Loosely based on the director's childhood, this film portrays a precocious fifteen-year-old boy as he journeys from childhood to adulthood, his story of sexual maturation, and the unorthodox relationship he has with his free-spirited mother.

In a tale akin to "Romeo and Juliet," the friendship between two children is threatened by their parents' differences. Malú is from an upper-class family and her single mother does not want her to play with Jorgito, as she thinks his background coarse and commonplace. Jorgito's mother is a poor socialist who is proud of her family's social standing, and places similar restrictions on her son. What neither woman recognizes is the immense strength...

A high school teacher with a drug habit finds a friendship in an unlikely source - one of his troubled students. Will their relationship help them or harm them?

Eleven year-old Akeelah Anderson's life is not easy: her father is dead, her mom ignores her, her brother runs with the local gangbangers. She is a smart girl, but her environment threatens to strangle her aspirations. Responding to a threat by her school's principal, Akeelah decides to participate in a spelling bee to avoid detention for her many absences. Much to her surprise and embarrassment, she wins. Her principal asks her to seek coaching from...

Jude is a dock worker from Liverpool who travels to the United States in the 1960s to find his estranged father. There, he falls in love with sheltered American teenager Lucy. When her brother, Max, is drafted to fight in the Vietnam War, they become involved in peace activism.

A teenage girl simultaneously pursues stardom as a dancer on a local TV show and rallies against racial segregation in her native Baltimore.

Roy Eberhardt has moved with his family so often he literally has lost count of the number of times he has had to changed schools. Roy ought to be used to being the new kid at school by now, but making the switch from Montana to Florida proves to be a major challenge. While Roy quickly becomes the target of school bully, he is befriended by Beatrice Leep, a spunky girl with enough nerve to stand up to Dana, and her brother Mullet Fingers. Beatrice...

Nim Rusoe is a young girl who inhabits an isolated island with her scientist father and communicates, via e-mail, with the reclusive author of the novel she has been reading. Nim's existence mirrors that of her favorite literary character, Alex Rover, the world's greatest adventurer. But Alexandra, the author of the Rover books, leads a reclusive life in the big city. When Nim's father goes missing from the island, Nim gets Alexandra to come to her...

Only dimly aware of the shadow of World War II somewhere beyond the Castilian plateau, sisters Isabel and Ana must occupy themselves as their preoccupied scientist father and isolated, languishing mother move in their solitary orbits. After attending the screening of James Whale's "Frankenstein" at a makeshift movie theater in town, Ana becomes obsessed with the idea of befriending the imaginary monster. Largely wordless, the film functions as a striking...