20 Essential Coming Of Age Movies That Changed Your Life

7. Kes

If Lynne Ramsay's Ratcatcher had shades of Ken Loach's trademark social-realism, it is to Loach himself we must turn to see that dynamic play out fully in the coming-of-age context. Based on the novel A Kestrel for a Knave by Barry Hines, Kes has come to epitomise the gloomy, brooding character studies which the British realist tradition of filmmaking is noted for. David Bradley stars as Billy Casper, the young, disillusioned schoolboy in run down Yorkshire who offsets the woes of victim-hood from bullying with a mischievous streak. A ray of hope enters his life in the form of a kestrel, whom Billy decides to rear and learn the art of falconry. Predictably, things end in disaster - escape from the depressing realities of life, it seems, is not permissible. A word of mouth hit upon its release, this is bitter and unrelenting British cinema at its finest, telling an intensely personal story to reveal much more about the wider society at large in which it takes place.