Coming-of-Age Movies

Physical changes, religious rituals, and new legal rights and responsibilities outwardly mark the transition from childhood to adulthood. They imply inward transformation such as loss of innocence and maturation of perspective. This combination of inward and outward change is generative material for cinema. What does cinema bring to these stories, and what do these stories reveal about cinema's capacities as medium and art? What can we take from such movies as we ask what it means to be an adult?