01
The War
Why this pick
Like This Boy’s Life, this is a boy’s-eye view of 1960s America, where family damage and neighbourhood cruelty test a child’s resilience without sacrificing tenderness.
A FILM WORTH A CLOSER LOOKTHE FEATURE PRESENTATION
MOVIE1993 1h 49m USA
IF THIS ONE STAYED WITH YOU
Movies like
This Boy’s Life
Drama
CINEHUNCH / THE NEXT FRAME
Keep the feeling.
SIMILAR PICKS / A PERSONAL CONNECTION
If you loved This Boy’s Life, try these.
01
02
The Basketball Diaries
Why this pick
Leonardo DiCaprio again gives a raw adolescent performance in a memoir-based story of reckless peers, parental fear and a teenager fighting to retain a future.
03
The Mighty
Why this pick
A bruised outsider finds a sustaining friendship in this heartfelt youth drama; it shares This Boy’s Life’s close attention to shame, vulnerability and earned hope.
04
Kes
Why this pick
This restrained social-realist coming-of-age drama similarly follows a mistreated working-class boy whose private passion becomes a fragile route toward dignity and escape.
05
A River Runs Through It
Why this pick
For the period setting and reflective memoir texture, this observes brothers growing up under a demanding father, balancing beautiful landscapes with quiet family wounds.
Finding the atmosphere, tension and little details that made this one stay with you.
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01 / THE STORY
A little about the film.
In 1957, a son and mother flee the East and an abusive boyfriend to find a new life, and end up in Seattle, where the mother meets a polite garage mechanic. The boy continually gets into trouble by hanging out with the wrong crowd. The mom marries the mechanic, but they soon find out that he's an abusive and unreasoning alcoholic, and they struggle to maintain hope in an impossible situation as the boy grows up with plans to escape the small town by any means possible.
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02 / FACES IN THE FRAME
The people who bring it to life.
Robert De Niro
Dwight Hansen
Leonardo DiCaprio
Tobias Wolff
Kathy Kinney
Marian
Zachary Ansley
Skipper
Travis MacDonald
Psycho
Jonah Blechman
Arthur Gayle
Tracey Ellis
Kathy
Ellen Barkin
Caroline Wolff Hansen