultra-violent gang of right-wing skinheads, losing their innocence in the process.

Outside, the first sun rays break the dawn. Sixteen years old Catarina can't fall asleep. Inconsequently, in the big city adults are moved by desire... Catarina found she is HIV positive. She wants to drag everyone else along.

Two young women find themselves struggling to survive in Paris, street-wise Nathalie, a stripper, and naïve Sandrine, a barmaid. Together, they discover that sex can be used to their advantage, and pleasure.

Frustrated by the lack of intimacy in her relationship, a young schoolteacher goes through a series of intimidating and often violent sexual partners.

Eka and Natia leave their childhood behind and ignore societal customs to escape from their turbulent family lives.

Lila, grows up in the high-rises of the Marolles in Brussels. Along with her sister and her friends, she dreams of becoming a dancer and revolutionising the world of hip-hop. While her friends stay in Brussels, Lila leaves everything - comfort, family - behind to go to Paris, where she is certain her persistence will pay off. Except that life in Paris quickly takes an unexpected turn. The woman who dreamed of being a choreographer ends up as a lap dancer in a rap video, and that’s only the beginning of her disillusionment. After a chance meeting with a drama teacher, she bears her heart and soul on stage and begins doing stand-up. This time, her unusual dedication leads her to find her calling. However, she still has to fight one final battle: convincing her father that she has made the right choice.

Benoît, the new kid at school, is bullied by a gang of arrogant boys. Determined not to be pushed around, Benoît organizes a big party, but only three students turn up. What if this bunch of losers was to be the best gang ever?

While Aya has dreams of becoming a doctor, her two best friends, Adjoua and Bintou, just like to hang out and spend their evenings dancing, drinking and flirting with boys. Their ambition is to follow Plan C: Combs, Clothes and Chasing Men! But big trouble comes to town when Adjoua realizes she’s pregnant, and the baby’s father is the spoiled son of one of the richest and most feared men in the whole country.

Ahmed, 18, is French of Algerian origin. He grew up in the Parisian suburbs. On the benches of the university, he meets Farah, a young Tunisian full of energy recently arrived from Tunis. While discovering a body of sensual and erotic Arabic literature that he never knew existed, Ahmed falls deeply in love with this girl, and although literally overwhelmed by desire, he will try to resist it.

In the sequel to Turma da Mônica: Laços, we follow Mônica, Jimmy Five, Maggy and Smudge dealing with the consequences of a mistake made at school. At the same time, they face transformations from childhood to adolescence and are about to discover the value of friendship.

Because he forgot his identity card, Elias cannot take the entrance exam to Sciences Po. In search of a job while waiting to be able to take the exam again, he becomes an educator in a children's home. Confronted with an environment he doesn't know how to work, Elias doesn't yet know how much this experience will change his life.

Tunis, summer 2010, a few months before the Revolution: Farah, 18 years old, has just graduated and her family already sees her as a future doctor. But she doesn't have the same idea. She sings in a political rock band, has a passion for life, gets drunk, discovers love and her city by night against the wishes of her mother Hayet, who knows Tunisia and its dangers all too well.

Are you young, sexually confused, just trying to get by? Do you sing, dance or possess some other talent? Welcome to the Garden Party. At the center of the story is 15-year-old April. She is running from one bad situation into another, hoping to find an answer that doesn't involve taking off her clothes.

Nedjma, an 18-year-old student passionate about fashion design refuses to let the tragic events of the Algerian Civil War keep her from experiencing a normal life. As the social climate becomes more conservative, she rejects the new bans set by the radicals and decides to put on a fashion show.

In East Los Angeles, an 18-year-old struggles between her ambitions of going to college and the desires of her domineering mother for her to get married, have children, and oversee the small, rundown family-owned textile factory.

A shy student suddenly becomes the center of attention when she wins a huge birthday party that she never asked for.

Petit Spirou, like all his family before him, has a career destiny all traced. When his mother announces that he will integrate the grooms school at the beginning of the new school year, Petit Spirou, with the help of his friends, will take advantage of his last days of class to declare his love to Suzette. And no matter how. They decide to live an extraordinary adventure.

Odette is a 8-yr-old girl who loves to dance and draw. Once she has become an adult, Odette realizes she was abused, and immerses herself body and soul in her career as a dancer while trying to deal with her past.

Vincent, 18 years old, is dumped by Elina. It is his first love, it is the end of the world! His parents decide to take matters into their own hands and will try everything to make him forget this girl: he will have to follow them in a loving detoxification of which they will imagine the program ...

7-year-old Sasha has always known that she is a girl. Sasha’s family has recently accepted her gender identity, embracing their daughter for who she truly is while working to confront outdated norms and find affirmation in a small community of rural France.

Alex, an intersexed 15-year-old, is living as a girl, but she and her family begin to wonder whether she's emotionally a boy when another teenager's sexual advances bring the issue to a head. As Alex faces a final decision regarding her gender, she meets both hostility and compassion.

In eastern France, two teenage cousins have the summer of their lives when they paddle a purloined canoe to the far shore of a lake.

Teenagers Charly and Paula worry that sex could ruin their friendship, while their suddenly and surprisingly bossy private parts urge them to go for it.

A young Arab-American girl struggles with her sexual obsession, a bigoted Army reservist, and her strict father during the Gulf War.

The adventures of three teenage girls - Inken, Vicky and Lena - and their quest to have their first orgasm.

Daniel lives with his grandmother and, after a year of high school, goes to live with his mother in the south of France; a harsher environment which rapidly changes his perception of friends, work, and women.

In Justine's family everyone is a vet and a vegetarian. At 16, she's a gifted teen ready to take on her first year in vet school, where her older sister also studies. There, she gets no time to settle: hazing starts right away. Justine is forced to eat raw meat for the first time in her life. Unexpected consequences emerge as her true self begins to form.

Damien lives with his mother Marianne, a doctor, while his father, a pilot, is on a tour of duty abroad with the French military. At school, Damien is bullied by Thomas, who lives in the farming community up in the mountains. The boys find themselves living together when Marianne invites Thomas to come and stay with them while his mother is ill in hospital. Damien must learn to live with the boy who terrorized him.

After growing up in Switzerland, 13-year-old Marta returns to a city in southern Italy with her mother and older sister. Independent and inquisitive, she joins a catechism class at a local church. However, the games and religious pop songs she encounters there do not nearly satisfy her interest in faith. Struggling to find her place, Marta pushes the boundaries of the class, the priest, and the church.

The municipality of a small Breton village has decided to welcome a family of Ukrainian refugees. To their surprise, they receive Fayad family – coming from Syria. They thwart all the clichés that the French expected: they are friendly, refined, educated… So much so that, in this small, humming village, it is no longer clear which side the barbarians are on…

Amalie is the girl who has everything, good looks, money, a boyfriend and a big talent of dancing. One day, her world falls apart and she moves from everything she knows. Then enter Mikael. He is dancing in the streets and Amalie joins him in dancing on the streets, dancing Battles.

From his village in northern Senegal, Yao is a 13-year-old boy ready to do anything to meet his hero: Seydou Tall, a famous French actor. Invited to Dakar to promote his new book, the latter goes to his country of origin for the first time. To fulfill his dream, the young Yao organizes his fugue and brave 387 kilometers alone to the capital. Touched by this child, the actor decides to flee his obligations and to accompany him home. But on the dusty and uncertain roads of Senegal, Seydou understands that while rolling towards the village of the child, it also rolls towards its roots.

Algeria, the 1930s. Younes is nine years old when he is put in his uncle's care in Oran. Rebaptized Jonas, he grows up among the Rio Salado youths, with whom he becomes friends. Emilie is one of the gang; everyone is in love with her. A great love story develops between Jonas and Emilie, which is soon unsettled by the conflicts troubling the country.

Young Violetta and her mother Hannah are a peculiar couple. Ten-year-old Violetta lives a quiet life with her grandmother, while her mother Hannah is an unpredictable photographer who lives off of the generosity of others. When Hannah forces her daughter to pose as a model, Violetta finds her life with her loving grandmother turned upside down.The resulting pictures quickly become a sensation for the trendy 70's Paris art scene, and Violetta finds herself caught in between her new stature as an art muse and her dull childhood.

In 2013, Vanessa Springora recounts how she found herself under the influence of a famous writer. In 1986, she was 13; him, almost 50. The victim of a triple predation: sexual, literary, and psychic, there's more beyond her individual story. She questions the excesses of an era, and the complacency of an environment blinded by talent and celebrity.

Feeling confined by their small town and overbearing parents, Annie and Jules hatch a scheme of running away. The only issue is, they need the money to get there. Jules suggests the couple try webcam modeling. Although she’s nervous at first, Annie can’t argue when the money starts rolling in. But as the girls soon find out, consequences can blindside you. Sometimes violently.

Margot and Marguerite are 12-year-old girls who seem no different from any other youngsters with the usual family and peer problems. While they appear to have similar faces and body shapes, they wear different clothes and hairstyles, but the biggest difference between them is that one lives in 1942 and the other in 2020. When the girls crawled into a wooden chest they were magically sent into each other’s timeline, and because the girls look so similar their family and friends do not notice the swap.

An unattractive 7th grader struggles to cope with suburban life as the middle child with inattentive parents and bullies at school.

Isabelle, a 17-year-old student, loses her virginity during a quick holiday romance. When she returns home, she begins a secret life as a prostitute for a year.

Nathan, 16, lives alone with his father Stephane. A newcomer in high school, he is invited to a party and falls in love with Louis, a boy in his class. They find themselves out of sight and kiss each other, but someone takes a picture of them. Soon, the photo is published on Facebook and a storm overtakes their lives as they face bullying and rejection.

A Serbian ballroom dancer experiences an unexpected and intense 24-hour romance with a friend's older brother.

A 9-year-old girl weathers big changes in her household as her parents become radical political activists in 1970-71 Paris.

Lucie is in remission and her illness is almost a distant memory. Her family pushes her to live life to the fullest, and in doing so Lucie meets the charming and arrogant Clovis, who is immediately beguiled by her wit and humor. It is Dalila, however, an eccentric and delightful dance teacher, who inspires Lucie to rebuild her life and to grow into the woman she always wanted to be. For her mother, for her daughter, for Clovis.

An adolescent girl, living with her mother and her grandmother, will have her first sexual experiences in a heavy and excessive way.

Agathe Clery, a marketing manager for a cosmetics company, is snobbish, stubborn and racist. When she is diagnosed with Addison Syndrome, an disorder that darkens the pigmentation of one's skin, she suddenly finds herself resembling a black woman.

As the Algerian War draws to a close, a teenager with a girlfriend starts feeling homosexual urges for two of his classmates: a country boy, and a French-Algerian intellectual.

