SchoolgirlsMovies like Schoolgirls
- Key Features:
- Coming-of-age, Friendship, Catholic school, Spain, Late 1990s, Female friendship, Religious conflict, Self-discovery, Identity, Family secrets, Social change, Cultural context, Personal growth, Innocence, Hidden truths, Belonging, Female bonding
- Tone:
- serious, restrained, earnest
- Target Audience:
- Indie film enthusiasts, Coming-of-age story lovers, Female-centered narratives, Viewers interested in social issues
- Emotional Arc:
- Innocence → Confusion → Self-discovery
Schoolgirls

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.
Schoolgirls
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.

Julia, a teenager from Latin America, has lived in the U.S. most of her life. She is popular, a successful Youtuber and wants to become prom queen. Everything changes abruptly when her family has to return to Ecuador. What will she have to face? Getting used to a new culture and a catholic high school will not be easy. The "gringa" becomes the target of "La Reinas", three popular bullies who rule the school. Julia is now a misfit who will have to earn her new friends' affection in order to survive.

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.

Sister Marina, a very unorthodox nun, is sent during the summer of 1994 to El Parral, a boarding school for boys threatened to be closed soon. Even though the kids welcome Marina with all kinds of pranks, they will, little by little, become something very close to the family they never had.

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...

Childhood friends Matías and Jerónimo reach adolescence and experience sexual attraction to each other, before being separated by circumstances. Later, as young adults, they meet again, and the film follows themes of complicated relationships and sexual tensions, as well as issues of homophobia.

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.

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.

Two high school students form an intense connection as they navigate the challenges of discovering and expressing their truest selves.

In 1996 Scotland, a group of Catholic schoolgirls get an opportunity to go into Edinburgh for a choir competition, but they're more interested in drinking, partying and hooking up than winning the competition.

Alice, a young innocent Catholic girl, is tempted into masturbating after an AOL chat suddenly turns sexual, however is conflicted as the act would be considered a sin.

Two teenage Mexican-American loners in 1987 El Paso explore a new, unusual friendship and the difficult road to self-discovery.

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

After her mother's death, six-year-old Frida is sent to her uncle's family to live with them in the countryside. But Frida finds it hard to forget her mother and adapt to her new life.

María and Susana, two rebellious teenagers, spend the summer in a catholic camp. While they are grounded during a weekend, the most unexpected arrival in the most unexpected way will change their feelings about life, love and freedom.

A new student, Manuela, enters a strict girls' boarding school after her mother’s death, where she finds comfort in a kind teacher, stirring complex emotions within her.

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.

Mary and her friend, Rachel, are new students at St. Francis Academy, a boarding school run by the iron fist of Mother Superior. The immature teens grow bored and begin playing pranks on both the unsuspecting nuns and their unpleasant classmates, becoming a constant thorn in Mother Superior's side. However, as the years pass, Mary and Rachel slowly mature and begin to see the nuns in a different light.

An imaginative 15-year-old is stubbornly determined to lose her virginity despite the pathetic pickings in the outskirts of Houston in the early '90s.

While his parents are away for the summer, 16-year-old Dani invites his best friend, the irrepressible Nico, to stay for the holidays. Jealously rears its head when Nico appears more interested in the local girls than in Dani. Hot summer nights and too many joints lead to experimentation which neither boy can talk about, a situation complicated by the appearance of the older and openly gay Julián, a published writer and old friend of Dani’s father.

Carla and Bruno believe they have answers for everything until Rai appears in their lives, an attractive and mysterious young who lives outsidethe rules. In this story about love and friendship, boundaries dissolve by the rhythm of funkyand break to offer a provocative, exciting and deeply touching vision about romantic relationships.

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.

When Alena arrives at her new elite boarding school, Filippa and the other girls start to harass her. But Alena’s best friend Josefin won’t let her take anymore beating. If she won’t strike back, Josefin will do it for her. Hard.

Young Felicity lives in a monastic school. The only way to live out her sexual fantasies is together with her girlfriend Jenny. But then she receives an invitation to her sister in Hong-Kong and can't wait to finally do the real thing.

An examination on the effect of Franco-era religious schooling and sexual abuse on the lives of two longtime friends.

A youth group is preparing for what will be the summer of their life, including secrets, lies, sex, confusion, evenings and holidays.

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

Spain, 1949. Narcisa, a novice, arrives at an old convent, converted into a girls' school, to work as a teacher.

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.

The unexpected and gruesome death of a student threatens the existence of an old Catholic school for girls. Pat Consolacion, the school guidance counselor, involves herself with the students in the hopes of helping them cope, and at the same time uncover the mysteries of the student’s death. Most students suspect of the strict and borderline abusive Mother Alice, who also threatened Pat’s tenure in the school because of her continuous meddling with the case. But Pat’s unusual talents lead her to knowing Eri, a former student who's been watching the whole school for years. Piece by piece, Pat uncovers the secret of the school and the monster that it nurtured for the past century.

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.

Daniela, raised in the bosom of a strict Evangelical family and recently unmasked as a fornicator by her shocked parents, struggles to find her own path to spiritual harmony.

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.

Under small-town scrutiny, a withdrawn farmer’s daughter forges an intimate friendship with a worldly but reckless new girl in 1960s Oklahoma.

Margherita is a 14 year old living in Milano, who shares everything with her friends. They discuss clothes, music, school and that first kiss. A delightful coming-of-age film in which the here and now is all that really matters. Where every little thing is so very important and where feelings sometimes bubble over. In your teens, there’s no room for anything but friendship and love.

María's routine at school is altered by the arrival of a very special child. Soon, they become close friends.

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

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

Amalia is an adolescent girl who is caught in the throes of her emerging sexuality and her deeply held passion for her Catholic faith. These two drives mingle when the visiting Dr. Jano takes advantage of a crowd to get inappropriately close to the girl. Repulsed by him but inspired by an inner burning, Amalia decides it is her God-given mission to save the doctor from his behavior, and she begins to stalk Dr. Jano, becoming a most unusual voyeur.

May, 1987. While returning from a nightclub and after having taken drugs, new girl in town Sara and her friend Rebe find a doll wearing a communion dress. From that moment, their lives will become a living hell.

Javi is a teenage student so shy and clumsy that he does not know how to attract the attention of his classmate Sara, a geeky girl who is only interested in a literary saga about vampires.

El Bola is a 12-year-old boy raised in a violent and sordid environment. Embarrassed by his family life, he avoids becoming close to classmates. The arrival of a new boy at school changes his attitude towards his classmates and friendship. The heart of the story is the change in El Bola's life, at almost all levels, after befriending this new classmate.

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

Loredana is a schoolgirl who takes advantage of her fellow students and teachers by using her innocent schoolgirl beauty. After she loses her virginity to an older man she soon realizes there are more important things to life than teasing men.

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.

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.

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.

Spain, 1966. An English teacher who travels to Almería when he hears that John Lennon is making a film there befriends with a 16-year-old boy who has run away from home and a young girl who also seems to be running away from something.

Valeria is 17 and pregnant. She lives in Puerto Vallarta with Clara, her half sister. Valeria has not wanted her long-absent mother, April, to find out about her pregnancy, but due to the economic strain and the overwhelming responsibility of having a baby in the house, Clara decides to call their mother. April arrives, willing to her daughters, but we soon understand why Valeria had wanted her to stay away.

Teen comedy set in the school-year of 1994. José is the new kid on high-school, falling immediately for the popular and freckled Christina. Trying to impress her, he's going to unsuccessfully join the soccer try-outs. Is he shooting way out of his league?

When her social-climbing father is relocated from small-town North to his native Rome, 12-year-old Caterina enrolls to his old school, finding herself at sea with an environment where students sort themselves by social class and their parents' political affiliation.

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.

Bilbao, Spain. After breaking up with Elisa, his girlfriend for several years, Txema meets Claudia, a gorgeous Argentinian girl, in a very awkward situation. They become friends so soon and so easily that Txema misinterprets Claudia's feelings for him.

Fifteen-year-old Charlotte Flax is tired of her wacky mom moving their family to a different town any time she feels it is necessary. When they move to a small Massachusetts town and Mrs. Flax begins dating a shopkeeper, Charlotte and her 9-year-old sister, Kate, hope that they can finally settle down. But when Charlotte's attraction to an older man gets in the way, the family must learn to accept each other for who they truly are.

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.

Jealousy flares after the headmistress of an elite boarding school for girls becomes obsessed with a new student.

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.

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

Ana, an eight-year-old girl living in Madrid with her grandmother and two sisters, mourns the death of her mother.

In 1931, a young soldier deserts from the army and falls into a country farm, where he is welcomed by the owner due to his political ideas. Manolo has four daughters, Fernando likes all of them and they like him, so he has to decide which one to love.

The film centres on Moncho and his coming-of-age experience in Galicia in 1936. Moncho develops a close relationship with his teacher Don Gregorio who introduces the boy to different things in the world. While the story centres on Moncho's ordinary coming-of-age experiences, tensions related to the looming Spanish Civil War periodically interrupt Moncho's personal growth and daily life.

Ana and her two best friends, Maria and Paula, navigate life in their oppressive countryside village. Whilst their families struggle in the poppy fields harvesting opium, the girls try to grow alongside the creeping terror of their cartel oppressors.

Welcome to Splendona High School, Texas, where football players, cheerleaders and beauty queens rule the hallways. And Starla Grady, the most popular girl in school, is on top of it all. That is, at least until Genevieve LePlouff, a French foreign exchange student arrives and turns her life upside down.

In 1987 Madrid, the unexpected encounter between a seasoned journalist and a young student leads to a profound exploration of love, desire, politics, power, and discovery of each other.

Ryan and Jennifer are opposites who definitely do not attract. At least that's what they always believed. When they met as twelve-year-olds, they disliked one another. When they met again as teenagers, they loathed each other. But when they meet in college, the uptight Ryan and the free-spirited Jennifer find that their differences bind them together and a rare friendship develops.

A group of Catholic school friends, after being caught drawing an obscene comic book, plan a heist that will outdo their previous prank and make them local legends.

After the suicide of his best friend and the fire of a local dance called Cromañón, including recitals, illegal parties in an abandoned warehouse and high school, a year passes by in the life of Zabo who writes everything he feels and lives in his blog, "Memories of a teenager".

When a group of naive teens working at a movie theater in a small Christian town discover a mysterious film hidden in its basement, they unleash an alluring succubus who gives them a sex education…written in blood.

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.

Caye is a young prostitute whose family is unaware of her profession. She meets her striking Dominican neighbour Zulema, an illegal immigrant, after she finds her in the bathroom, badly beaten up. They strike up a close friendship unbeknownst to Caye's xenophobic co-workers.

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.

An inner-city high school teacher discovers she is pregnant at the same time as one of her most promising students and the two develop an unlikely friendship while struggling to navigate their unexpected pregnancies.

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.

A pair of women leave their small town and dud boyfriends behind for fun in Madrid.

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.

Fifteen-year-old Alice has always been a good Catholic, but when an innocent AOL chat turns unexpectedly racy, she finds herself suddenly obsessed with sex.

At the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, the nun Maria is forced to flee her convent. She takes refuge in a brothel, until it is liberated by a woman's anarchist group. Maria joins the group and eventually goes to the front. The women's group faces the problems of fighting not only the nationalists, but also factions on the left seeking to impose a more traditional military structure.

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.

Mia and Kyle, two misfit American teens, travel to Spain in search of Mia's birth mother. As the pair road trip through the picturesque cities of Andalusia and fall in love, they discover that the most important question isn't who gave you life, but what you decide to do with it.

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.

A group of girls taking a trip to celebrate a bachelorette party in which they will rediscover themselves.

In an attempt to help his friend Marcos with his impotence, Jaime sets up him up with another friend Josita. But the sex date fails, and so he comes in to help. What first appears to be just another sexual experience for all three evolves to a full romantic relationship.

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.

Four best friends (Tibby, Lena, Carmen & Bridget) who buy a mysterious pair of pants that fits each of them, despite their differing sizes, and makes whoever wears them feel fabulous. When faced with the prospect of spending their first summer apart, the pals decide they'll swap the pants so that each girl in turn can enjoy the magic.

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.

Two girls have a chance encounter and instantly befriend. While trying to find themselves, they decide to pursue music together.

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.

Terri, a pajama-clad, disaffected high school student learns how to engage the world with the help of Mr. Fitzgerald, his assistant principal.

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.

A group of male friends become obsessed with five mysterious sisters who are sheltered by their strict, religious parents.

During WWII, in the days leading up to Christmas, a woman arrives at an Italian Catholic boarding school for orphaned girls with a large cake and a plea for them to pray for her boyfriend, who is having an affair.

A girl. A boy. A love story. But also about dreams, fears, life, true love, friendship and how we deal with it. And a secret between them...

Maria finds herself caught between two worlds. At school this 14-year-old girl has all the typical teenage interests, but when she’s at home with her family she follows the teachings of the Society of St. Paul and their traditionalist interpretation of Catholicism. Everything that Maria thinks and does must be examined before God. And since the Lord is a strict shepherd, she lives in constant fear of committing some misconduct...

Introverted Girona student Nacho meets two delinquents from the city's Chinatown and gets caught up in a summer onslaught of burglaries and hold ups that will change his life.

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.

Three British teenage girls go on a rites-of-passage holiday—drinking, clubbing and hooking up, in what should be the best summer of their lives.

Abraham and his female friend Álex have a close relationship; they share both secrets and fears. When Abraham starts going out with Anchi, he begins to distance himself from Álex, who gradually dives into a living hell where she encounters strange apparitions, nightmarish visions and extreme situations.

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.

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.
