Summer '03Movies like Summer '03
- Key Features:
- Coming-of-age, Family secrets, Sexuality, Loss of a loved one, Grandmother, Summer, Self-discovery, Dysfunctional family, Teenage rebellion, First love, Grief, Family drama
- Tone:
- humorous, earnest
- Target Audience:
- Young adults, Fans of coming-of-age stories, Viewers interested in family dramas, Those seeking relatable characters
- Emotional Arc:
- Confusion → Exploration → Acceptance
Summer '03

16-year-old Jamie Winkle and her extended family are left reeling after her calculating grandmother unveils an array of secrets on her deathbed. As her family deals with her grandmother's surprising dying messages, Jamie sets out to make the most of her summer and explores her sexuality.
Summer '03
High school athlete Cyd Loughlin lives alone with her depressive father in South Carolina, perpetually longing to get away from it all. When her aunt, famous novelist Miranda Ruth, agrees to host her for a few weeks during the summer, Cyd jumps at the opportunity. While there, she falls for a girl in the neighborhood, even as she and her aunt gently challenge each other in the realms of sex and spirit.

Over the summer of 1942 on Nantucket Island, three friends -- Hermie, Oscy and Benjie -- are more concerned with getting laid than anything else. Hermie falls in love with the married Dorothy, whose husband is an army pilot recently sent to the battlefront of World War II.

Joe Toy, on the verge of adolescence, finds himself increasingly frustrated by his single father, Frank's attempts to manage his life. Declaring his freedom once and for all, he escapes to a clearing in the woods with his best friend, Patrick, and a strange kid named Biaggio. He announces that they are going to build a house there, free from responsibility and parents. Once their makeshift abode is finished, the three young men find themselves masters of their own destiny, alone in the woods.

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.

An 18th birthday mushroom trip brings free-spirited Elliott face-to-face with her wisecracking 39-year-old self. But when Elliott’s "old ass" starts handing out warnings about what her younger self should and shouldn't do, Elliott realizes she has to rethink everything about family, love, and what's becoming a transformative summer.

In the Yorkshire countryside, working-class tomboy Mona meets the exotic, pampered Tamsin. To seal their friendship, Mona introduces Tamsin to her born-again Christian brother and helps her spy on her adulterous father. Bound together by their secrets, the two girls see their friendship deepen and enter into dangerous waters.

A teenager tries to deal with his guilty conscience after his role in a prank that causes the death of his girlfriend's older brother.

A shy teenager on a summer vacation experiences the joy and pain of young adulthood when he forges an unlikely bond with an older girl.

A high-school gym teacher has big plans for the summer, but is forced to cancel them to teach a "bonehead" English class for misfit goof-off students. Fortunately, his unconventional brand of teaching fun field trips begins to connect with them, and even inspires ardor in some.

Drifting through his gap year with its internships and travel plans, Jack has always suspected there was more to life than this. A chance encounter with the beautiful and ethereal Evelyn swerves his life radically off course.

In 1990s Los Angeles, a 13-year-old spends his summer navigating between a troubled home life and a crew of new friends he meets at a skate shop.

A coming of age dramedy where infidelity, real estate, and Lyme disease have two families falling apart on Long Island in the early eighties. Scott, 15, is at the point in his life when he finds out that the most important people around him, his father, his mother, and his brother, are not exactly who he thought they were. They are flawed and they are human.

Eighteen-year-old Penny Cooper spent years pining for heartthrob surfer Johnny Sanders Jr. before his father’s tragic death brought them closer together. But now high school is over, and when mysterious country musician Ash Baker shows up on the beach, Penny is torn.

Katie, a 17-year-old, has been sheltered since childhood and confined to her house during the day by a rare disease that makes even the smallest amount of sunlight deadly. Fate intervenes when she meets Charlie and they embark on a summer romance.

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.

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.

Isolated on a remote property, 16-year-old Claudia finds her world transformed when a spirited girl named Grace wanders into her garden.

A creative and driven teenager is desperate to escape his hometown and the haunting memories of his turbulent childhood.

Remi and Barnes, two very different teenagers, meet by chance in the winter of their senior year, then spend four days together over the course of a year that will change their lives forever.

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.

One summer, a French teenager who has been living with his mother in the city moves in with his estranged father’s family in the countryside, where he clashes with his stepmother.

Growing up in a rural town filled with violent delinquents, Jack has learned to do what it takes to survive, despite having an oblivious mother and no father. After his aunt falls ill and a younger cousin comes to stay with him, the hardened 15-year-old discovers the importance of friendship, family, and looking for happiness even in the most desolate of circumstances.

School captain Ellie is seriously crushing on her rebellious classmate Abbie. Determined to ask her first love to the year 12 formal, Ellie devises a plan to go public with the invitation but before she can go through with it, her dead aunt Tara reappears from beyond the grave. Believing she's been brought back from the dead to be Ellie's fairy godmother, Tara dishes out unwanted dating advice based on her life as an out lesbian in the '80s.

Shy, straight-A student Ellie is hired by sweet but inarticulate jock Paul, who needs help wooing the most popular girl in school. But their new and unlikely friendship gets tricky when Ellie discovers she has feelings for the same girl.

Something Like Summer traces the tumultuous relationship of Ben and Tim, secret high school sweethearts who grow over the years into both adulthood enemies and complicated friends.

17-year-old Jem Starling struggles with her place within her Christian fundamentalist community. But everything changes when her magnetic youth pastor Owen returns to their church.

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

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.

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

With the occasion all but overshadowed by her sister's upcoming wedding, angst-ridden Samantha faces her 16th birthday with typical adolescent dread. Samantha pines for studly older boy Jake, but worries that her chastity will be a turnoff for the popular senior. Meanwhile, she must constantly rebuff the affections of nerdy Ted, who is unfortunately the only boy in school who seems to take an interest in her.

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.

Dumped on her grandparents for the summer by her indifferent mother, acerbic and self-destructive teenager Greta disrupts the elderly couple's staid life on the Jersey Shore. Eventually, a romance helps Greta face down her demons.

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.

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 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.

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.

Inseparable best friends AJ and Moose decide to run the local pool's snack shack after their plan to sell home-brewed beer goes down the drain. Things take a turn when they meet Brooke, an effortlessly cool lifeguard who puts their big plans, and friendship, at risk.

Precocious yet sensitive teenager James has a deep perception of the world but no idea how to live in it. Finding no help from his divorced parents nor his older memoir-writing sister, he decides to reject the beliefs adults try to push on him, starting with the college career that is looming over his last summer in New York, and embarks instead on a search for wisdom through nontraditional means...

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

In an effort to land the guy she's been pining after since grade school, Abby hires a local stripper named Santa Monica to teach her everything she needs to know about confidence and sex.

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.

When Tyler Davidson brings his college buddy Chase home for the summer holidays a secret is revealed that threatens to tear his perfect family apart.

Vada Sultenfuss is obsessed with death. Her mother is dead, and her father runs a funeral parlor. She is also in love with her English teacher, and joins a poetry class over the summer just to impress him. Thomas J., her best friend, is "allergic to everything", and sticks with Vada despite her hangups. When Vada's father hires Shelly, and begins to fall for her, things take a turn to the worse...

Natalie is high school royalty, but her queen bee status falls apart when she falls for the new guy at school. Although Keith ignores her at first, they soon become friends -- even though Natalie suspects that Keith has something to hide. As the free-spirited Keith shows Natalie how to embrace what life offers, they grow closer -- until a secret tests the bounds of their relationship

Caleb, a South Florida teen, loves his camera, his weed and his grandmother. On the eve of his high school graduation, everything changes when he's exposed to HIV. While he waits three months for his results, Caleb finds love in the most unlikely of places.

Two popular teen boys, best friends since childhood, discover their lives, families, and girlfriends dramatically upended after an unexpected incident occurs on the night of a 17th birthday party.

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.

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.

Ken Park focuses on several teenagers and their tormented home lives. Shawn seems to be the most conventional. Tate is brimming with psychotic rage; Claude is habitually harassed by his brutish father and coddled, rather uncomfortably, by his enormously pregnant mother. Peaches looks after her devoutly religious father, but yearns for freedom. They're all rather tight, or so they claim.

After attempting to set a mailbox on fire, Pimpette, 14, and her elder sister, Joséphine, 18, spend their summer holidays shuttling between their secretly pregnant mom and bachelor father. But when Joséphine gets involved with the wrong crowd, little Pimpette turns out to be more responsible than the grown-ups who spend their time educating her.

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.

Shy 14-year-old Duncan goes on summer vacation with his mother, her overbearing boyfriend, and her boyfriend's daughter. Having a rough time fitting in, Duncan finds an unexpected friend in Owen, manager of the Water Wizz water park.

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.

While on a summer trip with her friends, Megan begins to feel the presence of Sophie, her twin sister who recently committed suicide.

Trudy Walker hated her life. She thought it was totally messed up until she found out about a contest that could change everything...

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.

After losing her father to cancer, a teenage girl reluctantly joins her new step-cousin at a summer camp for Mormon girls.

Feeling pressured to become more sexually experienced before she goes to college, Brandy Klark makes a list of things to accomplish before hitting campus in the fall.

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

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.

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.

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.

When teenager Elle's first kiss leads to a forbidden romance with the hottest boy in high school, she risks her relationship with her best friend.

The teenage son of two fathers makes a documentary film about his parents but is surprised when a real-life plot twist occurs in his family.

Two high school girls are best friends until one dates the other's older brother, who is totally his sister's nemesis.

Beth, a bookish teenager, befriends Emilia, an aspiring novelist who has just arrived in town. Emilia soon begins an affair with Beth's father that threatens to have devastating consequences.

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

A gay couple living in San Francisco takes in two strangers traveling from Italy to start a new life in America, discovering each other and forming the most unlikely of relationships along the way.

As their first year of high school looms ahead, best friends Julie, Hannah, Yancy and Farrah have one last summer sleepover. Little do they know they're about to embark on the adventure of a lifetime. Desperate to shed their nerdy status, they take part in a night-long scavenger hunt that pits them against their popular archrivals. Everything under the sun goes on -- from taking Yancy's father's car to sneaking into nightclubs!

A coming-of-age story about an eleven-year-old girl who idolizes her troubled sixteen-year-old neighbor.

After an accident on a winding road, four teens make the fatal mistake of dumping their victim's body into the sea. Exactly one year later, the deadly secret resurfaces as they're stalked by a hook-handed figure.

Third-grader Judy Moody sets out to have the most thrilling summer of her life.

An anonymous love letter left in Michael Ryan's locker on the last day of school wreaks havoc on his life and the lives of everyone who comes in contact with it.

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.

14-year-old Lila spends a languid South Brooklyn summer playing third wheel to her promiscuous friend Chiara and Chiara’s boyfriend Patrick. Eager for her own sexual awakening, Lila gamely decides to pursue the older, thuggish Sammy, rumored to sleep with anyone.

The friendship of a group of young friends struggling with teen sex, drugs, and work is jeopardized by a romantic interest which may turn pals into bitter rivals.

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

Standing on the precipice of adulthood, a group of friends navigate new relationships, while reexamining others, during their final summer before college.

A group of 30-year-olds who have been friends since high school attempt to throw an end-of-summer orgy.

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

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.

A drama centered on a rebellious girl who is sent to a Southern beach town for the summer to stay with her father. Through their mutual love of music, the estranged duo learn to reconnect.

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.

When five friends inadvertently cause a deadly car accident, they cover up their involvement and make a pact to keep it a secret rather than face the consequences. A year later, their past comes back to haunt them and they're forced to confront a horrifying truth: someone knows what they did last summer…and is hell-bent on revenge.

Kate Stone is career-focused with a brash attitude that keeps relationships at an arm's length. When her estranged brother calls asking her to baby-sit her tween niece Maddie, Kate reluctantly agrees to help. But baby-sitting overnight unexpectedly turns into a week, and Kate's life spins into chaos. As Maddie reveals stories of being bullied and of wanting to run away and be a Juggalo, the two form a unique bond.

The love between Noah and Nick seems unwavering despite their parents' attempts to separate them. But his job and her entry into college open up their lives to new relationships that will shake the foundations of both their relationship and the Leister family itself.

After a year apart - attending different schools, meeting different people - the guys rent a beach house and vow to make this the best summer ever. As it turns out, whether that will happen or not has a lot to do with the girls. Between the wild parties, outrageous revelations and yes, a trip to band camp, they discover that times change and people change, but in the end, it's all about sticking together.

After suspecting that their police officer neighbor is a serial killer, a group of teenage friends spend their summer spying on him and gathering evidence, but as they get closer to discovering the truth, things get dangerous.

Sue works in a library. Daniel eats crisps and listens to Metallica. This was the summer Daniel was due to spend with his father and his father's new wife in Florida. But when they cancel his trip at the last minute, Sue and Daniel suddenly face the prospect of six long weeks together.

Eddie lands his first teaching gig at an inner city middle school and finds his highly pubescent pupils are receiving no form of sexual education. Eddie isn't really equipped to teach them...he's not exactly experienced romantically.

The lives of Ted and Marion Cole are thrown into disarray when their two adolescent sons die in a car wreck. Marion withdraws from Ted and Ruth, the couple's daughter. Ted, a well-known writer, hires as his assistant a student named Eddie, who looks oddly similar to one of the Coles' dead sons. The couple separate, and Marion begins an affair with Eddie, while Ted has a dalliance with his neighbor Evelyn.

Cal Weaver is living the American dream. He has a good job, a beautiful house, great children and a beautiful wife, named Emily. Cal's seemingly perfect life unravels, however, when he learns that Emily has been unfaithful and wants a divorce. Over 40 and suddenly single, Cal is adrift in the fickle world of dating. Enter, Jacob Palmer, a self-styled player who takes Cal under his wing and teaches him how to be a hit with the ladies.

A recent high school graduate is faced with two options, either go to a business school where his father wants him to go to, or get a full time job. However he decides to defy his father and go to Hawaii. Trouble is he has no money. Along the way he comes to understand his parents and eventually bonds with his father.

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.

A teenager struggles to keep her scandal-ridden past and a big secret from getting out when she strikes up an unlikely romance with the crown prince.

A lack of parental guidance encourages teens in an affluent California town to rebel with substance abuse and casual sex.

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.

Simon Birch and Joe Wenteworth are boys who have a reputation for being oddballs. Joe never knew his father, and his mother, Rebecca, is keeping her lips sealed no matter how much he protests. Simon, meanwhile, is an 11-year-old dwarf whose outsize personality belies his small stature. Indeed, he often assails the local reverend with thorny theological questions and joins Joe on his quest to find his biological father.

