The Kings of the WorldMovies like The Kings of the World
- Key Features:
- Coming-of-age, Friendship, Survival, Search for belonging, Social commentary, Journey, Found family, Poverty, Mexican setting
- Tone:
- gritty, poetic
- Target Audience:
- Socially conscious viewers, International cinema enthusiasts, Coming-of-age story lovers
- Emotional Arc:
- ['Desperation → Resilience → Hope']
The Kings of the World

Rá, Culebro, Sere, Winny and Nano. Five boys who live on the streets of Medellín. Five kings with no kingdom, no law, no family, set out on a journey in search of the promised land. A subversive tale told through a wild and endearing clan, somewhere between reality and delirium. A journey to nowhere, where everything happens.
The Kings of the World
Best buddies Acerola and Laranjinha, about to turn 18, discover things about their missing fathers' pasts which will shatter their solid friendship, in the middle of a war between rival drug gangs from Rio's favelas.

Cagalera and Moloteco are two teenagers from San Gregorio Atlapulco who are desperate to get out and move up and away from oppressive circumstances. When they hear of an opportunity to buy a spot in the electrician’s union, which could transform their lives, they quickly devolve into the criminal, adult underworld of Mexico City in a bid to buy their freedom.

King is a young man, but he's already a veteran of life on the streets of Los Angeles. The de facto leader of a group of teenage runaways, King acts as a mentor to troubled kids such as gay hustler Little J and junkie Greg. When Heather, a beautiful girl from Chicago, starts hanging out with King and his crew, it changes the dynamic of the gang. However, it seems as though nothing will alter their dangerous lifestyle.

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.

Set amidst the 1999 student strikes in Mexico City, this coming-of-age tale finds two brothers venturing through the city in a sentimental search for an aging legendary musician. Shot in black-and-white, Güeros brims with youthful exuberance.

An aimless adolescent joins several itinerant misfits who live on the fringe of society and welcome at-risk youths into their fold.

A group of Central-American teen-agers depart from the slums of Guatemala City escaping poverty and violence, towards the promised land of California.

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.

When her mother suddenly disappears with no one to care for her, young Estrella ends up on the street and joins a gang of children, triggering a dangerous and tragic chain of events.

In the poverty-stricken favelas of Rio de Janeiro in the 1970s, two young men choose different paths. Rocket is a budding photographer who documents the increasing drug-related violence of his neighborhood, while José “Zé” Pequeno is an ambitious drug dealer diving into a dangerous life of crime.

The four friends Lukas, Julius, Gino and Sanchez are trying to survive the everyday life in Neukölln, Berlin between drugs, gangs, rap, violence and boredom. Until they are one day making a serious decision with serious consequences because of a dead certain plan.

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.

In Mexico, two teenage boys and an attractive older woman embark on a road trip and learn a thing or two about life, friendship, sex, and each other.

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

An aspiring teen thieves learn what it takes to be successful pickpockets on the streets of Bogotá

Alejandro, a freshman, and Sofia, who’s doing her thesis, meet in college. They build an asymmetrical relationship: he’s in love while she just wants to see her sexual desires fulfilled.

Max and Leo are 8 and 5 years old and have just immigrated to the US with their mother. Their days pass inside a tiny apartment, while they wait for their mother to come back, as they hold on to the hope of traveling to Disney.

Recently escaped from reformatory, Reinaldo struggles to get by in the streets of Havana in the late 90s, one of the worst decades for Cuban society. Hopes, disillusionment, rum, good humor and above all hunger, accompany him in his wanderings, until he meets Magda and Yunisleidy, survivors like himself. In one or the other's arms, he will try to escape the material and moral misery surrounding him, living love, passion, tenderness and uninhibited sex to the limit.

Two shoeshiner homeless brothers named Zana and Dana live on the edge of survival. They catch a glimpse of Superman through a hole in the wall at the local cinema and decide that they want to go to America in order to meet Superman.

A foster family in South Central a few weeks before the city erupts in violence following the verdict of the Rodney King trial in 1992.

A bullied girl becomes friends with a new kid during a break, but when classes start up again, their new friendship is nearly ruined when the bullying continues.

Nacho, a 13 year old boy, crosses the threshold of adolescence trying to find his place in life in all the wrong places: a dysfunctional family and a social setting that is corrupt and violent. Can the purity of first love survive the darkest aspects of our society?

Teenagers Birdboy and Dinki have decided to escape from an island devastated by ecological catastrophe: Birdboy by shutting himself off from the world, Dinki by setting out on a dangerous voyage in the hope that Birdboy will accompany her.

Laos. In a land ravaged by war and exploitation, a boy whose family believe he is cursed must redeem himself by taking part in a dangerous rocket competition.

In the immediate post-war period, amidst the rubble of a poverty-ridden Naples, two kids, Carmine and Celestina, try to survive as best they can by helping each other out. One night, they secretly board a ship bound for New York to reach Celestina’s sister, who emigrated to America several years earlier. The two children join the many Italian emigrants seeking a new life in America and arrive in an unknown metropolis, which, after several misadventures, they will learn to call home.

In the Mexican-Guatemalan border, young teenage lovers, Sabina and Jovany, both Hondurans, accidentally meet again after some years without seeing each other. She plans to get to the United States and dreams about being a great singer; he commits all the required atrocities to be accepted by the gang: la Mara Salvatrucha. Sabina and Jovany crashed with the most adverse conditions at the border like white slavery, the Mexican and American migratory agents Burrona and Patrick, the brothel matron Doña Lita, Don Nico the Mexican Consul in Tecún Umán, the drug trafficking networks, the army and la Mara Salvatrucha.

In a desperate attempt to reach Europe and crouched before an airstrip in Cameroon, a six-year-old boy and his older sister wait to sneak into the holds of an airplane. Not too far away, an environmental activist contemplates the terrible image of an elephant, dead and fangless. Not only do you have to fight against poaching, but you will also have to meet the problems of your newly arrived daughter from Spain. Thousands of kilometers to the north, in Melilla, a group of civil guards prepare to face the furious crowd of sub-Saharan people who have begun the assault on the fence. Three stories linked by a central theme, in which none of its protagonists know that their destinies are doomed to cross and that their lives will no longer be the same.

The story of 12-year-old Ali and his three friends. Together they work hard to survive and support their families, doing small jobs in a garage and committing petty crimes to make fast money. In a turn of events that seems miraculous, Ali is entrusted to find hidden treasure underground. He recruits his gang, but first, to gain access to the tunnel, the children must enroll at the Sun School, a charitable institution that tries to educate street kids and child laborers, close to where the treasure is located.

10-year-old Pixote endures torture, degradation, and corruption at a local youth detention center where two of its members are murdered by policemen who frame Lilica, a 17-year-old trans hustler. Pixote helps Lilica and three other boys escape and they start to make their living by a life of crime which only escalates to more violence and death.

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...

Two brothers living a hard life of manual labor in rural Mexico have a simple dream: saving enough money to build their mother her dream house. But fate has other plans. A friendly game of soccer leads to first Rudo, then to Cursi being taken on by the nation’s top talent scout. Suddenly, they find themselves living the high life of star athletes: fame, fortune, fast cars and beautiful women.

An abandoned child steals to survive and has problems when he decides to steal from the priest who helps him.

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...

To find his therapy dog, a 17-year-old escapes from juvie and embarks on a journey of reconnection with his brother and grandmother through Cantabria.

A desperate love story between two young girls of extremely different social backgrounds who, unable to find a place for their love in the world they live in, are pushed to commit a crime.

When Ricardo, a responsible father, decides to personally take his son to a camp in Asturias, other parents propose that he should also take care of their children. When the train is about to leave, Felipe, a flamboyant individual and grandfather of two of the children, shows up at the station.

At the end of the 1960s, when the air is filled with rock-and-roll and student rebellions are changing the world, the older of two brothers joins a prestigious newsroom of the public radio broadcaster. Not long after, he finds himself in the middle of a dangerous conflict between journalists and the secret service.

A poor man becomes a modern Robin Hood, robbing the rich to give to the poor.

In a Mexican border town plagued by neglect, corruption, and violence, a frustrated teacher tries an unorthodox new method to break through his students’ apathy and unlock their curiosity, their potential... and perhaps even their genius.

Tano is 16-years-old and is already sitting in jail. In 48 hours he’s a free man and off to the wedding of his brother. In the two days he recounts his neighborhood in a section of Sevilla.

New Mexico Territory, 1880. Rio Cutler and his older sister Sara must abandon their home after an unfortunate event happens. In their desperate flee to Santa Fe, they cross paths with the infamous outlaw Billy the Kid and his gang, who are ruthlessly pursued by a posse led by Sheriff Pat Garret.

During the marijuana bonanza, a violent decade that saw the origins of drug trafficking in Colombia, Rapayet and his indigenous family get involved in a war to control the business that ends up destroying their lives and their culture.

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.

Mouse desperately wants to join The Midnight Clique, the infamous Baltimore dirt bike riders who rule the summertime streets. When Midnight’s leader, Blax, takes 14-year-old Mouse under his wing, Mouse soon finds himself torn between the straight-and-narrow and a road filled with fast money and violence.

After moving to Bogotá for a chance at a better life, a young Korean man rises through the Colombian black market — risking peril for a shot at success.

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.

In a small Tokyo apartment, twelve-year-old Akira must care for his younger siblings after their mother leaves them and shows no sign of returning.

The journey of Manolo, a young man who is torn between fulfilling the expectations of his family and following his heart. Before choosing which path to follow, he embarks on an incredible adventure that spans three fantastical worlds where he must face his greatest fears.

The lives of two Danish families cross each other, and an extraordinary but risky friendship comes into bud. But loneliness, frailty and sorrow lie in wait.

Chronicles the powerful friendship between two young Black teenagers navigating the harrowing trials of reform school together in Florida.

After two teenagers from abusive households befriend each other, their lives take a dark adventure into existentialism, despair, and human frailty.

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.

Residents of an enclosed neighborhood in the middle of Mexico DF are shocked by a violent crime, and for one resident in particular, young Alejandro, the drama is ratcheted up when he encounters the lone kid who escaped the event and is hiding out within the neighborhood's borders.

King, a trafficked lion cub, escapes from the airport and takes refuge with Inès and Alex, who then have the crazy idea of getting him back to Africa. Anything can happen when Max their kooky grandfather, decides to join the adventure.

Young men with no future have little in the present as well. Natale is released from prison: he takes up with his friends again but none can find work. Claudio, from Palermo, gets out of juvenile detention in Naples and he's met by Vita, a girl who's come from home to run away with him. Where can they go? A young dad, whose potato stall at the market is shut down because he has no permit, takes his two small children to the beach and yells at them. Mario, gay, a prostitute in drag, gets a visit from his mom; he offers tea, then finds the water to his apartment is shut off. Social workers drop by, parole officers file reports. What hope is there? What options besides crime?

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.

Three Italian retirees embark on a journey to find a new country to live in.

Ten-year-old Hannes, growing up with his young, poor and single mother wants to join the coolest gang in the area, the Vorstadtkrokodile. When the ‘entry test’ goes wrong, Hannes’s life is saved by Kai, who is desperate to join too but is wheelchair bound and unable to even run away when things get hot. Hannes would accept Kai but the other gang members don’t seem happy to accept a handicapped member...

After running away from his negligent parents, committing a violent crime and being sentenced to five years in jail, a hardened, streetwise 12-year-old Lebanese boy sues his parents in protest of the life they have given him.

A dystopian coming-of-age movie focused on three kids who find themselves in an abandoned amusement park, aiming to unite whoever remains. With dangers lurking around every corner, they will do whatever it takes to survive their hellish Neverland.

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.

Seventeen-year-old Carlos doesn't fit in anywhere, not in his family nor with the friends he has chosen in school. But everything changes when he is invited to a mythical nightclub where he discovers the underground LGBTQ nightlife scene: punk, sexual liberty and drugs.

In Sonora, Mexico. Jeremías, an eight year old, who finds out he is a gifted child initiates a journey of self discovery. When an opportunistic physiologist makes contact with Jeremías, a new world of experiences open up to him but at the expense of being away from the family he loves. Jeremías must choose between this exciting but lonely new world he finds himself in or returning home to his loving family.

Rafi arrives at Fali's house with his suitcase in tow because his wife has kicked him out of the house. It is not the first time this has happened, although this time everything will be different, since the mess Rafi has gotten himself into this time... He is one of the big ones. Fali would like to help her friend, but she is in a hurry: tomorrow will be her son's First Communion and all she has to do as a father is take the child's suit to the farm where the event will be held. During the next twenty-four hours, and with the clock counting down stalking them, the compadres will manage to get out of various messes to get into new entanglements.

Armando, a 50 year man, seeks young men in Caracas and pays them just for company. One day he meets Elder, a 17 years boy that is the leader of a criminal gang, and that meeting changes their lives forever.

Brother and sister Enrique and Rosa flee persecution at home in Guatemala and journey north, through Mexico and on to the United States, with the dream of starting a new life.

Two siblings who haven't seen each other in 15 years mend their relationship while fulfilling a childhood dream: a motorcycle road trip through Mexico.

After destroying his older brother's motorbike in retaliation for his constant bullying, 11-year-old Krishna is sent to a traveling circus to earn money to pay for the bike's repairs, but soon winds up in the streets of Bombay's poorest slums. There, he befriends the drug dealer Chillum and young prostitute Sola Saal, while trying to make enough money at a neighborhood tea stall to repay his debt to his family.

Two youths, Niño and Compi, enter the world of drug smuggling in the Strait of Gibraltar; while two police officers, Jesús and Eva, try to eradicate the contraband.

Lovable Amsterdam street urchin, 11 year old Ciske is nevertheless much in need of love as the Dutch 1984 title suggests. He is a scamp with a heart of gold. He causes havoc in the classroom pouring ink over his teacher yet when a polio-crippled boy joins the class Ciske is one of the only children to befriend him and is bullied as a result. His mother works in a bar and Ciske helps out often late into the night - his father is at sea and his mother supplements her income with prostitution. Ciske is also a very angry young man and he smoulders with rage at life's injustices.

To save his little brother from the hands of dangerous narcos of the Medellín cartel, Reda has a plan that is as simple as it is totally insane: put together a team and raid Colombia. But this adventure is going to get completely out of control when he decides to kidnap the son of the cartel leader to exchange him for his brother's life.

The tale of an extraordinary family, the Madrigals, who live hidden in the mountains of Colombia, in a magical house, in a vibrant town, in a wondrous, charmed place called an Encanto. The magic of the Encanto has blessed every child in the family—every child except one, Mirabel. But when she discovers that the magic surrounding the Encanto is in danger, Mirabel decides that she, the only ordinary Madrigal, might just be her exceptional family's last hope.

Who is Jesus, and why does he impact all he meets? He is respected and reviled, emulated and accused, beloved, betrayed, and finally crucified. Yet that terrible fate would not be the end of the story.

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.

In the near future, the southern Italian city of Taranto is surrounded by barbed wire that no one, not even the police, dares to cross. The poorest are left fighting for survival, while gangs compete for the territory. Two thirteen-year-old orphans who grew up together, dream of joining one of the gangs.

Instead of adhering to the norms of their South Central neighborhood, a group of skater boys opt to bus into Hollywood and Beverly Hills, where they attract local rich girls - and plenty of trouble with the police, jealous boyfriends, and nervous parents.

Fernando is on holiday with his closest male friends in a beautiful country house in a suburb of Buenos Aires. On their own without their girlfriends in a “men only” environment, the hunky young studs bask in the hot sun, play in the pool, smoke pot, and drink, most often semi-clad or naked. In this freewheeling and testosterone-infused environment, they talk of their desires and strengthen their individual bonds.

In Monterrey, Mexico, a young street gang spends their days dancing to slowed-down cumbia and attending parties. After a mix-up with a local cartel, their leader is forced to migrate to the U.S. but quickly longs to return home.

The streets of the Bronx are owned by '60s youth gangs where the joy and pain of adolescence is lived. Philip Kaufman tells his take on the novel by Richard Price about the history of the Italian-American gang ‘The Wanderers.’

Itinerant projection-equipment repairman Bruno Winter and depressed hitchhiker Robert Lander - a doctor who has just been through a break-up with his wife and a half-hearted suicide attempt - travel along the Western side of the East-German border in a repair truck, visiting worn-out movie theaters, learning to communicate across their differences.

A pregnant Colombian teenager becomes a drug mule to make some desperately needed money for her family.

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.

Coming of age story about two inner city youths, who are left to fend for themselves over the summer after their mothers are taken away by the authorities.

A group of juvenile delinquents live a violent life in the infamous slums of Mexico City; among them Pedro, whose morality is gradually corrupted and destroyed by the others.

A child does not stand the idea of having a new brother and dreams about drinking milk from the breasts of his mother again. The child asks the moon to bring him a tit only for him.

Everyday family life as perfectly normal madness. “As Melhores Coisas do Mundo“ follows a few days in the life of the 15-year-old Mano, who is fighting on two fronts: his parents have just got divorced and he is going through puberty. Mano tries to make his way through life, with its first sexual experiences, his depressed brother and his self-centered parents. It’s a humorous homage to the pitfalls of daily life and the diversity of life.

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.

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.

A gang of teenage boys stalk the streets of Naples armed with hand guns and AK-47s to do their mob bosses' bidding – until they decide to be the bosses themselves.

After the death of his father, a boy growing up on a lunar mining colony takes a trip to explore a legendary crater, along with his four best friends, prior to being permanently relocated to another planet.

Pio Amato, a 14 year-old member of a small Romani community in southern Italian town of Gioia Tauro in Calabria, is in a hurry to grow up. Pio follows his older brother Cosimo everywhere and from him he learns how to hustle and how to navigate the streets of his hometown. One night Pio sets out to prove to his brother that he is as good or better than him but, when things go wrong, a series of events will forever change the way he sees the world.

A journey deep into an uncharted and treacherous land, where fantastical creatures await the legendary Clades—a family of explorers whose differences threaten to topple their latest, and by far most crucial, mission.

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

Marinette’s class is headed to New York, the city of superheroes, for French-American Friendship Week.

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.

One summer, Dario flees the hellish environment of his home. Luismi, unconditional friend, a poor devil with pretensions of winning, and Antonia, an old woman who collects abandoned his motorcar furniture, become his new family. Three generations living together in a city too big to be alone.

After an accidental drug overdose, a talented teenage DJ goes to live with his estranged father in a small Army town, where he gets to the bottom of his own pain and learns empathy for others.

A young boy, attempting to have a normal childhood in 1980s El Salvador, is caught up in a dramatic fight for his life when he desperately tries to avoid the war that is raging all around him.

Lucas, a 14-year-old boy inducted into the gang life in Washington D.C., is determined that his 10-year-old brother won't follow the same path. When an Afghanistan war veteran comes into the neighborhood, an opportunity arises.
