12 Movies That Aren't As Pretentious As You Think

9. Boyhood

Richard Linklater's Boyhood was famously the fruit of writer-director Richard Linklater's 12-year journey with his cast members, reuniting them briefly every single year to capture new material and tell a long-form tale of growing up in contemporary America.

But thanks to the meme-worthy critique of famed film critics Red Letter Media, Boyhood is popularly dismissed as "the movie that took 12 years to make!", as though it's dining out solely on its unconventional conception.

But there's very little pretence to Linklater's movie. He uses the real-life passage of time to accentuate his coming-of-age narrative, sure, and doesn't shy away from giving protagonist Mason (Ellar Coltrane) some rambly, verbose dialogue to spit through in his late-teenage years.

But it never feels anything less than completely authentic - that's absolutely what growing up and being a teen, uncertain of the world, is like.

Boyhood's approach may be too formal and unsentimental for you, but calling it pretentious or a work coming from anything but a genuine, heartfelt place is just ludicrous.