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Movies like Girl in Progress

Key Features:
Mother-daughter relationship, Coming-of-age, Single parent, Search for identity, Mentorship, Existential crisis, Affair, Responsibility, Self-discovery, Emotional growth, Family drama
Tone:
earnest, dramatic
Target Audience:
Family drama viewers, Coming-of-age enthusiasts, Female-driven stories, Emotional film lovers
Emotional Arc:
Confusion → Rebellion → Understanding

Girl in Progress

2012-05-11
Girl in Progress Poster - Find Similar Movies

As single mom Grace juggles work, bills, and her affair with a married doctor, her daughter, Ansiedad, plots a shortcut to adulthood after finding inspiration in the coming-of-age stories she's reading for school.

Genres
Comedy, Drama
Cast
Eva Mendes, Cierra Ramirez, Matthew Modine, Landon Liboiron, Patricia Arquette, Raini Rodriguez, Russell Peters, Eugenio Derbez, Richard Harmon, Brenna O
Crew
Patricia Riggen, Hiram Martinez
Rating
5.6(121 votes)
Girl in ProgressGirl in Progress
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Parents in Progress

Simona is a single mother in her early ‘40s who is wholly devoted to her son, Filippo. To get over her insecurities as a parent and make her son happy on his eighth birthday, she decides to throw him a birthday party in their small flat and invite over his school friends and their parents. For Simona, this birthday is about to pose quite the surprising dilemma between allowing her son to embrace his true self and a mother’s fierce desire to protect her child from their potentially cruel surroundings. This is the last conundrum she was expecting to have to face on a day that is already rife with anxiety.



Real Women Have Curves

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.



Laggies
Laggies(2014)
6.1

Overeducated and underemployed, 28 year old Megan is in the throes of a quarterlife crisis. Squarely into adulthood with no career prospects, no particular motivation to think about her future and no one to relate to, Megan is comfortable lagging a few steps behind - while her friends check off milestones and celebrate their new grown-up status. When her high-school sweetheart proposes, Megan panics and- given an unexpected opportunity to escape for a week - hides out in the home of her new friend, 16-year old Annika and Annika's world-weary single dad Craig.



The Incredibly True Adventure of Two Girls in Love

An adventurous love story between two young women of different social and economic backgrounds who find themselves going through all the typical struggles of a new romance.



Fitting In
6.672

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.



Schoolgirls
6.6

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.



LOL
LOL(2012)
6.105

In a world connected by YouTube, iTunes, and Facebook, Lola and her friends navigate the peer pressures of high school romance and friendship while dodging their sometimes overbearing and confused parents. When Lola's mom, Anne, "accidentally" reads her teenage daughter's racy journal, she realizes just how wide their communication gap has grown.



Teen's Confessions
6.3

Four sisters work together to raise rent money after learning they have to move to another neighborhood in this coming-of-age drama based on the series.



Thirty Something, Single and Fabulous

A woman in her mid-30s breaks up with her boyfriend of seven years and goes on a journey of self-discovery.



After Lucia
6.6

Alejandra and her dad Roberto have just moved to town. She is new at school, he has a new job. Starting over is sometimes complicated when you have left so much behind.



XXY
XXY(2007)
6.9

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.



Gas Food Lodging
6.276

Nora, a single mother raising two teenage daughters, Shade and Trudi, waits tables at a truck-stop diner in a small New Mexico town. The beautiful and rebellious Trudi drops out of school and gets a job alongside Nora, while the younger Shade whittles away her time at Spanish movie matinees. Their lives are turned upside down when Trudi becomes pregnant and the girls' absent father returns.



Odd Girl Out
5.5

A mother and her daughter confront the intimidation of teen peer pressure and the emotionally brutalizing social rituals of high school.



Lou!
Lou!(2014)
5.6

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.



Fan Girl
Fan Girl(2015)
5.284

A 15-year-old girl decides to bring her two passions together for her final film project: making movies and her favorite band.



Double Dad
6.7

While her mom is away, a teen sneaks out of the hippie commune where she lives and embarks on a life-changing adventure to discover who her father is.



LOL (Laughing Out Loud)

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.



Bird
Bird(2024)
7.237

12-year-old Bailey lives with her single dad Bug and brother Hunter in a squat in North Kent. Bug doesn’t have much time for his kids, and Bailey, who is approaching puberty, seeks attention and adventure elsewhere.



The Year I Started Masturbating

Ambitious overachiever Hanna just needs one more kid before her life is perfect. Instead, her baby daddy unexpectedly dumps her. Suddenly, she finds herself without a place to live, job or family. With every fiber of her being set for victory, Hanna refuses to give up and decides to win him back. But to get there means having to win something much more important, love and desire for herself and who she is.



Julieta
Julieta(2016)
6.982

The film spans 30 years in Julieta’s life from a nostalgic 1985 where everything seems hopeful, to 2015 where her life appears to be beyond repair and she is on the verge of madness.



Sobreviviendo mis XV

Quinceañeras, a magical age... except when your family wants to put you in a bulky dress and make you waltz in front of everyone, which is exactly what happens to Danae shortly after she transfers to a very proper private school. Now Danae has to manage to balance the demands of her family, those of her new friends and organize a cool, but traditional, but modern, but emotional, but aesthetic, but also grandmother-pleasing Quinceañera party... without dying in the process.



Abzurdah
Abzurdah(2015)
6.481

A disenfranchised 16-year-old girl connects to an older man on the internet and after a brief one-sided affair descends into obsession and anorexia.



Lady Bird
Lady Bird(2017)
7.254

Lady Bird McPherson, a strong willed, deeply opinionated, artistic 17 year old comes of age in Sacramento. Her relationship with her mother and her upbringing are questioned and tested as she plans to head off to college.



The Life List
6.98

When her mother sends her on a quest to complete a teenage bucket list, a young woman uncovers family secrets, finds romance — and rediscovers herself.



In the Land of Women
5.871

After a bad breakup with his girlfriend leaves him heartbroken, Carter Webb moves to Michigan to take care of his ailing grandmother. Once there, he gets mixed up in the lives of the mother and daughters who live across the street.



Charm School
6.875

Defiant 18-year-old Adela León pushes her father and an unbending headmistress to the limit in this delicious comedy.



Anne+: The Film
6.174

Just before Anne is moving from Amsterdam to live with her great love Sara in Montreal, her publisher criticizes the manuscript for her first novel. What exactly is the story she's trying to tell? Does she even have something to say at all? Anne is forced to search for what she wants in life, because it is not only the main character in her novel who seems to be a little lost.



Like Mother, Like Daughter

An attention-craving mother nearing 50, unemployed and living with her pregnant daughter and son-in-law, suddenly finds herself with child, too...



3 Generations
6.362

A teenager transitions from female to male, and his family must come to terms with that fact.



Babies Don't Come with Instructions

Leo is a single, womanizing guy who lives day to day in a tiny beach town in the Canary Islands. One day one of his old flings, Julia, reappears to leave a baby of a few months in his arms and she disappears at the next morning.



As Cool as I Am
5.83

A smart teenage girl comes of age in a small town with her self-centered parents who had her when they were teenagers.



Made in America
5.5

A young black woman discovers that her father was a sperm donor, and if that wasn't bad enough, he's white.



Herself
Herself(2020)
6.7

Struggling to provide her daughters with a safe, happy home, Sandra decides to build one - from scratch. Using all her ingenuity to make her ambitious dream a reality, Sandra draws together a community to lend a helping hand to build her house and ultimately recover her own sense of self.



Stargirl
Stargirl(2020)
7.4

An unassuming high schooler finds himself inexplicably drawn to the free-spirited new girl, whose unconventional ways change how they see themselves…and their world.



Anoche soñé contigo

Two teenage friends spend their summer break preparing for the sexual conquests they hope to experience. That is, until one of the boys is visited by his older, more sexually aggressive cousin, Azucena. Ushering her naïve cousin into the world of sex could take more work than Azucena realized.



Tomboy
Tomboy(2011)
7.3

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.



How to Deal
5.43

Halley is convinced true love doesn't exist based on the crazy relationships around her. Her mother is divorcing her father who is dating a younger woman Halley can't stand. Her crazed sister is planning a wedding but has second thoughts and her best friend has fallen madly in love for the first time leaving Halley to feel even more alone.



Rachel, Rachel
6.538

Rachel is a 35-year-old school teacher who has no man in her life and lives with her mother. When a man from the big city returns and asks her out, she begins to have to make decisions about her life and where she wants it to go.



The Art of Getting By

George, a lonely and fatalistic teen who's made it all the way to his senior year without ever having done a real day of work, is befriended by Sally, a popular but complicated girl who recognizes in him a kindred spirit.



The Short History of the Long Road

Nola grew up living on a van with her father, Clint; two nomads against the world. When tragedy strikes, Nola must confront the reality of life on the road alone, learning to own her grief, her past and her new destination.



Thi Mai
Thi Mai(2018)
6.2

After losing her daughter in an accident, Carmen loses all incentive to keep going, until she receives an unexpected letter from the adoption agency: her daughter was finally granted the Vietnamese girl she had asked for adoption and whose name is Thi Mai.



Riding in Cars with Boys

In 1965, a young woman with dreams of becoming a writer has a son at the age of 15 and struggles to make things work with the drug-addicted father.



Spanglish
Spanglish(2004)
6.024

Mexican immigrant and single mother Flor Moreno finds housekeeping work with Deborah and John Clasky, a well-off couple with two children of their own. When Flor admits she can't handle the schedule because of her daughter, Cristina, Deborah decides they should move into the Clasky home. Cultures clash and tensions run high as Flor and the Claskys struggle to share space while raising their children on their own, and very different, terms.



Camp Crasher
6.885

In a bid to save her son's end-of-school camping trip, a single mom steps in as the bus driver while trying to show him she really can be a cool mom.



Appropriate Behavior

Shirin is struggling to become an ideal Persian daughter, politically correct bisexual and hip young Brooklynite but fails miserably in her attempt at all identities.



Girlhood
Girlhood(2014)
6.424

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.



Ready to Mingle
6.759

A wannabe bride seeks professional help to find a husband and in the process finds herself.



Confessions of an Invisible Girl

When the clever but socially-awkward Tetê joins a new school, she'll do anything to fit in. But the queen bee among her classmates has other ideas.



Fathers and Daughters

A Pulitzer-winning writer grapples with being a widower and father after a mental breakdown, while, 27 years later, his grown daughter struggles to forge connections of her own.



The Spectacular Now
6.673

Sutter, a popular party animal, unexpectedly meets the introverted Aimee after waking up on a stranger's lawn. As Sutter deals with the problems in his life and Aimee plans for her future beyond school, an unexpected romance blossoms between them.



Wild Chicks in Love

Five teenage girls navigate the twists and turns of their complicated emotional lives, and learn the secrets of the heart through their friendship.



Almost Adults
6.122

A film about growing apart when growing up. Two best friends relationship strains when one deals with her newfound sexuality and the other with breaking up with her long term boyfriend.



Goodrich
Goodrich(2024)
6.315

Andy Goodrich's life is upended when his wife enters a rehab program, leaving him on his own with their young kids. Goodrich leans on his daughter from his first marriage, Grace, as he ultimately evolves into the father Grace never had.



Ama
Ama(2021)
6.343

A portrait of the myth of maternity around the story of Pepa and her daughter, who are evicted from their home and forced to wander for a place to live with no support network.



Read It and Weep
5.783

A young girl turns into an A-List celebrity over night when her private journal is accidently published and becomes a best-seller.



She's Out of Control

A Los Angeles radio-station manager's girlfriend shows his teenage daughter how to be sexy.



Fala Sério, Mãe!
7.3

Ângela Cristina, mother of teenager Maria de Lourdes, has to deal with the difficulties and delights of guiding her daughter during one of the most complicated stages of life.



The Misfits Club
6.831

Valeria has just moved to Madrid after her parent's separation. What at first seems a bad start for her new life becomes the beginning of an amazing life experience. New friendships, a city full of possibilities, first love...



Rocks
Rocks(2019)
6.608

15-year-old Rocks fears that she and her little brother Emmanuel will be taken into care and forced apart if anyone finds out that their mother has left them. Against all odds, and with the help of her loyal friends, she evades the authorities and navigates the most defining days of her young life.



Wildflower
7.463

The story of Bea Johnson from birth to graduation as she navigates life with an intellectually disabled parent and an extended family who can't quite agree on the best way to help.



The Diary of a Teenage Girl

Minnie Goetze is a 15-year-old aspiring comic-book artist, coming of age in the haze of the 1970s in San Francisco. Insatiably curious about the world around her, Minnie is a pretty typical teenage girl. Oh, except that she’s sleeping with her mother’s boyfriend.



Mommy
Mommy(2014)
8.2

A peculiar neighbor offers hope to a recent widow who is struggling to raise a teenager who is unpredictable and, sometimes, violent.



Restless
Restless(2011)
6.506

Two outsiders, both shaped by the circumstances that have brought them together, forge a deep and lasting love.



Endings, Beginnings
6.058

An artist dumps her longtime boyfriend, but her attempt to take a break from dating ends when she quickly finds herself in two passionate romances.



Grandma
Grandma(2015)
6.463

Self-described misanthrope Elle Reid has her protective bubble burst when her 18-year-old granddaughter, Sage, shows up needing help. The two of them go on a day-long journey that causes Elle to come to terms with her past and Sage to confront her future.



Toni
Toni(2023)
6.614

Toni has spent her entire life putting other people’s needs before her own. When she was 20 years old, she was pushed by her mother to join a TV singing competition, becoming a national star. Twenty years and five children later, she is a full-time mom who spends all her time and effort on raising her teenage kids. As she helps her children plan their future after graduation, she begins to imagine what her life could be if - for once - she did what she really wanted. Will she be able to turn her life around and dare to be something other than a mother and a daughter?



Rosa's Wedding
6.1

Rosa is about to turn 45 and realises that she's always lived her life to serve everyone else. So she decides to leave it all behind, take charge of her life and fulfil her dream of starting her own business.



Bare
Bare(2015)
4.508

A young woman's friendship with a drug-dealing drifter evolves into a lesbian romance.



All We Had
5.466

A mother struggles to make a better life for her daughter.



Dude
Dude(2018)
5.5

Four best friends negotiate loss and major life changes during the last two weeks of high school.



The Graduate
7.6

A disillusioned college graduate finds himself torn between his older lover and her daughter.



Fifteen and Pregnant
6.264

Based on a true story, 15 year old Tina Spangler discovers she is pregnant. Her choices are abortion, adoption, or a lonely, exhausting life as a single parent. Abandoned by her boyfriend, she turns to her mother. Tina discovers although it has torn her world apart, her pregnancy could re-unite her shattered family and help her find her true purpose in life.



Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret.

When her family moves from New York City to New Jersey, an 11-year-old girl navigates new friends, feelings, and the beginning of adolescence.



Twenty Something
7.2

Follows Gia, who has to deal with the challenges and insecurities of "adulting" during her 21st birthday.



After
After(2019)
7.115

Tessa Young is a dedicated student, dutiful daughter and loyal girlfriend to her high school sweetheart. Entering her first semester of college, Tessa's guarded world opens up when she meets Hardin Scott, a mysterious and brooding rebel who makes her question all she thought she knew about herself -- and what she wants out of life.



Dear Zoe
Dear Zoe(2022)
6.2

Tess enlists her biological father – a lovable slacker from the wrong side of the tracks – and the charming juvenile delinquent next door to help her come to grips with the death of her little sister.



The Fabelmans
7.577

Growing up in post-World War II era Arizona, young Sammy Fabelman aspires to become a filmmaker as he reaches adolescence, but soon discovers a shattering family secret and explores how the power of films can help him see the truth.



Carrie Pilby
6.832

Awkward, isolated and disapproving of most of the people around her, a precocious 19-year-old genius is challenged to put her convictions to the test by venturing out on to the NYC dating scene.



Jolene
Jolene(2010)
6.256

A teenage orphan spends ten years traveling to experience life.



Mother and Child
6.589

The lives of three women have a commonality: adoption. Karen is a physical therapist who regrets that, as a teenager, she gave up her daughter for adoption. Elizabeth was an adopted child and is now a successful lawyer, but her personal life lacks warmth. Lucy and her husband have failed to conceive and now hope to adopt a baby to make their family complete.



Adventures in Public School

A socially-awkward, home-schooled kid forces his way into public school against his suffocating, but loving, mother's wishes.



Uptown Girls
6.872

Molly Gunn, the freewheeling daughter of a deceased rock legend, is forced to get a job when her manager steals her money. As nanny for precocious Ray, the oft ignored daughter of a music executive she learns what it means to be an adult while teaching Ray how to be a child.



CODA
CODA(2021)
7.9

As a CODA (Child of Deaf Adults), Ruby is the only hearing person in her deaf family. When the family's fishing business is threatened, Ruby finds herself torn between pursuing her love of music and her fear of abandoning her parents.



Peach Girl
6.95

While everyone thinks that Momo is a wild party girl, the reality is that she is shy and lonely. Can Momo confess her love to her classmate, Toji, or will her best friend Sae steal him away? It's a bittersweet drama of growing up and fitting in.



Perras
Perras(2011)
7.2

Something terrible is happening in class 3A at Calmecatl Junior High. No one can leave the classroom until the guilty party is found. This is the device that gives us a glimpse of the ethics, games, esthetics and eroticism of these girl-women. It is not easy to say what the subject is, there are so many: the discovery of sexuality, discrimination, chance, drugs, maternity, traditions, betrayals, power, love. A mural of a complex reality from the point of view of twenty-something women in the skin of 14 to 15 year old girls.



What a Girl Wants
6.297

An American girl, Daphne, heads to Europe in search of the father she's never met. But instead of finding a British version of her bohemian mother, she learns the love of her mom's life is an uptight politician. The only problem now is that her long-lost dad is engaged to a fiercely territorial social climber with a daughter who makes Daphne's life miserable.



Bend It Like Beckham
6.325

Jess Bhamra, the daughter of a strict Indian couple in London, is not permitted to play organized soccer, even though she is 18. When Jess is playing for fun one day, her impressive skills are seen by Jules Paxton, who then convinces Jess to play for her semi-pro team. Jess uses elaborate excuses to hide her matches from her family while also dealing with her romantic feelings for her coach, Joe.



Look Both Ways
6.874

On the night of her college graduation, Natalie's life splits into parallel realities after she takes a pregnancy test. What will life and love bring?



The Bélier Family
6.933

The whole Bélier family is deaf, except for sixteen year old Paula who is the important translator in her parents' day to day life especially when it comes to matters concerning the family farm. When her music teacher discovers she has a fantastic singing voice and she gets an opportunity to enter a big Radio France contest the whole family's future is set up for big changes.



Cerise
Cerise(2015)
5.5

Cerise is fourteen years old but she looks twenty. Cerise grew up on the outskirts, but now she's exiled to Ukraine. Cerise wears excessive amounts of makeup, but she still has a little girl's dreams. Cerise doesn't know her father, even though she's going to have to live with him. Cerise has only ever thought about herself and now she finds herself in the middle of a revolution.



Belle épine
5.446

After the death of her mother, 17-year-old Prudence finds herself living alone in her Paris apartment. Then she meets Maryline, a rebel of her own age, who introduces her to the thrills of motorcycle racing on the biker circuit at Rungis. Prudence’s newfound lease of freedom becomes complicated when she falls for a boy Franck who wastes no time in taking advantage of her naivety...



My Girl 2
My Girl 2(1994)
6

Vada Sultenfuss has a holiday coming up, and an assignment: to do and essay on someone she admires and has never met. She decides she wants to do an assignment on her mother, but quickly realises she knows very little about her. She manages to get her father to agree to let her go to LA to stay with her Uncle Phil and do some research on her mother.



Alice
Alice(2020)
5.971

Alice, a perfect wife and mother, lives happily with her husband and child until the day she discovers he is living a double life that has ruined her financially and left her a single mother. Alice fights back and dives into a world beyond anything she has ever known.



Concussion
5.134

After a blow to the head, Abby decides she can't do it anymore. Her life just can't be only about the house, the kids and the wife. She needs more: she needs to be Eleanor.



Despite Everything

Sara, Lucía, Sofía and Claudia are sisters, 4 modern women with very different personalities, who come together at their mother's funeral, after which they discover the man they've all called "dad" throughout their lives is not really their father. They embark on a quest to discover who their real fathers are, discovering more about themselves, their mother, and their lives.



Frances Ha
7.3

An aspiring dancer moves to New York City and becomes caught up in a whirlwind of flighty fair-weather friends, diminishing fortunes and career setbacks.



Meus 15 Anos: Filme

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



No and Me
No and Me(2010)
6

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.



Home Again
6.112

Life for a single mom in Los Angeles takes an unexpected turn when she allows three young guys to move in with her.

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